A2 aviator burned out led

[vicv]

I just received a round A2 aviator from a trade I made on here. My first surefire. Geez I love this thing already. But one of the 3 leds are burned out. The member I traded with was fully honest about it.
But, I would like to repair it. I just got off the phone with surefire, and I can send it away to them for repair. My worry is it’s an old light and they will not have the parts to repair and offer a new led light replacement (saw that on a post here before).
All the old posts are missing pictures so hard to follow along
Is this something I could fix myself? Solder on a new led? If so what is a replacement red led?
It doesn’t appear the aftermarket led rings are around anymore
Thanks

 

[scalpel_ninja]

Maybe post photos of your light in its current state and I’m sure you’ll get some helpful info from fellow CPF members. 😊

 

[vicv]

Sure

 

[yazkaz]

Is it true that all aftermarket onion rings are not available anymore? Also, is it possible to remove the stock ring and have the bad LED replaced? AFAIK it's just a conventional 5mm LED and such......

 

[vicv]

There are a lot of different 5mm leds out there to choose from. I could take the LED ring out, but what I see inside of the head, there are no solder points for the leds. I would prefer to have a solid game plan before starting any work on it, Especially as I am able to send it into Surfire. I’m just wondering if anyone has recently sent an old out like that into sure fire to have repaired. Whether they even have parts anymore

 

[Duster1671]

This is repairable with some basic tools and soldering skills. When you remove the head and bulb, you'll see the back side of the LED ring with three small Phillips head screws. Remove those screws and the ring will fall right out (maybe with some gentle coaxing). From there, the burned out LED can be replaced. They're just thru-hole soldered to the board.

You probably won't see it until you take the ring out, because the solder joints for the LEDs are shadowed by the spring fingers that compress when you assemble the head to the body. Your new solder joints need to be low-profile on the back side so as not to interfere with those fingers. The way I've done it is to cut the legs on the new LED to length before soldering, and to only feed enough new solder in to make a good joint, but not so much that it creates a bulge under the spring finger.

Be aware that if you change the LEDs to something other than stock, you may need to also replace the resistors that are in series with each LED. I can help you size those resistors if you want to go that route.

 

[vicv]

Thank you. I thought I had read something about there being two layers to the PCB and that’s what I was worried about. Otherwise I can Solder OK

Another issue is where to even find replacement LEDs. I would like to just replace with the originals as I’m happy with the colour and beam profile.
And with that in mind, would it just be better to send it back to surefire for repair? As I live in Canada it will cost me more than an American will but it still should only be 15 or $20 in shipping plus however long I have to wait. And that way I don’t ruin any possible future warranty by taking it apart myself. But that is only if they are even able to repair it. Has anyone recently sent an A2 in for repair? No sure fire warranty is good, but that doesn’t mean they have parts for at least a 15 year old light

 

[LEDphile]

Multi-layer PCBs really aren't a big deal to solder if they've been properly designed, and 2-layer PCBs barely count as multi-layer. So I wouldn't worry about that.
Replacement LEDs are available from most electronics distributors (Digikey, Mouser, Element14, Arrow, etc.), and I'm guessing you could get 3 new red LEDs shipped to your door for less than the $15 you expect it to cost to ship the unit to Surefire.

As an example, from Digikey Canada: https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/...RSjxqVmgQP1C4QAtLLIUPwArp1q1XbHGWuQVzdJ-uIfQA

 

[desert.snake]

It is better not to take risks and not send it for repairs in SF. once I sent them U2 for repair, and they sent a new UM2 in response. So chances are they will send you a new latest generation Aviator.

I just replaced the LEDs in my A2 6 hours ago. Secondaries are white, initially one of the LEDs was more blue than the rest, this is due to the resistor. The ratings are written the same, but the ohmmeter showed that one of the resistors is 10% less than the other 2. Through the welding glass, you can see that one diode eventually glows a little brighter than the others.

The solder points of the diodes are hidden under 3 petals of the contacts, they break off easily, one of them came off during the replacement, the second was not before. It is also necessary that after the replacement, the legs of the diodes do not stick out (that is, they are flush with the board), otherwise this petal short circuit them and there is no light.

You need a thin soldering iron. I used a mechanical holder and needle nose pliers.

If the legs of the new diode come out from behind high above the board, put the soldering iron between the board and the petal and press so that the legs become flush.

As you can see, mine no longer has 2 petals, but it works well so far.

