Use for River Rock lantern gone bad

I have a like new river rock lantern (old style) purchased at Target's last year that just stopped working. Never abused it or had it out of the house and probably had it on a total of 4-5 hours before it died. I took it apart and checked for bad connections of all kinds but found nothing. So...

Seeing as I have this dead lantern around, what are the possibilites of modding it for a cree.. maybe such as a wolf eyes or similar drop-in for the p60 lamps? Has anyone tried such a thing? I haven't looked at it closely an there may not be enough room in it. I'm pretty handy at modding so if it can be done I don't mind trying. I think the circuit board may have a bad chip or something so I'll have to dispose of the board. If it's the LED element I may be able to replace it with a cree element.

Let me know what you think!

Could the problem be just a dead battery?


Without proper cycling, some batteries may lose their ability to hold a charge. On multiple occasions, I've had the NiCads in an LSI rechargeable handheld spotlight go bad after a long period of storage. With little use, the bulb is probably still good, unless the light was dropped or fell at some point.

I put new batteries in it several times thinking I had maybe one bad battery in the lot even thou they were new. Energizers I think. Unit was never dropped or abused, I just picked it up one night to check it out and no light! {illegal information removed} Targets still have them in stock.

Now there's a thought!

Hello connortn,

Have a look at this thread.

Regards,
Mark

Nice! Thanks for the link to that post JetskiMark.

connortn,

I wouldn't hesitate to mod that RR, even if the LED wasn't the problem. It's possible that the problem is just corroded contacts as was noted in the post, or it could just be bad contacts somewhere (like in the switch, maybe).

The results of the SSC mod look great. It's worth the effort to try a mod with a CREE P4, because you can't break something you already consider broken. If it still doesn't work, reuse the CREE and mod something else! :rock: While you're doing it, use your multimeter and check for power at the driver board. As noted in the post, be sure to observe correct polarity when installing the LED and reinstalling the driver board.