I dropped my Xiaozhi some time ago, it was working at this time, when it reached the hard ground it switched off immideately.
Because one of my SF L2 was acting strangely I deceided to give it a try and fix them both, though I’am still a noob in this diy stuff.
What I’ve done so far:
- eye checked the connections to the LED, all seemed fine, the driver is still soldered to the pill
- checked the switch, bridged the switch, the Xiaozhi came back lo life I was able to switch modes —-> I was happy at this time
I took a spare switch from Solarforce I had lying around, it needed some kind of distance ring but then it worked
—> yippieh :party:
Just 2 seconds later, the LED went dimmer, I can still switch modes, but they’re all really really dim.
At this point I think the LED had gone poof.
But I don’t know why?
Maybe the more important question: Will this happen again if I solder a new LED in place ?
just as a side note:
I just read the troubleshooting sticky thread, grabbed my multimeter and checked both of the switches like written there, both of them are fine, even the old Xiaozhi switch.
Hi gords, nice to read from you again.
(I have been absent from BLF for a few months.)
I’ve tried 2 cells so far, the well known unprotected Sanyo 2600 and a protected Eagletac 2500.
Same result with both cells, before I changed the switch —> dead flashlight
after I changed the switch —> flashlight with low output
Just tested it again, and the flashlight is dead, completely.
With both cells, bridged the switch again, stays dead. :~
If you have the ability, I would unsolder the LED star and hook it up “direct drive” to a battery to see if it still works. If it’s just hanging in the air you won’t want to run it for more than few seconds to verify that it’s working, then you can turn your attention to the driver. Being careful not to short the emitter wires, you should be able to hook a multimeter up to the output leads and see what kind of output you are getting.
I already thought about a direct drive hook up, good advise only to do that a few seconds !
I will need some spare cable to do so, seems like I will do a trip to the next techie store tomorrow.
At this point I hope the LED is the problem, I got a spare XM-L2 here and also some solder paste for reflowing.
I should be able to bring it back to life, if the emitter is the problem.
it actually already uses a reprogrammed nanjg like you can get for buttons frim fasttech, I would order a qlite from ios tbh.
swap in the xm-l2 anyway if your in there.
DO NOT HOOK UP THE DRIVER TO A METER
not a good idea to power a driver up without a load on it, just couple up a known good emitter and link out the tailcap. my bet is you’ll find one of the leads has come unsoldered simewhere.
Okay okay, done some testing this evening, hooked up the led directly to a 18650 and there it lit up, powerful and bright.
So it’s the driver in the end, or as gords already stated, a bad connection.
My problem now, I can’t unsolder the driver, because they used this fluxless solder and my iron is too weak for this kind of stuff.
I think I’ve already asked this before and was given the hind to add some of my ‘good’ solder to the nasty one and get the job done this way.
Then I realised, I don’t have a vacuum pump or desoldering wick.
I came to join a battle, but I came unarmed, stupid me !
Time to get my paycheck for this month……and then stock up on parts
sounds like your on track then. have you tried resoldering the emitter connection’s and retesting? you may have inadvertently fixed it, although I suspect it is going to be in the driver where the fault lies.
you could try cutting the driver out using a craft knife/Stanley blade and some care, although you’ll still need a good iron to reconnect whichever driver you end up with.
