Connecting a driver and P60 Shell

[kerneldrop]

So I'm told soldering a driver to a heavy P60 copper shell is very hard. What is an alternative method? I was thinking about putting a couple drops of Jb weld around the driver and shell. Or maybe a thermal adhesive paste instead?

Does the driver even need to be attached to the copper shell?

 

[scalpel_ninja]

I have a heavy copper slug drop in made by Vinh and the driver is soldered to the copper at three spots. It came loose and I was able to resolder it at those points without much trouble. Wasn't pretty because the heat kept leaching away, but the solder stuck and holds well now.

 

[pc_light]

It depends on the means by which the driver is connected to battery ground but in most cases, yes because it needs to be electrically connected.

 

[kerneldrop]

I didn't realize the driver needed an electrical connection to the shell. I'll just solder it.

 

[kosPap]

even quite leye, here is a tip...

pre-tin the shell before installing the driver. At the exact locations you gonna solder the driver to.
By pretinning Imean put a light coat of solder before assembly. this way yuo will be able to heat the shell significantly, without damaging the driver tec.

 

[Duster1671]

The only challenge here (assuming you have good solder and good flux) is getting the slug hot enough. Depending on its size and how powerful of a soldering iron you have, the iron might not be enough.

I've had success using a hot plate to heat up the entire pill and then using the iron to get more heat in the area where I want to solder. I use this method to tin the slug first and then just bridge the gap to the driver.

 

[Buck91]

I'm not very good at this and my current examples are NOT pretty... but I've done a good handful. a good wattage, HOT iron is required. I like to aggressively feed in the solder and then kind pull away the iron tip and the solder at the same time. Hard to explain but if you don't time it right its really hard to get the solder to remain blobbed in the tiny crack between the driver OD and the pill ID. I suspect a thicker gauge solder than I've been using would help.

 

[F89]

I made a couple of quads with nickel plated copper modules. The method I used to ground the 17mm driver (H17Fx) was to drill a small hole in the side of the module cavity and solder a wire into it which I then soldered to ground on the driver. From memory the driver was a press fit anyway, but you could use a little epoxy to make sure it was solid.
My main reason behind the ground wire was to ensure a solid ground connection and because of the process I used to install the MCPCB, by which I directly soldered to the module and reflowed the LEDs (by heating the entire module on a hot plate). I didn't want to mess up the LED adhesion by then attempting to solder the driver to the module.
I hope this all makes sense.
The end result, although a little fiddly, is excellent.

 

[kerneldrop]

I wish these heavy copper shells were still available. Mtnelectronics isn't going to reorder them. After playing with a few I found the best way for me was to just crimp the driver in place.

I'll use yalls methods if I can find some more shells