Well actually I dont know but my complete lack of hands on experience is probably a major factor. I thought I had prepared sufficiently with a good diet of youtube vids for tonights flashlight repair fiasco. As it turns out I am fortunate that I am the kind of guy who can laugh at himself.
The goal tonight was to replace a bad driver in an old Fenix E20 and replace the LED. I was replacing the LED because I just wanted to try it. The Q2 that was in the light was an xre and was fastened directly to the pill with a not so strong adhesive. When I ordered a new emitter I ordered an R2. That,it seems, was mistake number one. I ordered the bare emitter because that is what I removed. I should have ordered an xre, not an xpe. Mounting a tiny xpe directly to the pill and soldering the driver wires on would be impossible for a guy who couldnt even solder a driver into a pill. Even though there was no star, I should have ordered an emitter on a star. At this point I dont even know if the old emitter still works or not. I connected wires to the ends of a battery and touched the leads to the emitter solder points and didnt get anything out of it. I dont even know if that is supposed to work or not. At any rate I never even got as far as mounting the emitter anyhow.
The driver that was in there was not soldered to the pill. It had two tiny ears on it that fit into cutouts in the pill. Easy enough except that the driver I got was about 16.8mm instead of 17mm. I wouldnt brace up on the bottom of the pill like the old one. It fit inside the pill. I tried something I had seen on another thread, I think it was Be Seen Trikers thread about hardwiring a driver and emitter. He soldered two pieces of wire to the driver and then the wire to the pill. This would have worked great. In that thread he also filled a gap with wire before soldering. I couldnt do that due to my lack of a fifth hand. I really did manage to solder the two wires to the driver but I may or may not have fried the crap out of the driver. Soldering the two wires to the pill proved beyond my capabilities. I was able to trim the wires I soldered onto the driver so they fit into the pill cutouts that held the original driver in place. I screwed the pill into the body of the light and thought it might work. I tried touching the driver leads, now sticking out of the holes in the pill, to the solder points on the old emitter and it didnt do anything. Im done for tonight.
Im sure I made it sound worse than it was. I think if I had started with a little bigger driver things would have gone better. I still would have been stuck when I moved on to the emitter but I would have been halfway there. As it stands I think I burned out the driver.
So what comes out of this is that I have a brand new XP-E R2 emitter that I can send on to someone who will put it to good use. I am not giving up but I will never use this bare emitter. If someone wants it for something then just let me know and I will send it out, It is a tiny little bugger.
For my birthday last Friday, my wonderful wife presented me with a new "Bernzomatic 3-In-1 Micro Torch," two spools of solder and two cans of fuel. Having correctly judged me an extreme beginer at soldering and from years of watching me embrace several hobbies, she knows I'm about to tear something apart. I think she made a good choice with this modest first tool.
Don't give up, Lang. I plan on (avoiding) destroying my Led Lenser P17 in the near future with a similar emitter/driver change. My plan however, (have not made a final decsion) involves some kind of XM-L.
This is solder and flux in one mixture. That's really very usefull in situations where you should have three hands. Just apply a small blop and hold the iron on it. Done! Nice also for pre-tinning wire ends or solder points on stars.
Yes this is called tinning the parts. if you have a little solder on both parts being joined then most of it is done. you should also tin the solder iron tip for better heat transfer between the iron and the part being soldered. soldering the bare emitter is probably more advanced and need a good iron and maybe extra hand/parts holder. i have a hobby iron made by ungar that is temp controllable but i need to get a smaller tip to do such small circuit boards. good luck and post some pics!
I use a magnifier lamp similar to this one I found at a garage sale years ago for a couple bucks. Can't have enough light and magnification for 'micro-soldering'.
Many years ago worked for a super-computer company, we troubleshot problems to the chip level, then replaced the chips under a modified microscope at a solder station. Key to success was the solder station tools - the microscope, an adjustable light source, a good iron with fine point tips & a damp sponge, and a vacuum motor solder-sucker. And lots of practice. I've been thinking of getting a cheap toy-type microscope in the 10x-20x range to re-create this.
But that was years ago when my hands were much steadier! Wouldn't be suprised to find soldering under a mic nowadays will be an excersize in frustration.
Be Seen Triker was doing some challenging stuff using big thick wires like that. It is easier to do smaller wires. I wouldn't even try to mess with a bare emitter. I have an XR-E Q5 on a 14mm base I pulled out of a light during an upgrade and you're welcome to it, if you think it will help.
The "good" lights like Fenix and others are actually harder to mod than the cheap ones. Don't get discouraged. Keep trying to do stuff and realize that you will probably screw up a few lights, but you'll also be able to save or improve a lot of lights too.
True. I have had a bad tremor in my hands since I was 12. And that was nearly 40 years ago. It's never stopped me from doing anything - I'm just very, very bad at some things like TIG welding. If I can do it, anyone can!
Practice is the key. Just practice on stuff that doesn't matter to you.
Anyone can do it. If I can, you can too.
Hints.
Wait till the iron is at the right temperature. Switch it on and then do something else for 20 minutes.
That is experience talking.
I use a temperature controlled 50W iron. Life is a lot easier that way - and it cost me less than $20. Worth every cent.
Not really related to soldering, but this probably needs the ultimate steady hands. This was featured on some youtube thing, and I remember being mentioned that the maker has to work between heartbeats.
