AmperSand
Enlightened
So for a while I was quite content with my PD31, it was one of my first forays into 18650 based lights. As time has gone on I have accumulated so many new nights and am now always seeming to favour my pocket class, neutral tinted lights.
So being that my 3 and a half year old friend had been suffering diminishing output and a noticibly cool blue tint, I decided to do something about it.
I had a spare nichia 219a 92 cri b10 bin led, an unused h22a maglite heatsink and a little spare time.
I purchased some rubber strap wrenches and a mini butane blowtorch.
I heated the PD31 head with the blowtorch directly, used the strap wrenches to open it up easy enough. Removed the mcpcb from the PD31 only to find under its standard copper mcpcb that the thermal compound was not at all on the star, pure copper. A tiny bit of hardened over heated thermal grease was still on the host. No wonder the output had been diminishing.
I put the h22a heatsink in a vice and heated it from below with the blowtorch, this made a really nice reflow tool for a single mcpcb.
I reflowed the nichia 219a in and resoldered, added some arctic alumina then reassembled and I must say I have never been happier with a nice compact hi cri neutral tinted light.
Wish fenix would do something like this from factory.
New life in an aging beast.
I favor this so much more than either my pd32ue or pd35 also.
Compact, hi cri, neutral tint and more predictable user interface!
I can see this getting far more pocket carry time now.
An old TK41i have laying around is looking like the next candidate to recieve some TLC.
So being that my 3 and a half year old friend had been suffering diminishing output and a noticibly cool blue tint, I decided to do something about it.
I had a spare nichia 219a 92 cri b10 bin led, an unused h22a maglite heatsink and a little spare time.
I purchased some rubber strap wrenches and a mini butane blowtorch.
I heated the PD31 head with the blowtorch directly, used the strap wrenches to open it up easy enough. Removed the mcpcb from the PD31 only to find under its standard copper mcpcb that the thermal compound was not at all on the star, pure copper. A tiny bit of hardened over heated thermal grease was still on the host. No wonder the output had been diminishing.
I put the h22a heatsink in a vice and heated it from below with the blowtorch, this made a really nice reflow tool for a single mcpcb.
I reflowed the nichia 219a in and resoldered, added some arctic alumina then reassembled and I must say I have never been happier with a nice compact hi cri neutral tinted light.
Wish fenix would do something like this from factory.
New life in an aging beast.
I favor this so much more than either my pd32ue or pd35 also.
Compact, hi cri, neutral tint and more predictable user interface!
I can see this getting far more pocket carry time now.
An old TK41i have laying around is looking like the next candidate to recieve some TLC.