Oh No! My Baby! What Have I Done!?

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gifA 6d 5watt Maglite mod I bought from Ufokillerz, today met its maker, so to speak, after I put 4 Nimhs fresh-off-the- charger into it with 2 half-dead ones. Good Lord it DIED! I think it melted the luxeon! I had heard the precaution of fresh Nimhs in reference to the LGI but not with this. What can I do? Just try to find another emitter? I am really bummed out... man.

Hmm, are you sure the Luxeon is dead?

Using four Nimhs fresh-off-the-charger with 2 half-dead ones could easily have caused the two half dead ones to reverse polarity if they too were NiMh/NiCd cells. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

I think Lambda's right -- zap the Luxeon leads with 6V and see if it lights up before replacing it.

I don't have the capability to zap anything, but I tried different batteries to no effect. Also, the emitter appears to be deformed.

In my hurry to test a torch once I placed one of the cells the wrong way round...the cell promptly burst and spread its contents over the interior of the torch!
I wondered why the light was insipid and the torch body was getting hot!
Alkaline cells do not like being reversed biased!

I think it's at least possible the emitter is open (dead), provided you got some light out of it? Even a brief flash? More likely several seconds?

If the 'half dead' cells were really that, only half used, there's no way they got reverse charged.

Cells 'hot from the charger' (at least mine) can be several tenths of a volt high. Each. In a DD light, with nothing to protect the LED, this can easily be a several fold overload on an already severely overdriven part.

So, did it light? Even for a bit?

Doug Owen

I did indeed light up, and the beam was not its usual self, it was more flood-ish than normal. Then after a second or two it went out and I figured that the tailcap was loose, so I turned it off, checked tail piece, tried to turn it back on, and nothing happened.

EMPOWERTORCH, are you saying the battery or the luxeon exploded?

it was a V voltage bin, min 7.35v and max 7.8 or so
when 4 fresh and 2 half dead cells, the voltage of the batteries might have been a lot lower, and since those 4 were fresh off the charger, they are able to produce abnormally high amperage. Might be because of the lower voltage causing the luxeon to draw more amperage, and those new batteries gave a lot of more amperage then the luxeon could handle.

did it turn a deep blueish color and start to dim? That's what you get right before it dies.

It was abnormally green, not at all blue.

I have read reports that vary about color when LS's die. The color is usually anywhere from green to blue in the spectrum, or anywhere in between depending on the LS, but the death color is always uncharacteristic of the given LS.

What happens when they die is this: basically, since it has more current running through it than usual, the emitter is putting out a lot more photons than usual (relative to current to a certain degree). This saturates the phosphor layer which can't keep up, so depending on the phosphor of a given LS, the death color will vary (if you didn't know, white LS's use RB (or blue?) emitters under the phosphor).

Mine became a very turquoise color right before it died on a fresh set of batteries.
It was a glorious W3 when it was alive, rest it's poor soul... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mecry.gif

Do the professionals think I should go ahead and commit myself to replacing the emitter? Or what if not that?

Don't ask us. Ask yourself. Do you feel comfortable? Do you know everything about doing it? If not then ask and we can help!

[ QUOTE ]
ubermensch said:
I did indeed light up, and the beam was not its usual self, it was more flood-ish than normal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bummer, man. Sorry.

Doug Owen

IsaacHayes, If it's just a matter of chipping the emitter's corpse off and soldering a new one on, I think that would be possible. But if it got any more complex than that I don't think I would be up to it. But who knows if I could even get a reasonably priced and quality replacement part?