LightHearted
Enlightened
Hi all,
While at the dollar store I found an interesting 3 LED 2AA blinkie light. I figured it's hard to go wrong for a buck, so I bought it. Well, the yellow LEDs were pathetically dim, so I decided to see if I could do an LED transplant. Paid about $2 something for a new yellow LED from RS and hoped it would be brighter than the ones that came in the light. Don't remember the mcd - just based my choice on price. Although I had never done this before, I guessed the procedure to be pretty straight forward. Heat the solder and remove with a desoldering braid, remove the LED, then put in the new LED and resolder. Success! The replacement LED is much brighter than the originals.
This is too much fun!
While my solder job doesn't look all that pretty, it works fine.
Now I'm itching to see what I can do to other things I have that use LEDs. Here's where the problems will likely begin. First off, I don't know jack about electronics. I've shown myself that I can heat solder and remove it and solder in a new LED. That's about it. But man, it sure would be fun to see if I could put a set of super high output LEDs in that new Princeton Tec Aurora head lamp I just bought. The stock LEDs are kind of blue, and I'd bet that there are some 5mm white LEDs made (10,000-12,000 mcd?) that could put out more light than the stock ones. Do I dare try to do this? Of course there must be other things to consider when doing this sort of thing. Could these new LEDs require more power and somehow damage the light, or would the batteries just run down faster?
Anyone ever replace the LEDs in an Aurora?
It doesn't look like the board is easily removed.
I think those blue plastic rivets keep the board into the unit
Somebody stop me before I hurt someone! Either that, or tell me how to do this right!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif
Thanks,
Ken
While at the dollar store I found an interesting 3 LED 2AA blinkie light. I figured it's hard to go wrong for a buck, so I bought it. Well, the yellow LEDs were pathetically dim, so I decided to see if I could do an LED transplant. Paid about $2 something for a new yellow LED from RS and hoped it would be brighter than the ones that came in the light. Don't remember the mcd - just based my choice on price. Although I had never done this before, I guessed the procedure to be pretty straight forward. Heat the solder and remove with a desoldering braid, remove the LED, then put in the new LED and resolder. Success! The replacement LED is much brighter than the originals.
This is too much fun!
While my solder job doesn't look all that pretty, it works fine.
Now I'm itching to see what I can do to other things I have that use LEDs. Here's where the problems will likely begin. First off, I don't know jack about electronics. I've shown myself that I can heat solder and remove it and solder in a new LED. That's about it. But man, it sure would be fun to see if I could put a set of super high output LEDs in that new Princeton Tec Aurora head lamp I just bought. The stock LEDs are kind of blue, and I'd bet that there are some 5mm white LEDs made (10,000-12,000 mcd?) that could put out more light than the stock ones. Do I dare try to do this? Of course there must be other things to consider when doing this sort of thing. Could these new LEDs require more power and somehow damage the light, or would the batteries just run down faster?
Anyone ever replace the LEDs in an Aurora?
It doesn't look like the board is easily removed.
I think those blue plastic rivets keep the board into the unit
Somebody stop me before I hurt someone! Either that, or tell me how to do this right!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif
Thanks,
Ken
