Shorted led, now dim

I was making a p60 and pretty much finished. I used a wire and battery to check if the drop in worked, it did, pretty bright. Then I put it in a solarforce l2 but forgot the isolation disk. And tried turning it on several times. Now the led turns on with a wire and battery, but very dim. Should I order new drop in materials or can I salvage this somehow?

(I have so much respect for anyone who can solder small things well right now :slight_smile: )

Can you link to us the drop-in or the driver?

Try measuring the current between the driver and the LED.

Not directly related to the dim LED, but make sure to closely check the springs especially in the tailcap. With a dead short they get HOT! really quick and lose their springiness.

My first go-to step with a suddenly dim LED is to re-reflow it on the board, sometimes if they get overheated they can break or partially break contact at the pads. If it's truly dead the re-reflow won't hurt anything.

Almost a guarantee that you blew up the driver. Very unlikely that you hurt the LED.

PPtk

Well if the drivers likely dead, I’ll just buy new everything. It was a super messed up p60 anyway. First when taking the driver out of packaging I snipped off the negative wire. Then I soldered the positive on the led to the pill a little, so I just belt sandered that away and made a new connection. Better lucky next time! I think I’ll try thinning out the solder by sanding it thinner.

I am probably the worst person to say this, but this is all part of the learning process :).