calipsoii
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2010
- Messages
- 1,412
Hi CPF! :wave:
Like many of you, I just recently received my Nichia 219 HCRI emitters courtesy of arek98 over on CPF Marketplace.
I decided to document my first mod with this emitter. If you decide to try something similiar, I take absolutely no responsibility if things go south. I will, however, take the credit if they go perfectly. :huh:
I know you're all here for the pictures, so let's get right into it, shall we?
------------
arek98 hit it big in the bin lottery and got sw45 emitters with the highest flux and lowest forward voltage
The LED's have a small black arrow on them that points to the cathode. We need to know which way to mount it on our MCPCB. Luckily, I have here a Nichia 219 (~3300k) that found himself in an experiment gone horribly wrong. Cathode goes to negative terminal. :devil:
And now for a 219 with it's jello fully intact
This'll be our test subject for this evening. Let's strip it down and get ready to operate.
Be careful prying out the brass ring - you don't want to damage any of the SMT components. Rotate it a bit so that you're prying onto bare PCB.
Very carefully work at it until the ring pops up
To unscrew the pill from the head, slip something (I used the ends of some forceps) into these 2 notches, then rotate
Pop the plastic centering device off the pill
The white stuff you see is thermal paste. It conducts the heat from your soldering iron down into the pill and just generally makes it hard to get the wires to detach. Keep at it and be gentle.
Remove the MCPCB from it's pill and clean it up a bit.
Time to remove the old LED! Apply a tiny blob of solder with your iron, then heat it until the LED desolders. Work quickly or you'll scorch a lot of things in this step.
Our solder pads are a bit grungy, let's see if we can clean them up a bit.
Apply a little flux to the pads to help our emitter reflow smoothly.
You'll see the LED slump onto the MCPCB and pull itself into place when you've applied enough heat. Don't burn the emitter accidentally!
Arctic Silver is popular in the computer world as a heat conductor between CPU's and their heatsinks. It'll have to do because it's all I have. Apply a little to the back of your MCPCB.
Time to reattach those wires! They need to lay fairly flat for the plastic retaining ring to sit on top of them.
It took me 10 minutes to figure out that the black tape in the middle of the centering ring was... off-center. So I removed it and reapplied it.
Reverse the process you used to remove the pill to put it back into the head. Very carefully replace the brass ring.
Admire your work!
Now that your mod is complete, let's take this baby for a spin!
D10 Cool White -- D10 219 -- Haiku 119 -- Cree 85CRI XPG
Control shot (flourescent lighting)
Cool White D10
85CRI Cree XP-G
Haiku HCRI Nichia 119
D10 HCRI Nichia 219
That's it, thanks for following along!
Like many of you, I just recently received my Nichia 219 HCRI emitters courtesy of arek98 over on CPF Marketplace.
I decided to document my first mod with this emitter. If you decide to try something similiar, I take absolutely no responsibility if things go south. I will, however, take the credit if they go perfectly. :huh:
I know you're all here for the pictures, so let's get right into it, shall we?
------------
arek98 hit it big in the bin lottery and got sw45 emitters with the highest flux and lowest forward voltage
The LED's have a small black arrow on them that points to the cathode. We need to know which way to mount it on our MCPCB. Luckily, I have here a Nichia 219 (~3300k) that found himself in an experiment gone horribly wrong. Cathode goes to negative terminal. :devil:
And now for a 219 with it's jello fully intact
This'll be our test subject for this evening. Let's strip it down and get ready to operate.
Be careful prying out the brass ring - you don't want to damage any of the SMT components. Rotate it a bit so that you're prying onto bare PCB.
Very carefully work at it until the ring pops up
To unscrew the pill from the head, slip something (I used the ends of some forceps) into these 2 notches, then rotate
Pop the plastic centering device off the pill
The white stuff you see is thermal paste. It conducts the heat from your soldering iron down into the pill and just generally makes it hard to get the wires to detach. Keep at it and be gentle.
Remove the MCPCB from it's pill and clean it up a bit.
Time to remove the old LED! Apply a tiny blob of solder with your iron, then heat it until the LED desolders. Work quickly or you'll scorch a lot of things in this step.
Our solder pads are a bit grungy, let's see if we can clean them up a bit.
Apply a little flux to the pads to help our emitter reflow smoothly.
You'll see the LED slump onto the MCPCB and pull itself into place when you've applied enough heat. Don't burn the emitter accidentally!
Arctic Silver is popular in the computer world as a heat conductor between CPU's and their heatsinks. It'll have to do because it's all I have. Apply a little to the back of your MCPCB.
Time to reattach those wires! They need to lay fairly flat for the plastic retaining ring to sit on top of them.
It took me 10 minutes to figure out that the black tape in the middle of the centering ring was... off-center. So I removed it and reapplied it.
Reverse the process you used to remove the pill to put it back into the head. Very carefully replace the brass ring.
Admire your work!
Now that your mod is complete, let's take this baby for a spin!
D10 Cool White -- D10 219 -- Haiku 119 -- Cree 85CRI XPG
Control shot (flourescent lighting)
Cool White D10
85CRI Cree XP-G
Haiku HCRI Nichia 119
D10 HCRI Nichia 219
That's it, thanks for following along!
Last edited:
