Hartenberger Maxi compact battery issue, help needed

josb

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Aug 25, 2008
Messages
64
Location
The Netherlands, Eindhoven
Great fun, I got handed over a Hartenberger Maxi compact dive light from one of my club members who thought he was a good DIY on battery change, this means I got a battery pack in loose parts and a set of new 4/3 cells.

He de-soldered the pack and then got stock and he didn't know what to do.

Does anyone has done this change themselves?
Is there anyone who can give me a picture or description on where the wires red, blue and 2x brown have to be on the PCB that's mounted on the back of the battery pack?
For the red blue and one of the brown's it's marked on the PCB.

Where to put the second brown wire???? On the red (positive) tab or on the bleu (negative) tab.

Someone willing to help me with this?
With all the integrated electronics I don't dare to just try a position.
 

jspeybro

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
586
Location
Belgium
can you show pictures of the board?
since I don't have such a pack, where do the wires come from? I assume red is +, blue is -. are the brown wires connected to points between 2 batteries that are in series? In that case, they are used for balancing the cells, and there should be a pad somewhere on the board.

Johan
 

josb

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Aug 25, 2008
Messages
64
Location
The Netherlands, Eindhoven
can you show pictures of the board?
since I don't have such a pack, where do the wires come from? I assume red is +, blue is -. are the brown wires connected to points between 2 batteries that are in series? In that case, they are used for balancing the cells, and there should be a pad somewhere on the board.

Johan

Hello Johan,

Partly correct, the PCB is pure a connection between the batterypack and the control unit which is in the backside of the handle (first picture), it has 3 pin holes (picture 2) and 3 pads to solder the cables to (picture 3). It's a normal NIMH pack with 12 cells and only has the red (for +) and blue (for -) wires. the 2 brown wires are just the 2 wires that go to the 6.35 mm halogen bulb connector.


the PCB in the handle with the 3 pins sticking out is the control unit for the different steps (25-50-100-125%) and the battery pack can't be mounted wrong because the extra plastic pin.
as you can see I soldered the wires to the PCB (picture 3), underneath the PCB on picture 3 is nothing but plastic housing, the PCB only has the charging connector on the bottom side.

measured on the red and blue I have ± 16 volt, the third pin with the brown wire goes to wjat I assume the 3th control pin, I soldered the 2e brown wire to the big PCB trace where I thought to see old solder marks.

Put all together and connected it to the handle part it should work but gggrrrrr it doesn't, on the other hand it didn't start to smoke so that's a good thing.

I took the whole thing with me to Hartenberger during the BOOT fair in Dusseldorf last week and they checked it with another batterypack and then the unit worked so they came simply with just buy a new complete battery pack from us for € 170,-. They didn't want to tell me what was wrong with the batterypack, they just stated it's probably dead, yeah right :mad:

just because the control unit in the back handle I don't dare to start playing with the unit, to scared to brake it, and they told me that electronics run on smoke, ones the smoke is out it wont run anymore :whistle:

You are right some pictures would help :)


Foto-Y8QOTSBU-D.jpg
Foto-Y87D6JOP-D.jpg
Foto-UD8RDND7-D.jpg
 

PilleLED

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
69
i have the same an i moded with a DX 5x cree great ,,
you have plus , and minus and the brown cable is to control the power 25 to 125 ,,,,125 is 100% ,,nothing else
make shure that al conections are well soldert

if you like i can open my one to see with color is on + or -

and if this woks with another pack from Hartenberger ,,,,so you will get your one right

best regards

Stefan
 

jspeybro

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
586
Location
Belgium
PilleLED, where are your brown wires connected?
I'm guessing the brown wires will form a voltage divider, so I would think 1 of the brown wires should indeed be connected to the negative. The board seems to indicate where blue and red should be connected, so that seems ok. if red is the input voltage (battery +), there should be a resistor between the red and the pad for the brown wire (could be in the switching mechanism). the brown wire will be the output voltage going to the light (halogen?). The other brown wire will come back from the light, and should then go through a resistor and then to the negative. The output voltage (between the brown wires or the brown and the blue pin) could then be changed by changing 1 of the resistors. If my guess is correct, and the light is a halogen, it shouldn't matter how the brown wires are connected because a halogen doesn't care for the direction of the current.

perhaps you can try to measure if there are indeed resistors in the circuit which could confirm this theory?
 

josb

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Aug 25, 2008
Messages
64
Location
The Netherlands, Eindhoven
Johan, Stefan,

thanks for thinking with me, I have just been playing with the wire connections and instead of the halogen bulb I put the mulitmeter just to be sure nothing could got shorted.
Just like you guys where guessing it doesn't matter which one of the brown leads goes to brown marked PCB point, as you can see in picture 3 I was guessing that the second brown wire went on the blue ponit.
WRONG WRONG WRONG
It should be connected to the RED wire spot (plus side), this means that the controlling is done in the negative side of the circuit.

Soldered the wire from blue to red and the lamp is working, lucky for me, another problem solved and a buddy happy again.

Thanks for the help and this thread can be closed.
 

kruikeduiker

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 19, 2013
Messages
1
Johan, Stefan,

thanks for thinking with me, I have just been playing with the wire connections and instead of the halogen bulb I put the mulitmeter just to be sure nothing could got shorted.
Just like you guys where guessing it doesn't matter which one of the brown leads goes to brown marked PCB point, as you can see in picture 3 I was guessing that the second brown wire went on the blue ponit.
WRONG WRONG WRONG
It should be connected to the RED wire spot (plus side), this means that the controlling is done in the negative side of the circuit.

Soldered the wire from blue to red and the lamp is working, lucky for me, another problem solved and a buddy happy again.

Thanks for the help and this thread can be closed.
Hey Guys,

I am trying to do the same thing, replacing the battery with a LI-on, using a CRee LED lamp, but when I try to use the switch nothing happens, what needs to be connected? the brown and red, the blue and red, the brown and blue ?
thanks
I should be able to use the magnetic switch in the lamp itself?
 
Top