River Rock AAA led upgrade??

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My RR AAA has a very blue and blotchy LED. Is it easy to upgrade the LED to a white one? I have never done a custom before.

If it is easy....where can an ordinary guy get the new led?

Mention all details.

Steve

I know this thread is old, but I would also like to know. I do have some experience replacing emitters and this one doesn't look difficult. The tint on mine is so blue and dim I avoid using it. Surely a whiter/brighter replacement 5mm LED would be cheap, but I don't know which one would be a direct swap. I tried taking a picture of it removed from the light, but my camera wasn't having any of that. Anyone? :candle:

If it's anything like the 0.5 watt River Rock/Nuwai 2AAA, I just modded 2 of them with SMJ LEDs ($4.5 from sandwich shoppe).

Much whiter, a little brighter.

Strap wrenches (no heat) to open it up, and pretty easy soldering. Make sure you get the cut down version that works with reflectors.

Enjoy.

Yes, it is a RiverRock .5w 2xAAA I bought at target several years ago. I already got mine open, there seemed to be only a minimal amount of thread locker on the head.

SMJ LEDs you say? I'll look into that. Thanks for the input.

2 things I did to adjust/improve the beam.

The led height is determined by how much of the lead you cut off before bending and soldering. If you lower the led a tiny bit (maybe 1 mm or less) you can slightly de-focus the LED to make the light more floody, but less throw.

I also sanded/frosted/scuffed up the forward surface of the led (5 mm ones are soft) with a brillo pad to smooth out the beam and lessen the blotchiness.

I would recommend scuffing it up the stock led first before attempting to replace the led. YOu won't change the tint but you will smooth out the beam.

Also, if you do replace it, try it without the frosting first to see if you lke the beam.