A short while ago, I tried a lume1 driver transplant into my FW3S, but managed to damage the pads on the driver for connecting to an AUX board, so that the light had a new driver, but no AUX.
I wasn’t happy, though, as my plan had been to upgrade the light with AUX, so I sourced another FW3X for the lume1 driver and had another go.
I don’t know how many hours and how many failed attempts I’ve spent on this. If I had any hair, I’d have torn it out. One time I thought I was done, the AUX lights were on and working, but as soon as I screwed down the bezel, the contacts were broken and the only colour I had was green - the wires I had used were too thick, it seems, and the pressure from the optic broke the solder joints. Many times I’d think I had things in place, only for one wire to come loose and then all the others to come off while trying to fix the first, then the tinning would come off, the wires would splay, short and make a complete mess. Thin, solid core wire for the AUX connections turns out to be the secret…
Every failure meant taking the driver back out, removing the wires I’d wrecked, cleaning up the driver and starting from scratch again.
Finally, this evening, I am done and I have a FW3S with a lume1 driver and AUX. It’s not up there with some of you people’s masterpieces, but after all of that, I’m quite proud of myself. I swear I won’t put myself through that again, however I’m also thinking about my next mod…
Some pics:
