Output diode question.

A diode died on me yesterday in a flashlight which had 3 mins runtime on it. I removed the SMD, transistor shaped diode (only two pins connected) and replaced it with a plain ole diode. The flashlight worked but the output was significantly reduced to my estimate of 50% or less.

The diode was connected to posative out, to the LED and I believe to the coil. Connecting the two points directly resulted in a very dim light (<2mA). Is there any particular diode I can use to get the brightness back to original? (SMD components are not available here.)

Thanks alot guys.

Most converters makes use of schottky diodes.

Thanks legtu. I called the shops and the results wern't that good. One shop said that they have no specs for the diodes and cannot tell me which one could work even if I tell them what it's for. The other shop said that they have something to handle 50 V at 1A. Not too bad but, I did buy one here a while ago and that was the one I put in the circuit to replace the damaged one. As I said above, it gave me about half the output. I'll try again and see what happens....

Wasn't there any markings on the diode that you removed from the circuit?

Btw, any idea on how or why the diode died? It's also possible that the converter IC is damaged, hence, the low output...

Yes but neither of them have that part number.

Since you have the part number of the diode, you can try to search for the diode specs and go from there...