Okay first of all it looks like a light saber combined with one of those wii remotes with thei globe thing on top
the LED is attatched with a star shaped circuit board soldered to the LED
The LED is floating with no heat sink and clipped in with plastic clips very loosely. also not protruding very far out from the plastic so part of the light is wasted.
Its wired up at least. but run from three carbon zinc AA's in series
No current limiting resistor.
First time I turned it on.
about a minute later the LED circuit backplate got SO HOT it desoldered the positive wire off itself!!!!!!!
I re-soldered the wire back on.
and tried again
SAME THING.. Wow bad design!
I added a resistor and it helps but theres still no heatsink for the darn thing!
I stripped the flashlight apart and used only the LED. attached it to an improvised heatsink (Very crude and strange looking)
Now it works and doesn't even get warm.
I use it with a single lithium ION or three NIMH's in series with protection circuit. either work beautifully.
Now I just need to modify the lens thing to make it adjustable like it originally was. Or at least fix it in place to a nice position with a good compromise between the focus of the LED
Edit: I DID IT. I managed to put it all back together in a way that it'll work.. I used hot glue to secure the lens to the adjustment frame and drilled out the adjustment frame to account for the LED being deeper under it.. and it didnt affect the performance.. good compromise between spotlight and floodlight!!!
Works great I can see it reflecting from the clouds even in a medium focus setting.
the heatsink i attatched works great and it doesnt overheat anymore (of course the heatsink gets hot but it's meant to be hot. usually LED's can tolerate much hotter than you can touch without any problems. i'm surprised it got hot enough to melt the solder leads attatching it without the LED itself burning out. amazing that it passed manufacturing inspection.. if they even inspected it at all!
the LED is attatched with a star shaped circuit board soldered to the LED
The LED is floating with no heat sink and clipped in with plastic clips very loosely. also not protruding very far out from the plastic so part of the light is wasted.
Its wired up at least. but run from three carbon zinc AA's in series
No current limiting resistor.
First time I turned it on.
about a minute later the LED circuit backplate got SO HOT it desoldered the positive wire off itself!!!!!!!
I re-soldered the wire back on.
and tried again
SAME THING.. Wow bad design!
I added a resistor and it helps but theres still no heatsink for the darn thing!
I stripped the flashlight apart and used only the LED. attached it to an improvised heatsink (Very crude and strange looking)
Now it works and doesn't even get warm.
I use it with a single lithium ION or three NIMH's in series with protection circuit. either work beautifully.
Now I just need to modify the lens thing to make it adjustable like it originally was. Or at least fix it in place to a nice position with a good compromise between the focus of the LED
Edit: I DID IT. I managed to put it all back together in a way that it'll work.. I used hot glue to secure the lens to the adjustment frame and drilled out the adjustment frame to account for the LED being deeper under it.. and it didnt affect the performance.. good compromise between spotlight and floodlight!!!
Works great I can see it reflecting from the clouds even in a medium focus setting.
the heatsink i attatched works great and it doesnt overheat anymore (of course the heatsink gets hot but it's meant to be hot. usually LED's can tolerate much hotter than you can touch without any problems. i'm surprised it got hot enough to melt the solder leads attatching it without the LED itself burning out. amazing that it passed manufacturing inspection.. if they even inspected it at all!
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I'm surprised AA zinc carbons could generate enough energy to unsolder a lead tbh. Maybe the torch is a fake ?
the LED isn't fake at least. it sure generates a lot of heat. ESPECIALLY WITHOUT A HEATSINK.
the original label boasts "3 WATTS!" which is completely bogus because it wouldn't last very long at that high of power unless it had both a good heatsink AND a small fan.
the problem was the horrendous design of the flashlight not the components.. poor design of circuit too.. just wired straight to the LED no resistors or anything. I managed to use the existing circuit board layout on the PCB that has wires that goes to the LED and re-arrange the LED wires and added a 1 or 1.4ohm resistor
also added a reasonably sized heatsink for the LED.
