Need help with botched Arc4 Surgery

I'm looking for someone to fix a screw up of mine. I tried unsuccessfully to open an Arc4 . There was a thread some time back where this fellow opened his and changed the emitter. Thus bringing new life to his light. I thought I would try the same. I failed miserably. I still have most of the components. However a couple are missing I think. Don't know for sure. And if there are any missing couldn't say what they might be. Most of the components are still burried in the epoxy like stuff.



The thread that led me to this is here. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ead.php?t=82534

I'm not saying it will be easy. Let me know what you think.

cheers, ZWF

Thats enough to make me cry. I hope it was not a working model.

C

Quite a mess you have there, ZWF. :candle:

Looks like a lot of components and interconnects have been sheared off.

You would have to:

1. remove the driver can
2. de-encapsulate it (a lot of work picking out epoxy)
3. replace all damaged components (assuming you know what the components are and can acquire them)

These steps would take many hours (especially 2 and 3) - it would have to be a labour of love.

I would suggest that an easier solution would be to replace the guts with a new driver that suits your needs. You could be less gentle with removing the components/boards so that would save some time. You could also replace the emitter. Perhaps someone could just machine you a new screw-in light engine that could accept a variety of emitters (Cree/Lux/K2). Good Luck!

Paul

that ARC4 was worth $160 credits before surgery

I'm surprised that there is not a single curious minded engineer type that doesn't wish to see what's on the inside of an Arc4.

ZWF, you may have already seen these, but here's what's inside. These board have also suffered damage.

These are not my pics (sorry, I don't remember who took them):



The problem is that most SMD devices have a top mark code that can not always be decoded and tracked back to a specific manufacturer or part number. In fact, the same marking may be be used by different manufacturers for different parts. The case style can sometimes help with deciphering, but that can take many, many hours.

If you don't want to spend that time, I would suggest gutting the light engine and installing another driver.

Paul

Looking a little closer at your board, it *may* be repairable with a reasonable amount of effort.

It looks like the following items have sheared off:

1. 2x three-terminal devices (likely reverse battery polarity protection MOSFETs)
2. 5x capacitors (4 big, 1 small)
3. 2x resistors (partially)
4. power interconnects to the main board

Note that the pics I posted above are for a different revision board than yours.

Paul