Trustfire TR-3T6 driver fryed? Repair advice needed

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

Sorry to disturb you guys, but I’m just not well known with the inner workings of a flashlight. Though I am a fast learner and hope you can help me with something

Here is the thing with my Trustfire TR-3T6:

- Put in batteries (2, since I lost my extention tube) and try to turn it on: No light

- Take out the batteries, put them back in, connect the battery with the body: Light works

- Connect the battery with the body again: No light

- Take out the batteries, put them back in, connect the battery with the body: Light works

- Screw on the tailcap, try to turn it on: No light

- Screw off the tailcap and connect the battery with the body: No light

- Take out the batteries, put them back in, connect the battery with the body: Light works

- Take out the batteries, put them back in, put the tailcap switch in “on” position, screw on the tailcap: Light works

  • Turn it off (works), turn it on again: No light

I’ve been using protected eagletec batteries to do these tests.

My simple minds tells me that there must be something wrong with the driver. A short of some sort or something, which triggers the protection on the batteries. The batteries are reset after I take ’m out and put ’m in again. Is this assumption correct?

How can I fix this? A new driver should do the trick right? Which driver should I buy? How can I get out the old driver? How should this new driver be installed?

I am very sorry for all these ‘Noob’ questions and hope you can help me.

btw, I still going to get a SolarStorm SP03 somewhere next year. But since this light isn’t working anymore, I thought I would give this repairing/modding thing a chance. :wink:

2

Sorry, maybe this should be posted at Modding and DIY parts?

3

Please make a picture of the driver/pill.
The whole pill(reflector,LEDs, driver) can be unscrewed through the front.

I guess you have recharged and tested your batteries?

4

Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4

Hope this is enough to go on?

The driver just seems to be soldered in, so to take it out would be no problem. Since this light is already not functioning properly, I was thinking to drive it harder and maybe put some XM-L2’s in?

5

Yes it is just soldered in. You can desolder it and take another photo of the whole driver.
The only thing which confuses me is that this driver normally works really reliable and I never heard of the phenomenon you have.
Have you double checked the batteries?
Have you tried to use 4 AA cells in series?
—-
This looks like the original driver is used, that one is available for 6.5$ on fasttech and also is easy to mod for higher current.
Check the 3T6 for details.
If you order from fastech these resistors should come in handy for the mod

6

Yep, checked the batteries in my Eagletec. They are working perfectly.
Not yet checked it with 4 aa’s. Hope to do that this weekend before getting out the driver.

But you also think the driver would be the culprid? Thanks for the help, it’s much appreciated.

Btw, the “0805 0.2R SMD Precision Resistors ” are the correct ones? Looking at the driver I would have to replace of the resistors since there are no empty slots. Am I correct?

7

No you just add the r200 resistor to the existing ones. Solder on top or next to the existing ones, there is all information in the 3T6 thread.
If you add another resistor to existing once the current has an additional path to go, so the overall resistance will be reduced. As this is a sensing resistor the current will be regulated on a higher level.

A bigger formfactor resistor would work better but these are cheap and with free shipping so I recommend them. When I modded my 3T6 I had no R200 so I made a 0.2Ohm resistor myself with some other value resistors I soldered together in parallel. This was more work so I asked fastech if they would add them to their stock and they did. That were the golden fastech times….

The flashlight technic is easy just, switch, battery, driver, LEDs and the whole body tube ground.
If one of these things fail the light does not work.

Just double check each potential failure point and you will find the problem…

you reported the switch is not the problem, as you bypassed it for a test.
You reported the batteries seem to work too.
LEDs work sometimes.
The only thing what could be is a connection issue somewhere in the tube, wiring or whatever or the driver.

If you get the light working is this just for a moment or until you switched it of?

8

Allrighty then. After those busy holidays finally got some time to spend on the flashlight.

I found the third 18650 extention tube! :smiley: Tried it and it gives the exact same results as with 2 18650’s. Didn’t try with 4x AA batteries, since I don’t know how.

Today I tried to desolder the driver, but the tools let me down (some soldering irons from my dad circa 1970 I think). They where not able to get hot enough. I also didn’t have any desoldering lint or desoldering pump. Since good tools are the escential to do a descant job, I’m going to my local radioshack tommorow to get a low cost soldering station, a desoldering pump and lint.

Just ordered the driver and resistors, which I should have done much sooner looking at the delivery time from China. But can’t change the past. Hopefully they get shipped pretty soon.

btw. I did recieve my new Nitecore P12 in the mail yesterday, as a replacement for my T20C2 and I love it! :smiley:

9

This does not sound like a driver problem. It sounds like a connectivity problem related to the battery tube and/or tailcap/head. This is a pretty common problem. It’s frustrating as hell trying to track it down. It could be because your cells are either too short, or too long. Make sure the switch is screwed in tight. Make sure battery tube is tight. The tube might not be grounding very good with the tailcap.
If it has one of those brass caps over the tail spring, try removing it to see if it is impeding complete ground.
You can also try circling a piece of wire around where the tube butts up against the tailcap.