No more desoldering wire from the LED!
They were excruciatingly lazy when manufacturing this and with the design.
They used a decent LED but gave it no heatsink and let it heat up so hot that it desoldered the positive wire off of the LED star-shaped PCB.
so I did all the things they should of done.
Now its working great and can run on either a LI ION or three NIMH AA's in series
Freshly charged NIMH AA's give about 0.35A when powering the flashlight maybe slightly more.
after a while it dips down to 0.24A and stays pretty steady at there for the rest of the batteries charge.
I tossed the carbon zinc batteries since they were garbage (were they simply relying on the high internal resistance of carbon zinc batteries instead of using a resistor like they should of? as well as ignoring the use of a heatsink for the poor LED!
if the wire hadn't desoldered itself.. the LED would most likely self destruct or burn up.
so at least now I can use it as a proper flashlight.. it has focusing lens ability which is useful for using as a floodlight or spotlight or anywhere in between.
at night you can see it reflecting off the clouds in the sky in the spotlight mode! amazing.
the original label boasts "3 WATTS!" which is completely bogus because it wouldn't last very long at that high of power unless it had both a good heatsink AND a small fan.
the problem was the horrendous design of the flashlight not the components.. poor design of circuit too.. just wired straight to the LED no resistors or anything. I managed to use the existing circuit board layout on the PCB that has wires that goes to the LED and re-arrange the LED wires and added a 1 or 1.4ohm resistor
also added a reasonably sized heatsink for the LED.
No more desoldering wire from the LED!
They were excruciatingly lazy when manufacturing this and with the design.
They used a decent LED but gave it no heatsink and let it heat up so hot that it desoldered the positive wire off of the LED star-shaped PCB.
so I did all the things they should of done.
Now its working great and can run on either a LI ION or three NIMH AA's in series
Freshly charged NIMH AA's give about 0.35A when powering the flashlight maybe slightly more.
after a while it dips down to 0.24A and stays pretty steady at there for the rest of the batteries charge.
I tossed the carbon zinc batteries since they were garbage (were they simply relying on the high internal resistance of carbon zinc batteries instead of using a resistor like they should of? as well as ignoring the use of a heatsink for the poor LED!
if the wire hadn't desoldered itself.. the LED would most likely self destruct or burn up.
so at least now I can use it as a proper flashlight.. it has focusing lens ability which is useful for using as a floodlight or spotlight or anywhere in between.
at night you can see it reflecting off the clouds in the sky in the spotlight mode! amazing.
Edit: Woops I thought the LED died. but I just had it screwed on too tightly. oops again.
It just suddenly went out and I had to loosen the mounting screws slightly no idea why that would cause it to mysteriously go dark (and stay dark even after it cooled down)
at least its not broken like I thought it was.. maybe theres a loose connection somewhere that i'm not seeing.
It just suddenly went out and I had to loosen the mounting screws slightly no idea why that would cause it to mysteriously go dark (and stay dark even after it cooled down)
at least its not broken like I thought it was.. maybe theres a loose connection somewhere that i'm not seeing.
I modded the flashlight even more! Made it better!!
soldered an 18650 negative end-cap protection pcb onto the battery holder hot glued in place with a small paper seperator.
and the negative of the pcb soldered to the negative of the battery holder
Now the spring contacts the negative end of the PCB and it works
Now when the battery gets low it should cut off when the PCB activates so you dont run the batteries down to nothing and cuts off at an appropriate voltage..
You can still get the batteries out and charge them manually. and the protection PCB doesnt seem to mind the higher voltage of alkaline or carbon zinc batteries. so it lets current flow even then.
Now to test how long the batteries will last.. Probably many hours.
and ive only got 1350mAh LSD NIMH's so if I had some 2600mAh NIMH's it would probably last a few days of giving out lots of bright light.
