The pressure from the reflector will keep the emitter in place.
Ah! Ok, thanks. I was thinking that, but didn’t want to sound stupid :)…
Jim
You can use any heatsink paste or adhesive like you'd use on computers lots of people use artic silver or all the various variants of those heat sink pastes or adhesives .. depends on lots of things .. do you want to ever go in agin.. does the reflector hold the emitter down ..on a p60 drop in it does because they screw down onto the pill where as in other lights the reflector is free floating .. getting a dental pick is a really good idea and checking all the basics before you tear it all apart makes perfect sense since if it's just an emitter it's just two wires to unsolder pry up the heatsink clean up the pill ..lap and add heatsink sompound and toss in a new emiter solder it up add centering /Isolation disk screw on reflector and your done .. simpler than needlessly taking out the driver .
you're right about one thing popping the glued in heatsink can sometimes beat an incredible amount of force .
I think that's were I broke my last dental pick My favorite digging and prying around the edges of the heatsink
Since I’m having to wait for the new parts, I did an additional test of the driver, using a regular LED and a 150 ohm resistor, tied to the output from the driver, which was powered from a single 18650, and confirmed that the driver is alive and well. I was able to get the driver into the SOS mode, and blink the LED.
I think that, at this point, once I get the new emitter in, and hook it up, the drop-in should be back in business.
That’s great news. That is one tough driver. One would expect that the mcu would have been fried by that much voltage.
Yes. I’m glad also, and am looking forward to the new emitters coming in. From this, I’ve learned that you really need to get “hands-on” with this stuff to “get it”.
Absolutely! And I bet you've learned a lot going through this process! It may cost you more in the end to get a functional light, but it's worth the knowledge gained.
-Garry
…by the way…as we were discussing near the very start of this thread, running an XM-L with a 3.04A driver in a P60 has not caused me any heat issues to be concerned about. I have two P60s with Qlite drivers and everything seems hunky dory. Maybe if you were running them on high until you drained the battery, but if that was your need, a P60 would be the wrong kind of light for you in the first place.
I wrapped my P60 with 1/2” copper tape until it fit really tight in the solarforce. The warming was gentle and increased after time, but never got hot. Like I said, maybe if you kept it on high for an extended period, but mine did just fine. Where I live you could run most lights on high outdoors most of the year and never worry about cooling.
Yeah , removing a LED/base can be tricky ..
If you have a dremel type machine , grind down the lip of the pill so you can get the screw driver under the base ..
Dead LED , all you need is a 1.5v battery , connect directly to the + and - in the base (LED) , there should be a small amount of light to show its alive ( anything up to 3v should be good and much brighter (3v) )
Hi,
Thanks (again). At this point, I have a few lights, including several P60s, so I don’t get to run them for long periods like that, unless I do it purposely. Also, I do wrap some of them already, but only the one(s) with the “hotter” drop-ins.
Jim
Hi,
At this point, per my posts, and multiple/different tests, I’m like 99.9999% sure the emitter is the part that’s dead, so I guess it’s now another “test of patience” as I wait for the parts from FastTech. I’m guessing it’ll be at least another 10 calendar days before they get here.
I was actually thinking about pulling the emitter from one of my working lights so that I could put it into the dead drop-in, but then I concluded that that didn’t make any sense :). I guess that I’m just not a very patient person :(…
I always keep a fresh cr123 close at hand for testing LEDs. Impossible to kill one with only 3v, and it will be bright enough you can easily tell if part of the die is dead/damaged. And always check the polarity in both directions, it's not impossible to find one where the LED is soldered onto the star backwards, 'following directions' can sometimes lead you astray when troubleshooting. Try everything. Assume nothing.
Also, some drivers will croak if you power them up without a load connected to the outputs, or just a DVOM measuring open circuit voltage. Don't let that become a habit. Connect it to a proper load (an actual LED) to check if it works, you can still measure voltage across the +/- outputs, or amperage with the meter inline, if you need measurements for diagnosis.
Hi,
That (about the open-circuit testing) is a good hint. Now, I put together a small jig with a “regular” LED (I don’t have any spare emitters sitting around :), a resistor, and some clips so that I can avoid that.
Oh, and just to clarify: if you test a LED with + to + and - to - and it lights up, you don't still need to check it with the polarity reversed. :p Only do that if it doesn't work the 'correct' way, as at that point you're at better than 50% odds that it's truly dead, but check anyway. Stranger things have happened!
I knew that. I “have a tremendous grasp of the obvious”, as one of my old teachers use to say :)…
Question: Impatient, so I ordered a couple of emitters on PCB from IS last night, which’ll hopefully get here faster than the ones from FT, but IS didn’t have the emitters that I wanted on 16mm, so I got a Nichia on 10mm and some other one on 16mm.
I’d like to try the 10mm Nichia one, because I keep hearing how good that is, but is it going to be a problem using that because of the 10mm size, much smaller than the original pill I have?
It looks like the reflector kind of indicates where the emitter should go, center-wise, so if I don’t physically glue the emitter PCB to the pill, will it automatically self-center itself when I screw the reflector in, on top of the pill? I haven’t done this before, which is why I’m asking :(…
Thanks,
Jim
Edit: Worst case I can use the 16mm one I got, but I’d rather get the Nichia emitter working.
I’m not sure you could use a Nichia 219 with that driver as it was originally designed for XM-L and may provide too much current (remember max current for the 219 is only 1.5A). What was the tailcap reading with the XM-L?
Some emitters will self-centre in certain reflectors designed for them, but as the 219 is a significantly smaller die than the XM-L it will probably be difficult to get it to stay in a centred position while screwing the reflector down if you don’t use any thermal glue. Also remember it is important to isolate the positive and negative LED contacts with a non-conductive ring to stop them from shorting out on the reflector.
The mix of a 10mm PCB with a XM-L reflector is going to be tough, because of the close spacing of the solder pads, the centering issue is pretty easy to solve with epoxy. Even a XP-G/XP-E specific P60 reflector will not clear the solder pads on a 10mm board (I have all those parts here and just checked, it's a no-go). Adding a thick enough insulator to make it clear will totally screw up the focus.
Hi,
Thanks.
Lots of questions :(…
FYI, basically, I only ordered those from IS to get them in quicker, and have some XM-L coming from FT (impatient).
Which determines how much current gets drawn? Is it the emitter or the source/driver?
What about this one (XP-E):
Would that work?
Also, I noticed that all of the emitters have forward voltage (max) in the ~3+V range, whereas the open-circuit voltage I was measuring from the driver was in the ~4.15V+ range.
Is that ok?
Is it that high because I’m measuring open-circuit/unloaded, and when it’s under load, the voltage from the driver drops down to the required level?
Thanks,
Jim
I don’t know if you’ll understand, but I’m anxious to try SOMETHING at this point :)… I want to see light again from this drop-in… And then will refine to the “correct” one when they come in. As mentioned, I also have a 16mm XP-E coming. Maybe that’d be a better choice as a starter/”give it a try” at this point?