smoking nite-ize mag

Bonez

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Messages
64
Location
Rochester NY
So I was bored this morning, and the ace hardware by my dorm sells the nite-ize white led upgrade for my *gasp* still stock mini maglite. I picked one up and put it in forgetting that when you put it in it automatically turns on. Well I had the polarity reversed, and set it down for a sec. When I next looked at it, there was a thin wisp of smoke coming from it and then I realized that I had the polarity reversed. I took it out, waited for it to cool down and put it in the correct way where it immediatley fired right up. My question is, is there any sort of regulation circuitry that I may have damaged by leaving it in reversed, or is it just a resistor direct drive. From the plot on flashlightreviews, it seems to be semi regulated, so should I just wait and see if it burns out or dims quicker than it should or just suck it up and buy another one (theyre not that expensive)??

:stupid:
 

parnass

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 11, 2005
Messages
2,576
Location
Illinois, USA
One of my NiteIze LED upgrades smoked when I inserted it with reverse polarity, too. Luckily, I was able to remove it quickly when I saw the smoke and it has worked ok for the past several months.

It will probably have a shorter lifespan, but it costs less than $5 so I won't worry about it too much. :)
 

Bonez

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Messages
64
Location
Rochester NY
Well as long as it worked for several months.... I just wanted to see how bright they were and will probably upgrade to a terralux later....... thanks for the moral support!!:thanks:
 

Me Too

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Joined
Feb 26, 2006
Messages
32
Location
Athens Al.
I did the same thing without reading the package. I left it in untill I seen it smoking inside the lens. The light was a little dark so I put in another and it was a lot brighter. I gess I nearly burned it out. You might want to try another LED also because you may have damaged it.
 

CLHC

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 25, 2004
Messages
6,001
Location
PNW|WA|USA
Wow!

I smoked the TerraLux TLE-5 on the Mini Maglite and a Diamond DB-3W. That's all, hopefully, for now. :huh:
 
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