Its very very bright. especially when you adjust the focus to a point.
soldered an 18650 negative end-cap protection pcb onto the battery holder hot glued in place with a small paper seperator.
and the negative of the pcb soldered to the negative of the battery holder
Now the spring contacts the negative end of the PCB and it works
Now when the battery gets low it should cut off when the PCB activates so you dont run the batteries down to nothing and cuts off at an appropriate voltage..
You can still get the batteries out and charge them manually. and the protection PCB doesnt seem to mind the higher voltage of alkaline or carbon zinc batteries. so it lets current flow even then.
Now to test how long the batteries will last.. Probably many hours.
and ive only got 1350mAh LSD NIMH's so if I had some 2600mAh NIMH's it would probably last a few days of giving out lots of bright light.
Its very very bright. especially when you adjust the focus to a point.
Yes, I am running across increasing numbers of China-made goods that are not just inexpensive, but have devolved to simply unsafe.
"Made in China" is not necessarily a dirty word, so to speak, but I think it's important to remember that reputable companies who offshore electronics pay careful attention to the subcontractors they employ to produce their products. If you don't, you will find strange mid-cycle alterations to the design or implementation that can seriously compromise function or safety.
Even though a western-designed product may cost more than a no-name Chinese substitute, often there is false economy.
I subscribe to an eMail notification of recalls by Canadian authorities, often these are joint orders with the US equivalent. Increasingly common are counterfeit electrical safety marks (CSA, UL), and lighting is one of the most common culprits (a flashlight wouldn't require such certification), and these items are often sold by otherwise trusted North American resellers, or "house brand" substitutes for slightly more expensive equivalents.
Unrelated to audio, but by far the most common recalls are flammable or otherwise dangerous children's clothing (almost daily) and a close second, dangerous metals in children's toys and jewelry aimed at women.
"Made in China" is not necessarily a dirty word, so to speak, but I think it's important to remember that reputable companies who offshore electronics pay careful attention to the subcontractors they employ to produce their products. If you don't, you will find strange mid-cycle alterations to the design or implementation that can seriously compromise function or safety.
Even though a western-designed product may cost more than a no-name Chinese substitute, often there is false economy.
I subscribe to an eMail notification of recalls by Canadian authorities, often these are joint orders with the US equivalent. Increasingly common are counterfeit electrical safety marks (CSA, UL), and lighting is one of the most common culprits (a flashlight wouldn't require such certification), and these items are often sold by otherwise trusted North American resellers, or "house brand" substitutes for slightly more expensive equivalents.
Unrelated to audio, but by far the most common recalls are flammable or otherwise dangerous children's clothing (almost daily) and a close second, dangerous metals in children's toys and jewelry aimed at women.
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Yeah if the wire hadn't "desoldered" itself. and somebody used rechargeable NIMH's or alkaline AA's instead of the crummy carbon zinc AA's that were in it. it'd melt right out of its plastic clip holder and melt a hole right through the plastic housing of the flashlight and dangle out with the LED smoking or something.
Or the LED would pop in an instant from overcurrent (the bond wires inside would probably pop rather than the actual LED chip die. but either could happen to be honest.
luckily I caught it in time and didn't attempt to put fresh alkaline AA's or rechargeable NIMH's in until I put the resistor and heatsink! Sheesh!.
No wonder it was only 6 dollars and claims "3 watts". More like 3 watts for a nanosecond then it breaks!
Or the LED would pop in an instant from overcurrent (the bond wires inside would probably pop rather than the actual LED chip die. but either could happen to be honest.
luckily I caught it in time and didn't attempt to put fresh alkaline AA's or rechargeable NIMH's in until I put the resistor and heatsink! Sheesh!.
No wonder it was only 6 dollars and claims "3 watts". More like 3 watts for a nanosecond then it breaks!
The Aleto brand zoomable flashlight that I got on eBay for under 10 bucks has become one of my favourite things. It runs on a single 18650 lithium-ion cell, has a Cree XM-L LED, and 5 modes. L (about 1/10 of full current) is bright enough for close work and the lens throws a nice even flood. The LED star seems to be properly heat-sunk. I scrounge 18650 cells from old laptop and tool batteries.
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