lightly toasted driver/led - still okay?

[cheapbastard]

While troubleshooting a cheap and dodgy headlamp I foolishly put too much voltage through it and I saw a bit of smoke, which I assume was from the driver. Or could it be the led itself?
Now when operating normally at a safe voltage it does not seem to have been adversely affected. Is there any danger in continuing to use this?

 

[SmurfTacular]

Well if all the LED's are working, then the smoke didn't come from either of the LED's. If smoke is emitted from an LED, it will permanently die. I would assume the smoke came from some component of the driver. But your saying that it still works. I'm going to guess and say that you blew the diode that protects it from reverse polarity. I've done that before on self made circuits. If that is indeed the case, I don't see it being a danger to use it. If something else has fried, I still don't see it as threat to your safety. Unless ofcourse where talking about multiple Lithium Ion or Polymer. If your using alkaline's you should be fine.

If you don't mind, posting some pictures would be helpful.

 

[VidPro]

some stuff the extra "carbon path" now created can be wasting power.
check your consumptions or runtimes, they may have changed or will change as the carbon path increases.
check also the power consuption when off, or shelf time that an unused battery lasts in it.
meaning a new resistive path in, on or around a component. isnt nessisarily carbon, just conducting stuff abnormally.

when i see smoke comming out of a led itself, it was often totally visually screwed by then. it is more likly that it came from the curcuit stuff.
if the lid came off the led (dome thing) then it will let off a puff too, and still work good, but in time the led with no dome will get bad.