It’s a problem you just have to keep tinkering with till you find it.

10

I don’t think it is, since the problem occurs on exactly the same point in the steps. If it was a connection problem, wouldn’t it be logical if it occured randomly?

To summarize the problem: When the batteries go in or have been disconnected from each other and the light, next the light is switched on or the batteries are directly connected to the body at the last - pole, the light works and keeps working. Switch the light off or disconnect the batteries from the body, next switch it on or connect the batteries again, the light doesn’t work.

11

This weekend I tried it again with my new soldering iron, but one way or the other I just can’t seem to desolder the driver on this thing!?

The soldering iron I use is pretty basic 30watt unit. So I think the heatsinking of the pill just dissipates the heat and the soldering iron is just not powerfull enough to keep the tip on the right temperature. Now I’m thinking of getting a basic soldering station, but they start at 45 watt. Will that be enough to get the soldering to the right temperature? Or do I have to get a 60 or 80 watt station? :~

12

60W should work, anything lower than that would be painful to work with…

13

Have you used additional solder on the tip? A bare solder iron don’t work it needs to have a big liquid pimpel out of solder on the tip to properly work for unsoldering.

14

Ow I couldn’t be more wrong…. All due to my incompitence by the way. But this morning I percevered and got the driver out. @Werner: Thanks for the tip of using more solder! That and some brute force did the trick. Here are some pics of the old driver:


I’ve allready received the new driver and the resistors that where linked in this thread. Just test fitted it, and it is to high for the pill. The original driver looks alot more like the driver in post 689 . But since manafront seems to be out of business there aren’t many alternatives. Thinking of getting this driver and fill the gap with some copper pipe or plate.

Since the leds are glued in, I’m not going to bother with replacing them with XML2’s or a dedome. Since this is my “play light”. Or is there an easy way to get them of the pill?

15

Which driver have you ordered? How high is it? How dimension has the original driver? Which dimension has the new driver?
Which number has the original driver( TR….)? Maybe a photo side by side?

The KD driver looks a bit expensive, there is a good two or threcell driver for half the price out there which is available in different versions not sure which is the best this is the first I found

I wonder what failed on the original driver, I have some of them heavyly abused and they still work…

16

The driver I ordered was the one you posted in this thread, this one (not trying to blame you or anything, I orderded before measuring). The new driver is 26mm high and the old on is 21mm high. The new driver says “TR-0142b”, the old one says “TR-0159D 2012-01”.

Here are some photo’s side by side (left new, right old):


I’m also curius what failed in the original driver. I did test my soldering skills on R6 though (added a R200 parralel), so what you see there is my own sloppy soldering.

As for the new replacement driver, yep it is expensive. I’ve also got a Fandyfire STL-V6 coming my way and I think about using this same driver. Also, this battery contact plate should fit as standard. Just don’t know if it is powerfull enough to drive/overdrive J) 3 leds. Maybe I should resistor mod this one?

17

Finally the driver arrived today. So took out my soldering iron and set to work.

First rewired the leds from parralel to series. Pretty straight forward job, did have to make sure the wires where nice and flush to the stars so the plastic centering rings could fit. Soldered on the negative spring and positive spring to the new driver, tested it……it WORKED!!!

Nice, my soldering did the job. So next was screwing on the reflector and putting the thermal putty that was delivered with the driver between the driver boards……yeah okay. So the putty didn’t really fit, so I tried to bend the boards a little and offcourse they broke…… |(
Luckily, it broke at the feet at the bottom board, so I was able to fix it by soldering it together again. Next threw the putty away put some MX4 thermal paste between the boards instead. Reasembled the light and it works! None of the previous problems occur anymore!!! :party:

But output isn’t great, think it was better with the original driver. And I can’t fully screw down the endtube, because then the light doesn’t work anymore. Think I will need to clean the threads or something.

All in all nice experience, was able to get some experience in soldering and desoldering. The driver fits and works for this light. All the previous problems aren’t there anymore, so that’s a plus. Now to get some decent protected batteries that aren’t to long and lets see if it will keep working…. :bigsmile:

I would like to thank everybody who helped me in my endavour, especially Werner for his controbution!

18

Nice to hear that it works. Which driver have you now in use?

I got today a very small version of the 3T6 driver from light-castle, I have not tested it yet but will do soon.

19

Hey Werner, you got a link to that LC driver?

20

http://www.lightscastle.com/product/5v~12v-9w-3cree-3-mode-circuit-board-for-flashlights-16.7mm5.6mm-530004
20mm diameter and 17mm high.
High mid strobe, high is 0.8A at 8V. The current sensing resistors aren’t readable. Not further tested.