Brinkman 3W Cree Digital tortured and gutted

After my unintentional water soaking, I disassembled the light to clean it out. (By the way. the six screws on the PCB are extremely small and very easy to overtighten. I stripped two of them.) Not being satisfied with the water torture, I hooked my light up to a bench power supply to see if it could handle 4.2 volts(as in a Li-Ion cell hot from the charger).

It survived, but at the highest brightness level it was drawing 1.6A and getting a little stinky. The epoxy blobbed chip on the PCB was quite warm. Needless to say, all four levels were much brigther. I have measured new alkalines as high as 1.65V, so I know the circuit has to tolerate 3.2-3.3V at least briefly. If I can find a low dropout regulator, I'd like to run it with a Kaidomain 5AH Li-Ion cell, with the voltage set to 3.2 volts.

Agreed, a very sissy "heatsink" indeed, if you can even call it that.

But what can you expect for a B&M $25 light with modes??

I usually run mine at one level below max brightness. Well, at least there are vents... :tinfoil:

That reflector is plastic, right?

L.E.D. said:

That reflector is plastic, right?

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To be perfectly honest, I really didn't pay that close of attention it. It is heavy though; too heavy I think to be plastic. It may well be all aluminum. (Probably the aluminum they should have used for the heatsink)

Forgot to mention it - there is about a 1-1.25mm gap between the LCD and the PCB. I wonder if a tritium vial or two placed there wouldn't produce a nice, always on, backlight.

EvilLithiumMan said:

To be perfectly honest, I really didn't pay that close of attention it. It is heavy though; too heavy I think to be plastic. It may well be all aluminum. (Probably the aluminum they should have used for the heatsink!)

Click to expand...

It looks like teh reflector is fastened in some way to the sink. True?

Mike Painter said:

It looks like teh reflector is fastened in some way to the sink. True?

Click to expand...

No, it is a press fit over the Cree's collar. Remove it with just a slight pull.

On the positive side, that driver board is the most complex I have seen on a single emitter light. It looks pretty well soldered... no blob-ish looking solder pads, no crooked / off center placed SMT parts, the OP amp and IC solder work looks pretty clean too. Looks well thought out. No jumpers anywhere. IMHO solder quality looks better than some of the DX/KD jobs Ive seen posted.

L.E.D. - I checked it again, the reflector is definitely plastic.

kramer5150 - Yes, the PCB is very clean, appears to have far more sophistication than one would expect in a $25 retail consumer light.