Snapped emmitter tabs

In building by petzl zoom 5W mod on the weekend, I got a bit careless and managed to snap both the emitter tabs off- I managed to solder directly to the tab stubs but its not a great contact. Has anyone got a magical solution that will save me from buying a new emmitter?

Newbie mistake, and in future I'll thermal epoxy the tabs to the heatsink before soldering to them.

gearfreak said:

In building by petzl zoom 5W mod on the weekend, I got a bit careless and managed to snap both the emitter tabs off- I managed to solder directly to the tab stubs but its not a great contact. Has anyone got a magical solution that will save me from buying a new emmitter?

Newbie mistake, and in future I'll thermal epoxy the tabs to the heatsink before soldering to them.

Click to expand...

I think you will be ok. I have soldered to the little nubs before and have not had any problems and that was quite a while ago.

I've done the same thing. It seems like soldering to the tab stubs is fine as an alternative solution.

Thanks for the reassurance, as the headlamp is going to cope a beating in races (and my soldering is not great) I might do a bit of judicious reinforcing with epoxy just to be sure of its mechanical strength.

the first time i did that... i dremeled away some of the plastic and soldered to the lead that broke off (not realizing that you could solder to the tab next to it).. if you want to make sure things won't break later.. epoxy the wire down.

It is quite difficult to solder directly to the shortie tab on the cathode side.. a bit of work with a dremel or needle file to remove some plastic (x-acto also works) to make some more metal available to solder a wire unto... another nice trick is use small gauge wire.. 24ga is what i use just for a 1/2cm or so.. as a leader to attach the actual wire.. then ... epoxy wires to the heatsink if you have to worry about the shock isolation.

-awr