Thank You Old-Lumens

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Today I decided to swap out the cool led on my BLF A6. I have had it apart several time so this should of been simple.

Head to basement. With A6 and a XP-L on 16mm Notigon. Supper cooking. Did spring bypass with solder wick. Supper ready. Out with old MCPBC in with (supper READY) New Notigon.

Lasagna. Assembled light at supper. Smiling at my Brightness I am about to share with my wife.

Click. Nothing. Click click click. Nothing. Battery. Check. Ends tight. Check. Click click click. NOTHING.
Unscrew bezel and notice the DIE is no longer sticking to the Notigon. Hmmm

HELP BLF !!! BLF is still DOWN !!! I can put this back. What do I know about reflowing a LED. NOTHING…

Think. Think harder. Search, Search “How to reflow a LED onto a Star” Bingo. Old-Lumens at the top of the page.

More Lasagna. Watching OL’s video. I got time and nothing to loose. Thanks for supper honey. Back to the basement.

Tiny. This thing is TINY. Followed his instructions. Eased it around to near perfectly in center. BIG SMILE.
Test with cr123 and some wire while still in 3rd hand. WORKS !!! Back in the light. Test again. Works. Assembled.
Click. NOTHING. CLICK CLICK. NOTHING.

Unscrew bezel. Hey guess what. The die is no longer sticking to Notigon. Hmm. I reflow once. Now I will re-reflow.
Back to the basement. Its getting dark. Red wants to go for a walk. Out with Notigon, into clamp on 3rd hand. Heat it up.
Tweezers adjusting it to that perfect spot. SNEEZE. Where did it go. Lucky me it was inches from the edge of table.
Red is ready. Stuck it back on Notigon. heat. it sticks. Red is really ready. No time to test. I want to use this on the walk.
Assemble. Click. NOTHING. Red had to go. So I left without the A6.

Home. Back in basement. Unscrew bezel. Die is still there. Test. Nothing. HMM. HMMM. I see the problem.
I reflowed it 90 degrees off of where it should of been. I had to laugh. Remove. Clean it up. re-re-Reflow. I am getting better.
Test with cr123. PASS. In light test PASS. Assemble.

WAIT. Why was I twisting off the Die. Think. Oh yeah, something in the A6 thread about center ring spinning die off of board.
HMMM. It never did it on other assemblies. LOOK. What is this. O ring-Lens-Reflector. I think it should be Lens-o ring-reflector.

Try it. WORKS and the bezel goes all the way down. Great. Now mod a Wizard clip for this puppy. Done.

I can’t believe all the FUN I had tonight. I learned a few things too.

Without Old-Lumens youtube video I would not of tried this. Thank you OL !!!

Of course without BLF I would of never had too… I sure missed you guys today.

2

Nice recovery from a frustrating day. Whats next on the agenda to mod?

3

Got some stuff coming from RMM to build a C8 thrower, and swap LED in my M2X-UT.
I have a dream of a RGBW light. Looking at DrJones RGBW drivers and the MELD. Think MELD above me at this time.
Worried about PWM.
If I don’t have anything to toy with I will swap LED between lights just to see the difference.

What do you suggest ?

4

That is a great story that I can so much relate to. Firstly, whenever I’m working on my lights there is always at least one dog that want to go for a walk right when I fire up my hakko. Its great to have a loving wife who lets us play with our boy toys and feeds us while we play away. Sounds like you are really getting your mod skills sharpened! Your soon to be an old hand at this stuff in no time, great work!!

5

Gotta love YouTube
That video of OL doing the reflow is nice, his voice is so relaxed, that one made me dare to order stuff for modding and this weekend my son and I are going to do/try our first soldering
So yeah I totally want to thank OL too!
The OP makes a fine read so also thanks for that

6

I tried reflowing once. Did not go very well. The second time also. Two emitters broken. Now I’m only buying leds on Noctigons.

7

good story! With so many failures a good lasagna helps a lot :slight_smile:
(wish I was in your position, but in my house it’s me who does the cooking :frowning: )

8

What do I suggest? Do whatever you want to. There are lots of very helpful members here.. looking forward to reading about whatever it is.

9

Practice on the dead ones, it’s too useful a skill not to have in the kit.

10

I have yet to try reflowing. So far all of my failures were entirely possible with regular soldering, so no reflowing needed. :wink:

11

Modding a flashlight requires desire, patience to learn repetition till you get good at it and the ability to overcome failure. Sounds like you have the stuff to make it work. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it can be done by most everyone.

I am glad that one of my videos helped. It's the only reason I ever did any of them. If it helps one person in some small way, then it was worth it. Some day I hope to go back and make some better ones. Some of the first ones were not that good. There is a wealth of information at BLF. It just takes time and patience, along with search words, to get the info needed. There's nothing new under the sun, means that most likely, you can find someone else who has already done what you want to do and they have photos or a video of it.

If you knew how many leds, drivers, reflectors, lenses, etc., I have ruined, you would wonder why I even do it at all. The best at anything have also been the worst at it too, at some time or other.

12

I too was nervous the first time I did a reflow. Old Lumens video, was my inspiration. I have had a much better time with reflows than I would have thought. I have ruined three emitters in over forty reflows, so it works for me… Fasttech has some cheap Nichia Warm White emitters for less than a buck each I used extensively for practice. https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10004255/3505302-authentic-nichia-nvsl219at-5-25w-113lm-white-led

Thanks from me too OL!

13

I have to say OL video gave me inspiration to do my first reflow also. Happy to say I even did it with a butane cigar lighter ! Quick !

14

+1. That old video OL made also helped me alot when I tried my first reflow, and thanks to it my first attempt was a success.