 

[vicv]

Thank you. I wasn’t aware of them

 

[vicv]

It is better not to take risks and not send it for repairs in SF. once I sent them U2 for repair, and they sent a new UM2 in response. So chances are they will send you a new latest generation Aviator.

I just replaced the LEDs in my A2 6 hours ago. Secondaries are white, initially one of the LEDs was more blue than the rest, this is due to the resistor. The ratings are written the same, but the ohmmeter showed that one of the resistors is 10% less than the other 2. Through the welding glass, you can see that one diode eventually glows a little brighter than the others.

View attachment 24948

The solder points of the diodes are hidden under 3 petals of the contacts, they break off easily, one of them came off during the replacement, the second was not before. It is also necessary that after the replacement, the legs of the diodes do not stick out (that is, they are flush with the board), otherwise this petal short circuit them and there is no light.

You need a thin soldering iron. I used a mechanical holder and needle nose pliers.

View attachment 24949
If the legs of the new diode come out from behind high above the board, put the soldering iron between the board and the petal and press so that the legs become flush.

View attachment 24946

As you can see, mine no longer has 2 petals, but it works well so far.

View attachment 24947

Thanks. The petals were what I was most worried about. I did not know it would function without them. So you remove the pedals to get to those solder points below?
Yeah that’s what I’m worried about. I sent it off to surefire and they sent me back a new E2 L or an EDCT whatever it’s called. I don’t want either one of those. Even if no LEDs worked out rather keep this as an incandescent only if I had to

 

[desert.snake]

The petals were what I was most worried about. I did not know it would function without them. So you remove the pedals to get to those solder points below?

No, no, you don't need to break off the petals, they will then have to be soldered back, for this you need orthophosphoric acid, as I tried with rosin and it did not work.

If you take out the ring and look from the side, it will be something like this. You can not bend the petals too hard, so as not to break off. Unsolder the diode - from the side of its radiating part, attach a soldering iron and pull with pliers. When you insert new diodes, only if their legs come out far behind the board (where the petal is), then stick the soldering iron on the side between the petal and the board (shaded blue area), and press the legs so that they come out back and become flush with the surface.

 

[vicv]

That is a great drawing and really helps thank you. No your previous picture showed yours missing two of the fingers and you said it still works fine so that’s what had me confused

 

[desert.snake]

Yes, there should be 3 petals, I don't have 2, they all duplicate each other, so even with 1 it still works. But it's better to have 3 of them.

 

[vicv]

Ah. Thank you. That was very helpful. Do you know what wave length the factory red LEDs are? From that very helpful link above, there are a lot of red LEDs to choose from. All of different angle and luminance. I would probably go for the 15° and the 20,000 MCB as that should give the most throw and the most light I presume

 

[LEDphile]

High MCD is a brighter spot, narrower beam angle is a tighter beam, and the two generally go together.
But based on the construction of the ring, I'd probably take things apart and check to make sure that the petal behind the malfunctioning LED isn't shorted against the LED pins - that could cause the LED to not illuminate without there actually being an LED failure

 

[vicv]

Will do thanks. They look fine but there could be something bad behind it

 

[vicv]

I removed the led ring. I could see nothing coming out behind the bad emitter. I used my multimeter in diode mode, and the two working emitters glowed together but the bad one did not. So I can only conclude the emitter is bad. This should be fun without a helping hands thingy. I’ve also never seen such small resistors. I’m used to the little ceramic tubes with coloured stripes on them and metallic leads.
Looking at the specs for the leds I’ve found. At 6 volts I’ll need around a 200 ohm resistor to run them at spec 20ma. From what I understand, surefire already pushes them pretty hard with the factory 100ohm resistor.
So it will probably be alright as long as these can handle the overdrive as well. They are Crees

 

[Duster1671]

When I've worked on these, I kept all my iron work on the LED side of the board, opposite the petals. With the right amount of solder, I could get a joint that's flush on the bottom, or close enough, just by getting the LED in place and then flowing the solder from the top.

vicv - Does the red version have 100 Ohm resistors on the LED ring? My white and green versions both had 33 Ohm.

Also remember that there's a 10 Ohm resistor in the tailcap, in series with your 6V.

 

[vicv]

I believe the red is 100 ohm from what I read here. I’m also pretty sure I saw 100 written on them
Isn’t the tailcap resistor bypassed when you engage the halogen bulb? So it’s no longer in series with the led?