Is there something unusually fragile about the 7135 chips after they have been added to driver boards?
I’ve now had three of them fracture when flashlights were dropped a few feet onto a wooden floor.
Each time, the chip on the spring side of the driver apparently took the impact transmitted from battery tube to retaining ring to the side of the chip closest to the edge, and the 7135 broke.
A couple of these were cracks without any obvious separation until I poked at the chip after the third one broke and I could see the problem. But they fell apart under slight pressure.
These were drivers where I”d just tightened the retaining ring down and it pressed on the 7135(s) on the spring side of the driver
I consider this my fault for not notching the retaining ring to go around the component, which I used to do regularly.
(discussion and pictures of that in prior thread: Driver retaining ring that clears Nanjg 105c in Convoy S series? )
Lesson learned. Now I have to learn how to solder these itty bitty components, which so far I’’ve tended to mess up.
Or buy new drivers ….