Hi all,
This is my first post but I wanted to thank you all for the great forum and all I have already learned reading the posts here. Also I hope this post is in the right place and apologize if its not.
So some years back I purchased an Insight Hx150 But about a year and a half ago I ended up losing it. I bought it used (so no warranty) but still paid quite a bit of money for it and as it was my only good light I really missed it. However I found it recently. When I found it it did not work which was no surprise because it tended to drain batteries when not used. So I thought I would be smart this time around and get a rechargeable battery for it. I purchased a 16650 (18650 wont fit) protected button top battery from Orbtronic and one of the “New” I2 Nitecore chargers. So when I got the battery I charged it up and put it in the light. However it still would not run. At first I thought maybe the battery was bad but after checking with a multi meter it read 4.1 volts. I then borrowed another flashlight and put my battery in it and it work no problem. I then thought well maybe the switch was bad as there was clearly no damage (beyond cosmetic) to the head of the light. So I bypassed the switch with a jumper wire but still no joy. So now I am wondering if there is a voltage protection circuit that will not allow the light to power on because of the higher voltage of the 16650 as compared to two cr123’s. I did try draining the battery in the other light to get the voltage down but ran out of time to keep playing around with it.
My knowledge of electronics mostly comes from working on cars. I know how to trouble shoot sensors and (car) computer systems. I have done some very minimal work on PCB stuff but the flashlight world is kind of new to me.
Question 1: Can any of you More experienced folks think of anything I am missing?
Question 2: Is there a way to test the driver and/or led?
Question 3: If I can’t get this fixed is there any way I could put new hardware in the light to get it working? Its got a thread in pill (I think that’s the proper term) and the board the led sits on is 17mm. I would have to desolder the led to get any details on the driver but I could do that if need be.
Thanks for reading this and any help would be appreciated.