I just destroyed a perfectly good Quicksilver V

I have just recieved 2 WYOS Lux5's from gessner 17 ( thanks, arrived pretty fast too ) so thought id put one in my beloved quicksilver V which i just discovered had a nice white VX1S LED in it.

So i pryed off the old star ( which came off easily ) and started cleaning the old epoxy off the heatsink with some alchohol when suddenly a popping sound and some smoke came out of the electronics
Me being utterly stupid had left the battery inside the tube and apparently some alchohol dripped into the electronics and while cleaning i must have squeezed the tailcap and shorted the whole damn thing. either that or both bare wires touched the body and puff it all went up in smoke.

I then decided to try to take the thing apart to assess the damage but the bloody heatsink is a ***** to pull off. i actually cut the e-can/heatsink in half with a dremel to ease the pressure but it was all for nothing. so i finally decided to press the whole thing out by pushing from the back using my press and it finally came out.
i then found out that what seemed to be a transistor or something was burned into carbon.

In short i now have an empty shell of a Quicksilver V ( which is still in perfect condition by the way ) with no electronics or heatsink and a VX1S Lux5.

So looking at the bright side i am now going to throw the VX1S in the the empty quicksilver shell and DD and OD it off 2 RCR123's ( i might add a small resistor ) or throw in a TWOJ and DD and OD it off a Li-ion 18650 ( i might add a small resistor here too ).
Any other suggestions ?

Oh im also going to have to buy another Quicksilver V to drop in the WYOS in it.

If your Quicksilver also has the single battery tube for one CR123, I'd like to buy that from you. I have been looking for one and only have the double battery tube.

Sorry to hear about the light!

onthebeam said:

If your Quicksilver also has the single battery tube for one CR123, I'd like to buy that from you. I have been looking for one and only have the double battery tube.

Sorry to hear about the light!

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nope sorry it is the double CR123 a single 18650 will fit nicely though as that is how i used it ( unprotected dunno about the protected ) i think i just found out that in the newer ones the 18650 does not fit.

if you have ( or anyone else has ) a 5W one in which a 18650 fits, even if it does not have an LED in it but as long as the electronics work and it's in good shape and are willing to part with it ill be happy to buy it as i really like this light.

The things not even dead a whole day and the buzzards are circling the carcass!

so no one wants to sell their quicksilver V ?

Welcome to the smoked/blown/toasted/fried/short-circuited/killed/dead/unusable/junk/danm-I-fried-my-light/melted club!

It's always good to share our blunders (I've had plenty), not only the pretty mods.

Amonra said:

I have just recieved 2 WYOS Lux5's from gessner 17 ( thanks, arrived pretty fast too ) so thought id put one in my beloved quicksilver V which i just discovered had a nice white VX1S LED in it.

So i pryed off the old star ( which came off easily ) and started cleaning the old epoxy off the heatsink with some alchohol when suddenly a popping sound and some smoke came out of the electronics
Me being utterly stupid had left the battery inside the tube and apparently some alchohol dripped into the electronics and while cleaning i must have squeezed the tailcap and shorted the whole damn thing. either that or both bare wires touched the body and puff it all went up in smoke.

I then decided to try to take the thing apart to assess the damage but the bloody heatsink is a ***** to pull off. i actually cut the e-can/heatsink in half with a dremel to ease the pressure but it was all for nothing. so i finally decided to press the whole thing out by pushing from the back using my press and it finally came out.
i then found out that what seemed to be a transistor or something was burned into carbon.

In short i now have an empty shell of a Quicksilver V ( which is still in perfect condition by the way ) with no electronics or heatsink and a VX1S Lux5.

So looking at the bright side i am now going to throw the VX1S in the the empty quicksilver shell and DD and OD it off 2 RCR123's ( i might add a small resistor ) or throw in a TWOJ and DD and OD it off a Li-ion 18650 ( i might add a small resistor here too ).
Any other suggestions ?

Oh im also going to have to buy another Quicksilver V to drop in the WYOS in it.

Click to expand...

I know it is perhaps "painful" for me to ask, but can you post pictures of the inside of the light? I have always wondered about how everything fits together and how much space is inside between the battery and the LED heatsink.

Will

wquiles said:

I know it is perhaps "painful" for me to ask, but can you post pictures of the inside of the light? I have always wondered about how everything fits together and how much space is inside between the battery and the LED heatsink.

Click to expand...

ooo-oooo-ooo!!! Autopsy! :devil:

im gonna have to look through the garbage can for that. but here's a description:
under the lux there is a heatsink ( obviously ) which is pressfitted into the head ( i do not think there was any glue though ). this heatsink is about 4-5mm thick and under it there is a round PCB ( e-can style ) with electronic parts on both sides. attached to the round PCB there is another square PCB going down the length of the tube for about 2cm and about 1cm wide, and this pcb has the two buttons which control the brightness levels. behind the square pcb there is a piece of round but slightly flattened plastic rod about 1.5cm diameter and 2cm long, and this serves to push the square pcb against the tube so it does not push back when u press the buttons. under all of this is another plain round pcb with nothing on it except for a dimple in the middle and this acts as the +ve battery contact. this pcb is also connected to the top pcb with a wire.

so in short there is ample space for some other stuff you might want to add if you remove the flattened plastic rod.

enjoy

if you want me to destroy another one for you please feel free to send me one

greenLED said:

Welcome to the smoked/blown/toasted/fried/short-circuited/killed/dead/unusable/junk/danm-I-fried-my-light/melted club!

It's always good to share our blunders (I've had plenty), not only the pretty mods.

Click to expand...

I guess I'm a part of the club now too. I got pretty discouraged these past few weeks seeing that I messed up quite a few lights I really liked. My V2 I tried opening and now it's stuck in a semi-unthreaded head stage where the beam's crap now (and I can't tighten it back down either), fried 2x TM-310H boards (partially, they still "kinda" work but only when the button is pushed in part perfectly, very sensitive, dunno why), messed up my Q3 somewhat doing a 2-stage mod...the stupid Cu pads on the PCB are too thin and melt off too easily from a soldering iron and you can't use a heat gun to reflow the solder (as it melts the plastic switch, my switch is somewhat melted and got stuck down once, but now works). Now, instead of the low-high-off routine the switch is supposed to do, I get low-high-low-low-high-off (6-stages instead of just 3), and sometimes that 2nd low (after the high) is off, but only until I slightly press the button, then it goes back to low, and it's sensitive to how tight I make the tailcap too, so sometimes it operates off-high-off-off-high-off or off-high-off-off-off-off, but I have to go thru 6 clicks to make sure it's off and not draining the batt. And finally, tho I didn't mess up my TM-313X, almost had a failed mod after making my own emitter board out of copper-clad board, soldering a Lux on it and it wouldn't turn on in the light (tho turned on during testing), so I had no negative connection, but I finally got it to work (most of the time) and now I love using the light as it has great output and throw (DD Lux1 off a 14500). Took me 3-4 tries of raising the Lux upwards to better fill in the hole/gap to the reflector and finally got it to fit well where I'm not losing a lot of light from the gap (gap's gone now) and the beam is nice. This last success sorta made me feel a bit better, but I still don't like that my Q3 is sorta busted/quirky and my V2 is basically useless at the mo.
Sorry to hear about your quicksilver, but at least you're part of the club now.

Amonra said:

so no one wants to sell their quicksilver V ?

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Mine is working nicely with its WXOS in it so I ain't selling

btw mine also had a VX1S star originally, but there was so much thermal epoxy on it that I had to pull it out in pieces... Didn't fry anything, but I didn't intend to destroy the original star....

NoFair said:

Mine is working nicely with its WXOS in it so I ain't selling

btw mine also had a VX1S star originally, but there was so much thermal epoxy on it that I had to pull it out in pieces... Didn't fry anything, but I didn't intend to destroy the original star....

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How nice of you to throw salt on the open wound :mecry: it's ok i have dealt with my emotions now :laughing: did the WXOS make a lot of difference in the output ? maybe even better throw ?

The original LED came out rather easily on mine, i just levered it off with a wide flat screwdriver.......it's the heatsink that was a *****

Amonra said:

How nice of you to throw salt on the open wound :mecry: it's ok i have dealt with my emotions now :laughing: did the WXOS make a lot of difference in the output ? maybe even better throw ?

The original LED came out rather easily on mine, i just levered it off with a wide flat screwdriver.......it's the heatsink that was a *****

Click to expand...

The WX0S is quite a bit brighter, but knowing what I do now I probably wouldn't have bothered. My VX1S was a bit green on the lower settings, but since the WX0S was $40 and it still didn't prevent me from buying a U2 it wasn't money well spent I also put a new semi-textured reflector in the Quiksilver and it improved the beam a bit as well.
The U2 is quite a bit brighter than the WX0S as well and has a better tint (W0?) so I'm very happy with that one

The WX0S is nearly tintless at all light levels, but it is actually easier to see details outside with the X1 binned star.. The amount of thermal epoxy used on mine was very impressive and very frustrating

The Quicksilver has become my toolbox/around the house-light and runs nicely on 18650s for quite a while.

Sverre