First modding attempt

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Hello guys. Just thought I’d share my first “real” modding experience.
The confession of a newbie follows.

A couple of days ago I pulled apart an old light (SK98 type clone I believe - no model name printed on it).
Cheap light, lens already had glue smeared on it, and it didn’t shine particularly bright to begin with.
In other words, an acceptable loss in the probable case of anything going wrong.

So…

First thing was to pull it apart. Screwing off the various parts was simple. Getting the driver out of the pill on the other hand was not. It seemed to have been glued on its edges (?). So I had to use a tiny tiny flat screwdriver along the edges to scrape it loose.

All parts disassembled:

Pill and driver:

Then it was time to dedome the emitter. It’s a XM-L T6 I think. Tint was cold and a little bluish.
After about 18 hours in a closed jar with gasoline, the only remains was a little goo. I cleaned some of it away with a screwdriver, but never touched the led itself. Then put it back in the gasoline for a couple of more hours. After that, 99% of the goo was gone.

Statistic so far: Number of attempts of dedoming:1. Success rate: 100%. So far so good :slight_smile:

Now for the “hard part”: soldering :open_mouth:

I have tried soldering a couple of times before, but really have no clue. I had seen a video on youtube explaining how “fantastic” the use of flux was, making it soo easy to make the solder stick to the right surfaces. My experience was that it was NOT so easy. Removing old wires from the led and driver parts was easy, but making the new ones stick in the same places was a pain. About this much pain:

(Burned my finger :_( )

Well. In the end the wires were finally in place. Unfortunately I couldn’t use the wires I had bought for the occasion, because they were totally oversized. Ended up cutting off the wires of an old Nokia charger to find something useful. The result of my soldering isn’t exactly pretty, but it works. Figure I really need to learn how to solder properly. Also, I cut the wires between the led and driver as short as possible, probably making the soldering a little bit harder.

I have to admit that I was a bit anxious when putting the light back together :expressionless: . Wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Was it broken? Had i short-circuited something while soldering? Had I damaged the emitter? Would the light be dead?

THE FINAL RESULT:

Much to my surprise, the light still functioned as it was supposed to. :party:
I can’t judge if it is any brighter (I think, maybe a little). Don’t have any equipment to test the lumens and forgot to take reference pictures.
But the beam is visibly better coloured. The cold, kindof blueish color is replaced with a neutral-to-warm color, much more pleasing to the eye. No blue, no green.

All summed up I’m content with my first ever “real” modding attempt.

Now I just need to patch up my wounds… Just where did i put that burn-aid gel…?

2

Congratulations! It was successful, so no matter what, it was a great mod!

First time de-doming was a success.

Soldering, no matter if it looks bad, was a success, if the light works.

The only way soldering will be "easy" is with long term practice. It's like anything else, the more you do it, usually, the easier it becomes. I imagine the first day of nursing was harder than it is now?

If it helps, the joints look "cold", which means the solder iron needs to be hotter, or different solder. 60/40 lead/tin mix solders about the easiest, because it melts at a lower temp. 63/37 is also lower melt. Some of the lead free stuff is much harder to solder and needs a higher temperature. For the lead solder, rosin flux helps make it flow smoothly, but it still needs to be hot enough to melt. For some of the other types, there are other fluxes to use, but I don't mess with anything else, except solder paste, which is for hot air re-flow and not really for solder guns.

3

I think you did great!

4

Well done. Thanks for sharing your first mod and looking forward to your second. Have you any idea what it will be? Practice and put into practice what OL said and it will come to you. Until I got good flux, solder and the correct heat I to was hopeless at soldering. Some will say I still am but its better than it was.

5

Good Job!

My first light was a “minicree”. that is what the seller called it. It is basically a Sipik68 clone. Because I have no skills, or at least any experience in modding, I took the easy way out,I sent it to Vinh.

The light was 300 lumens w/ an ICR 14500. Now it is 650 lumens w/ a 14500 IMR and close to 80kcd! It shed light[useable] on a cell tower 565m/617yds away!

Congrats again. :slight_smile: Like anything if we don’t try we will never know what the results can be.

6

Great job for your first attempt. Something about a successful mod that makes a guy swell with pride no matter how many times he's done them. :D

7

Sorry you had to pay the blister man his due. At least you were able to keep the magic smoke from escaping. You get better by doing. With more practice some of the suggestions you read will make more sense and work better.

8

Thank you all for all your encouraging replies. :8)

This may be good advice. Come to think of it, I did find it difficult to make the solder melt. Often needed a pretty large contact surface between the solder and my solder iron to make it melt. Especially when the applied solder was misplaced and needed to be adjusted. Probably because the applied solder leads heat away to the component it’s soldered to, while my iron is trying to lead heat into it.
Melting solder straight from the solder thread was easy and fairly quick, melting already applied solder was a real pain.

Also, it didn’t seem like the flux i used

did anything at all to help the solder flow where I wanted it to. Solder/flux didn’t behave like I saw in the video on youtube at all. I don’t think my solder and flux likes each other very much.
My solder is a non branded type that came in a (cheap) soldering kit. I have no clue to what it contains. Probably lead free.

Any advice to exactly which solder/flux product to buy would be appreciated. Need it to be available locally (Norway…), or have reasonable shipping cost to Norway.
Any help appreciated.

As to what my next mod will be? Not sure yet. Probably a replacement C8 that’s on its way. But I will need to do some more research on emitter boards, drivers, and figure out what fits what before I get to it again. Probably tons of C8 mods been done before, maybe I’ll try to replicate something that’s given good results for someone before. Will do some searching for interesting threads.

9

Haha :slight_smile:
Only magic smoke observed was from my finger! A sacrifice happily made.
My own fault of course. Looking elsewhere :expressionless: while handeling the soldering iron. Due punishment :wink:

10

I originally bought Kester flux of Ebay but it was unbeknown to me useless as it did not help me at all. It was not until I bought this from our local electronics shop that I turned the corner and realized the Kester I had was probably old or not what it was advertised as. The next step was replacing the skinny pointy tip on the soldering iron with a chisel tip which holds the heat a lot better.

11

People have many opinions about solder. I believe that in the EU, most everything is lead free. Lead free solder takes a higher temperature to melt. Lead/tin solder melts at a lower temp, but it's lead, so there is a health issue. Both lead and lead free work better with flux. Rosin flux is what you want for electronics. Acid flux is for plumbing.

I would recommend a soldering iron that is rated at 50 watts or above. Or a small solder station that allows for heat adjustment, since the longer an iron is on, the hotter it will get, so adjustable is very good. Pencil tip style helps for soldering small things. An iron that takes different tips is always good.

I "pre-tin" everything before soldering them together. For me, it's much easier.

For wires, I put flux on the bared wire, get solder onto the solder iron tip, touch the tip to the wire and it flows right on. What does "flows right on mean? If the wire is copper and smaller than 18ga, then if your iron is hot enough, the solder will flow to the wire the moment you touch the iron to the wire. Immediately, less than a second, before it will flow right to the wire. If it's 18ga or larger, it might take more than a second. That should help you understand how hot your iron should be. For solder pads and other surfaces, I basically do the same thing. Flux the pad, touch the solder iron tip to the surface, touch the solder to the iron's tip and it will flow, when the surfaces are hot enough. Now, on a Copper mcpcb pad, it will sometimes take longer for the solder to flow, due to the fact that the copper conducts the heat so well that it's taking the heat away from the pad.

The larger the surface area, the longer it will take to heat and you will run into some large areas that do not heat enough to flow solder, like if you have a mcpcb sitting in a light and it has a large heat sink, it may never heat properly, because you're effectively heating the whole head of the light. In that case, you have to "isolate" the area you are trying to heat. Get the mcpcb off the head of the light so you are only heating the mcpcb.

Practice will make for good soldering. Try some junk parts and solder a wire to a pad and then try to break it off. The whole pad should strip off the board or mcpcb, before the wire comes off the pad, or the wire should break above the solder joint. If the solder joint comes off first, then the joint was cold.

12

Thank you for your excellent directions. It suddenly becomes obvious that
1: I should change my soldering iron to something more powerful. Current one is 30 watts.
2: I’ve got the wrong kind of flux.

Thanks again. No time for a longer answer - gotta run. Late shift at work.

13

Traditional PbSn is still widely available in the EU, thank God. You can also order from Chinese retailers. 60/40 or eutectic is the primary choice for electronics hobbyists, and what I or the geeks I know mostly use. I recommend 60/something lead mixes with rosin flux core, too. Some are PbSn and others with copper additive, and the percentages vary a bit, but that's not critical. It's good to have several sizes as it's very annoying to use too thin or thick solder.

I have used leadless SnCu(that environmentalism was already taking hold when I received what little professional training I got) and did not like it. I see no reason to voluntarily use inferior materials. It makes sense in the industrial scale to reduce toxic waste and make recycling more effective, but doesn't matter in small scale hobby use.

My vote goes to an adjustable soldering station. Some are underpowered, so beware.

I've been happy with this one, and it's available locally to the OP:

http://www.biltema.no/no/Verktoy/Sveising-og-lodding/Loddeverktoy/Loddestasjon-2000016783/?artId=19727

It's not the cheapest one, but a professional name brand tool would be more expensive. Spare parts are available, and the same model has been in stock for about 10 years. This is probably a rebranded unit that's available elsewhere. Might be compatible with better solder tips from another source. The one I'm using now actually seems different and may be non-Biltema.

