Pill Disassembly?

[csshih]

Hi, I broke one of my Q5 lights, and I have taken out the pill, but can't figure out how to disassemble it.

It looks like this:

the back:

 

[csshih]

Tried prying the back off, it seems stuck.

 

[LukeA]

Is it soldered in?

 

[greenLED]

Is it soldered in?

IT seems that way from the edges of the can.

Also, have you tried prying out that white plastic disc around the emitter? If it's epoxy, you'll need to heat it up somehow before removing, BTW.

 

[csshih]

The white plastic disc fall right off, but I want access to the circuitry, not the emitter.

I'm not sure if its soldered in, if it is, is there any easy way to get rid of the solder w/o a soldering iron?

 

[greenLED]

The white plastic disc fall right off, but I want access to the circuitry, not the emitter.

I'm not sure if its soldered in, if it is, is there any easy way to get rid of the solder w/o a soldering iron?

I mentioned the emitter side because sometimes the emitter stars are screwed in place.

As far as your second question... not that I know of. You need a way to direct a lot of heat into a very small area for the solder to be removed. You can get cheap soldering irons at Radio Shack. Get youself some copper braid while you're at it - nothing beats it to remove solder.

 

[jonathank]

Just last night I disassembled a pill to swap out the driver (circuit board part of the pill) which I had fried. It was my first one, so I'm no expert, but it may be similar enough to help.

The pill can had a dividing wall separating one end from the other. On one side of the wall was the emitter, on the other side the circuitry. The contact spring was soldered to the outer face of the circuit board, which was pressed into the end of the pill can opposite the emitter. There were two holes in the dividing wall for the wires to pass from the emitter to the circuit board.

My pill had some solder joining the perimeter of the circuit board to the rim of the can - on the same face as the contact spring is mounted to. I removed it with a small sharp knife. Yours doesn't look like it has any - if it does, it's too finely done to show in the pic. On mine it was rather rough, and obvious

Lifting off the plastic disc from the emitter exposed the two wires and the holes they passed through. After desoldering the wires from the emitter with a small soldering iron, I poked a small screw driver through one of the holes and pushed the circuit board out of the pill. This will likely damage the circuitry, but presumably it's toast anyway.

There was some rubbery foam material between the circuit board and the dividing wall, which I'm guessing was there to insulate the circuitry from the emitter's heat.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[csshih]

hm, thanks for the info, though my pill was different.

I just tried drilling a tiny hole in it, and it seems the circuit board is jammed on. no soldering, so I just used a pick and popped the board off.
seems that my LED and board are both broken

hollow space in the hole...

 

[LukeA]

hm, thanks for the info, though my pill was different.

I just tried drilling a tiny hole in it, and it seems the circuit board is jammed on. no soldering, so I just used a pick and popped the board off.
seems that my LED and board are both broken

hollow space in the hole...

Did you at least desolder the leads from the LED first?

 

[jonathank]

hm, thanks for the info, though my pill was different.

I just tried drilling a tiny hole in it, and it seems the circuit board is jammed on. no soldering, so I just used a pick and popped the board off.
seems that my LED and board are both broken

hollow space in the hole...

I'm a newb, no doubt you could tell - was hoping my one repair experience might help be useful to someone else - even to a Flashaholic!