Maglite LED emitter swap

jimF · 2018-12-26T05:57:10.000Z

I’ve got a few LED Maglites that I’d like to swap the emitters for neutral or warm white. All seem to have the same method of emitter mounting, but I’m having no luck finding information on removing the mcpcb from these so I can reflow a new LED.

Does anyone know how these come out?

Thanks in advance,

jF

Scientist · 2018-12-26T17:42:11.000Z

Are these the inexpensive LED replacements for the bulb or a modded light with real MCPCB?

If you want to see what you can do with mini mag lights, google search on “Match’s mods”. Also take a look at the ones kyfishguy has done. I am sure there are some old mods of the big Maglites from Old Lumens floating around on this site but I haven’t looked them up. Seems like most people on this site were doing these 5-6 years ago and have since moved on to other things, but kyfishguy still sells them.

jimF · 2018-12-26T18:02:29.000Z

No, not an incan mod but the newer stock LED Gen 2 / 3. Looks like a small mcpcb w/emitter soldered to it fastened down in the center post. Have seen some discussions for minimag leds where people say they pop right out, not sure about that but these are D cell lights. Have a couple of XL200’s also, they appear to be assembled in the same manner.

ty

iamlucky13 · 2018-12-27T07:07:38.000Z

If I remember right, the LED for the Maglite Mini is in a pill that is pressed into the barrel, and can be pressed out by pushing from the rear. I’m not 100% certain on that, however, and it’s been a year or so since I had one to actually look at directly.

I don’t know how the PCB is held into the pill. A hot air rework station might be the simplest way to make the swap, if you happen to have access to one (although not many DIY’ers do).

jimF · 2018-12-27T10:25:56.000Z

Yeah that’s what I’m after. The mcpcb appears to be clamped in with no visible way to pop it out, and don’t want to sacrifice one to find out how. I’ve been on a roll replacing 6500k emitters in most of my lights and would like to put some warm whites in these.

Slim_Pickens · 2018-12-27T13:57:07.000Z

You could desolder the emitter using a heat gun, remove the emitter with tweezers, add flux and re-tin the solder pads on the PCB, and reflow a new emitter.