There are cheaper options and those could be ok for basic electronics. Flashlight work typically needs more thermal capacity than small-scale SMD work etc.

Yes, that's what really requires practice. Soldering wires to mcpcb sometimes requires breaking the rules. You're not supposed to apply heat for more than a couple of seconds, but solid copper is different from fiber PCBs and small component legs.

An important note: I do this too if convenient and it's possible to get good results this way. This is, however, the exact opposite of what should be taught to soldering beginners. One of the first rules is that solder should not touch the iron. It should melt through heat that is conducted from the iron to the foil/wire/contacts. This practice ensures the actual flowing instead of just melting a blob.

Edit: actually I think wetting or solvent action would be term I was thinking of, but good flow is needed for that(and the right temperature for that). Clean oxide-free surfaces are another thing, and adequate proper flux helps keep it that way through the soldering process.

I think this great olskool tutorial series has already been discussed or at least mentioned here or on CPF. It's a good starting point even if it's sort of outdated. Then again it's just some of the applications that are outdated, not the basics or the deeper understanding. I love these kind of nostalgic reminders of the old school wisdom even if that video tape(or was it distributed in 8mm Kodak) is older than I am. But don't they say you're never too young to have a Vietnam flashback?

I might also have misread OL here. The part about solder not touching the iron is just during the actual soldering. It's of course totally ok to pre-tin or touch before actually making the joint. It's just not always necessary as the iron should(and the work pieces can) be tinned before soldering.

14

@Keisari - I am not anything more than totally self-trained, so I could no more state proper soldering procedure than I could explain why the earth is flat.... Ummm, it is still flat, right? Well, my ideas my be a little, (a lot), off base, most of the time...

Everyone - Always take what I say as "self taught", not formally or informally trained in any way.

15

OL, I know... Well, sometimes I have trouble believing that when you post a project update. And I mean the actual results, I don't normally look that closely at anyone's solder joints.

I'm not saying any technique is just plain wrong and if I got what you meant with the solder melting thing, it's what I do too sometimes. But that's different from textbook fundamentals.

Good results can be achieved through very unorthodox methods even when soldering, but I believe the easiest path for a beginner is through learning the "correct" methods. At least when the web provides easy access to literature and videos. This "right way" includes "don't melt solder on the iron while making the joint", and has to do with flux burning away, solder flowing from a non-ideal point, and ensuring proper temperature on the parts during soldering. This does not apply to pre-tinning the iron, tinning the iron before putting it down, or creating thermal connection by melting a blob just before the actual soldering.

I'm not good with the soldering iron, so I don't want to pretend I'm an authority in soldering. When I make easy solder joints, my procedure is not really up to aviation standards... or any electronics teacher's standards. Many easy jobs get good joints with a good iron and good touch even when doing it wrong, and most of the time a good joint is not even necessary. A borderline acceptable one will do just as well. The latter can frequently be seen in my projects.

16

Nice job on the mod! I'd most likely recommend replacing that driver with a 105c or similar (depending on the diameter) and get some serious light out of that. Way to jump in with the dedome mod...

Re: soldering:

I've been soldering for years, and was actually formally taught in a classroom environment. I use a $3 30W iron from Harbor Freight, and it's worked well for me. I've used it for re-flowing emitters, as well as soldering drivers and PCB wiring, switches, etc. I hardly ever use a standalone flux product. If you plan to solder a lot, get a tub of this:

https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10003546/1261003-chips-repair-tool-soldering-paste-grease

It is basically powdered solder, mixed with flux. This makes soldering extremely easy. For tinning wire, just poke the stripped end into the paste, then touch to the soldering iron. Soldering to a PCB, just use a toothpick to apply a tiny dot to the pads, then touch with the soldering iron. Reflowing LEDs, again with the toothpick, just apply a tiny amount onto the pads, set the emitter in place, and heat the PCB.

17

Okay then.

-Flux (right type I think),
-FT SKU 1261003,

  • and more solder wire

on it’s way from fasttech. Maybe next soldering project will be less problematic :slight_smile:

18

Thanks for the youtube link Keisari. Watched parts of it. Already figured out several things I’ve done wrong the first time around. Will watch the video again when it’s time to solder…
Old video but very very informative. It’s straight to the point, no blah blah. 8)

19

Those are all useful, but remember that you don't need to add flux for regular solder joints, and you don't need metal paste. Typical rosin core solder has all the flux you need.

20

MaleNurse, you did well for your first modding attempt. I knowwhen I tried I made a mess terminating the wires form the driver onto the LED board. Not a pretty sight. Equipment and solder do make a difference. I was trainined in soldering many years ago, but I rarely solder anything these days. I always to do some mods but never get around to it. These days mostly content with watching the wonderful work of others in this forum. Learn from the many experts in this forum and soon you’ll be proficient at it too. :slight_smile: