What happened?

shadowbuds · Feb 28, 2007

A couple months ago I bought http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1137 and for some reason i've been playing with it and some others I had around. I wanted to see if I could make it brighter and see what happens so I pop my 3.7 14500 AA size battery in and WOW! It's about 4x brighter and the light is actually getting hot now. So I started thinking this is probably going to kill the LEDs (i think i'm over driving them?) so I remove the battery and place the older alkie back in. It's not working with the 1.5v AA duracell battery that was once working 5 minutes ago. What happened? Did I fry something? The light works great when I pop the 14500 back in but will not work with the regular AA cell.

What happened?

GeorgePaul · Feb 28, 2007

Have you tried a fresh 1.5 Duracell AA?

Mike Painter · Feb 28, 2007

There has to be somthing that steps up the voltage and I'm guessing you let the magic smoke out and it is now a direct drive.

Long John · Feb 28, 2007

I guess you have fried the boost driver and run the light DD with the LiIon.
But you haven't lost much money in this case :grin2:

Best regards

_____
Tom

shadowbuds · Feb 28, 2007

GeorgePaul said:
Have you tried a fresh 1.5 Duracell AA?

I just tried a fresh AA cell, no light. I didn't see any magic smoke... I really like how insanely bright it is now but i'm not sure how long that will last...

HarveyRich · Feb 28, 2007

I didn't see any magic smoke

...
Sounds like you already smoked it the first time. You only get one round of smoke out of a blown boost circuit.

Mike Painter · Feb 28, 2007

HarveyRich said:
...
Sounds like you already smoked it the first time. You only get one round of smoke out of a blown boost circuit.

Per voltage applied. I'm guessing that 12 volts would give a bit more smoke.

zapper · Feb 28, 2007

I did the same to one I had but I did it on purpose. The board is fried and you can never go back... But then again, why? You are now actually driving them just a little over spec. At least mine is only at about 40 mA each LED with a fresh 14500 and puts out very nice light. Enjoy it for as long as it lasts. Mine has lasted quite a few charges so far and when it's gone, so what. $2 and there you go again!!:laughing:

shadowbuds · Feb 28, 2007

I'm blown away at how much brighter it is now. Does anyone know how long this will last until they burn out? I'm tempted to buy another one for my other 14500 battery.

Edit: How long did you use yours for zapper?

zapper · Feb 28, 2007

Measure the current at the tail cap. If it has gone DD then the current at the cap should be what the LED divide between them. If they haven't gone angry blue then even if you get half life from them, it should still be greater than 1000 hours = 42 continuous days.

Edit: At least three battery charges so far. One just for torture test continuous burn. No problems with mine. YMMV!!

cratz2 · Feb 28, 2007

Yeah, I'd think that if you only use it intermittantly, it will see quite a bit of lifetime. if you leave it running nonstop on your desk, it probably won't last quite so long.

I've popped a 14500 into each of my XNovas (other than the UV one) and it is brighter, but not radically so. More brightness, less runtime.

Also, I don't know if they are easily availble anymore, but I've built several lights using Nichia CS LEDs direct driven on a 10440 or a 14500 cell. The C0 bins (the ones with the blue center and green surround that everyone uses) tend to last a LONG time. The B0 (more consistantly blue) don't seem to last as long.

EngrPaul · Feb 28, 2007

Those LED's start life blue. Who cares if you make them angry.:laughing:

I can send you some better LED's if you need them. To change them, carefully pull the front bezel straight away from the flashlight.

srvctec · Mar 1, 2007

Mike Painter said:
Per voltage applied. I'm guessing that 12 volts would give a bit more smoke.

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Mike Painter

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