Damage to LEDS after dropping?

[djans1397]

What gives?!?!?! I have dropped two different lights in the past month from arms level to a hard surfaced carpet. One was a Regalight WT1 and the other a Wolf Eyes Sniper with the 2 mode tactical R2 LED in it. BOTH have since essentially quit functioning. Are these LEDS THAT fragile? I was especially surprised to see that my tank of a light Sniper quit working. I mean... the LEDS will FAINTLY turn on, but no real light outpuit occurs. What did I do? and do I need to simply replace the LEDS?

Dan

 

[Marduke]

Most likely the LED's are just fine. Something else in the light (most likely some part of the electronic circuitry) is damaged or dislodged.

 

[vali]

I had an old 4x5mm flashlight (great runtime, i have to say) some years ago. It was dropped too and stop working. When i press the switch the leds blink, so i assume they are still fine. I think one of the transistors of the driver is broken.

Some day ill fix the driver or build a new one... :candle:

 

[Gunner12]

LED lights have more parts then an Incan one, usually. A LED light should have a driver which controls the voltage and current to the LED. But that shouldn't break that easily either because it's all solid state and doesn't heat up anywhere close to enough to desolder any of the components.

Try the usual, cleaning all contact points. Then try bypassing the tailswitch with a piece of metal. If it was a mechanical failure, then that wouldn't help.

 

[WadeF]

With the Regalight the switch maybe suspect if you dropped it. They don't look like the greatest of switches. Also make sure the battery didn't bash something inside, or the battery isn't damaged itself. Another possibility is the reflector moved and wacked the LED. I think with some of the cheaper lights where the reflector basically sits over the LED and is only held in place by the bezel putting some pressure on it, it opens the possibility for the reflector to flex or wiggle when dropped. Some lights are designed where the base of the reflector wouldn't be able to move and bang into the LED.

 

[primox1]

When I dropped my WT1, it lost its high and low mode, and a super low mode appeared. It became useless. :mecry: I found out that it was the driver that somehow became damaged from the impact. Maybe a spring for the driver contact would have dampened the shock...but too late now.

You can try and replace the driver for your lights (if the driver is the issue). The body of the WT1 is great IMO.

 

[Greg G]

This is why I have several lights that are direct drive, no converter board to fail. I always have one with me.

 

[sparkysko]

Dunno if those lights are buck boost or not, but inductor coils can be heavy and can 'jiggle' and a hard knock has been known to knock them loose.

 

[TITAN1833]

One thing that can happen and play havoc is when you drop the light the battery impacts on the driver board,thus the contact area is reduced and this will show as the light either not working or you may get flickering my advice if you drop a light is to check all the contact areas including the batteries before condemning the led