IIRC the BLF Edition comes with a DTP copper star - that won’t fry even in direct DD, no driver.
It would be pretty difficult to do with a 1s setup, but the A17DD-SO8 driver can be fried. Based on what I’ve seen people do to them I think you’d have to do it on purpose. Once the driver is built it’s got reverse polarity protection. The truth is also that all the components are very hardy and very inexpensive individually. No matter how hard you tried you couldn’t destroy more than one or two at a time. They’re all quite heat tolerant, all of the components are happy to have heat re-applied several times. The only polarity sensitive component on the board is the MCU and it’s protected by the diode. If the diode is backwards the driver just won’t work until the diode is turned around.
Wires cost effectively nothing, even nice silicone jacketed high-strand-count wire. Once you switch to silicone jacketed wire you’ll find it very forgiving = your soldering iron will not get hot enough to damage the jacket! For years I exclusively used wires that were literally scavenged from trash equipment (which is all around us when we go looking). That’s a free source of PVC jacketed wire, but for a beginner silicone jacketed is much better. Take the benefit of my experience and start with silicone, probably 22AWG or 24AWG: Search - wire
Cold solder joints won’t ruin your flashlight. They’ll just need to be repaired / resoldered. I doubt it will take much practice for you to avoid them basically 100% of the time. I’d say that my problems with cold solder joints probably went away permanently when I started using flux. (actually a lot of problems probably went away around that time, hint hint) You may use solid flux paste or liquid or gel. I currently use Kester 951 liquid flux which I put in a small syringe, but I suspect that gel may be optimal for the type of soldering we do. The big thing here is that we want good wetting of solder to both surfaces and a good interface between the iron and both surfaces, all at the same time. Flux promotes that. If you’re used to pressing your iron ‘more than gently’ against things you probably need to start using flux.
I also clean off excess solder with solder wick in order to better examine my joints if too much solder gets on there and I’m not 100% confident that the blob wetted onto both surfaces properly. Sometimes I add a little liquid flux to the wick to improve it’s ability to pick up solder.
Lastly, if you still have an unregulated soldering iron (a Hakko FX888 or similar is a big upgrade - but it’s expensive compared to a 30W unregulated iron) it’s best to keep the temp down a little. Here’s what I seem to remember about that:
Turn on the iron and wait. I used to lightly sniff the iron occasionally to see when it was hot enough. You don’t actually have to inhale, I think the face is sensitive enough to the heat that you should be able to tell from about 3/8in away.
If you set the iron aside temporarily, ensure that it does not get too hot. You’ll just have to learn about that, but getting too hot tends to scorch things. Significantly hotter than what’s required to melt solder which has flux on it is too hot. Again, you should be able to tell the difference with a little practice by placing the iron near your upper lip.
If the iron gets too hot you can occasionally clean it on a wet sponge, which you should be doing anyway. If it’s incredibly hot then maybe it’s time to unplug and take a break for a while.
You sound as if you’d like to do the mod and it seems to me that it’s within your grasp.
As I probably made clear in my last post, flux can be a fix-all when it comes to a lot of this stuff. The Adafruit page focuses on other issues and it’s clear that they did not want to detract from the points they were making with a discussion of how and when to use flux.
Thanks wight, i had already decided that i will try to start building your driver and this certainly boosted my confidence of that i know what i need to handle it.
And a very nice thing about the A17DD-S08 is easier to reflow, with only one side, so if i don’t totally mess up its almost only the led wires and spring i need to solder by hand, and those are bigger targets
This type of Banana Plug is the least resistive made—rolled beryllium copper—I have them on my leads and speaker cables—they hold tension very well if they get loose you can slip a foam or soft rubber inside to make a tight connection
I posted two videos over here, post #192. I’m afraid that the videos still may be unduly intimidating, sorry for that. As I said earlier in this thread, the maximum amount of damage you can do at once is very low. Practice is where it’s at. I do normally purchase all supplies in at least QTY=2 so that if I make a mistake I can continue working. If I don’t make a mistake, maybe I can build two.
I don’t care what any individual does about personal risk, your risks are your own, and the older you are, the less it matters.
I take risks at retirement age that would be utterly stupid for a teenager or young adult, because they won’t kill me before life does anywayl.
I think that in public writing, where kids are likely to rely on us, it’s fair to point to cautions they ought to be aware of, not just tell them do it our way.
Inexpensive IR thermometers don’t have the adjustment needed to be accurate on shiny reflective material, but put the heat source underneath a thin piece of dull metal and read that — the IR thermometer reads it fine.
I agree that people should understand the problems with flux fumes. That said (and without reading the entire article you linked to), I don’t think that dealing with the ventilation concern and “sniffing the iron” are mutually exclusive. IMO one can still “minimize” one’s exposure to flux fumes while sniffing an iron.
I’ve never tried the technique you mentioned for using an IR thermometer so I can’t comment on it much. My IR thermometer simply does not have a high enough range.
Yup did that also as I looked at the picture which is wrong, doesn’t cause any harm though
I will say be careful when soldering the +pos as I caused the cap next to it to come off the board damn them things are hard to solder back on had to use my smallest iron.
Also I found that the LD1 board is a bit thinner than original and that the driver was loose when clamped in , I had to build up the edge with a solder ring to make sure it clamped up tight.
The LD1 does give a good improvement (visually as I haven’t checked current) the standard 4 modes are nice and the low is lower than stock and the high is a quite a bit brighter its now similar to a cheap SRK clone which is good from 1 LED, seems better with my Panasonics 3200 than my laptop pulls also, hoping my 25R’s get here soon.
Even on high for a while the body doesn’t seem to get too hot just nice and warm this is what I was hoping the EE X6 SE would have been from factory.
> LD1 board is a bit thinner than original and that the driver was loose when clamped in
That would make me think waiting for one of the hosts — I read that those have a slightly higher shelf for a more typically thin star — would be the way to use this.
