LED Lights - anybody taken them apart?

MikeO · Apr 18, 2014

I have several of these...

...on my Adv. I bough them from a chap in Hong Kong on eBay and, unfortunately, had several (3) which were from a bad batch where one or two of the LEDs failed quite soon after fitting.

The vendor was as good as gold and has replaced the defective lights, but it was economically unviable to return the defective units. I'm now wondering if there is some way of getting them apart to either cannibalise three and make one or two good lights, or fit new LEDs to repair them all.

The only fastenings visible after removing the fluted heat-sink from the rear of the light are three screws (removed here).

There is a joint at the front of the lamp, but there doesn't seem to be any movement there

Does anyone have any experience disassembling these - any tips?

Mike :nenau

Fanum · Apr 18, 2014

Give it up Mike.......the LED itself is only a fraction of the story......the controlling chip it's attached to is the bit that really supplies the wizardy......unless you are a fekking guru with PCBs and soldering new integrated chips onto them, there's little chance of this approach working

BTW, PM me your addy......

MikeO · Apr 18, 2014

Thanks Bill - I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to be doable...

AberdeenAngus · Apr 18, 2014

Now you've decided it can't be done you've nowt to lose.
Get the worst one ripped apart. That'll teach you how they are put together and give you a source of parts.

Fanum · Apr 18, 2014

AberdeenAngus said:
Now you've decided it can't be done you've nowt to lose.
Get the worst one ripped apart. That'll teach you how they are put together and give you a source of parts.

That too.......get stuck in there :beerjug:

Fanum · Apr 18, 2014

PS FWIW, I'd start by taking a very find blade to opposite sides of the seam here:

MikeO · Apr 18, 2014

Fanum said:
PS FWIW, I'd start by taking a very find blade to opposite sides of the seam here:

Not a seam - trick of the light, that's just the beginning of the thread...

Losttheplot · Apr 18, 2014

Might be worth working out how to remove the glass at the front, and saving these in case your replacement lights get twatted by a stone.

DAMHIKT :blast

Failing that i might be interested in a glass to replace a cracked one?

Fanum · Apr 18, 2014

Mike O said:
Not a seam - trick of the light, that's just the beginning of the thread...

....In that case, I'd attack it from the rear with a razor blade between the case and the back plate.......the PCBs are likely to be sealed on the seam at the front (if it's a real seam) so I reckon it was all shoved up into the cylindrical case from the back end.......if a needle will go into the joint between back plate and cylinder case, a hot razor blade may break it.

Losttheplot said:
Might be worth working out how to remove the glass at the front, and saving these in case your replacement lights get twatted by a stone.

The front glass will be behind a 2 mill (ish) aluminium lip in the body case.

It will all have been stuffed in from the rear end IME.

(I might have accidentally dropped a hammer on something similar once :augie

)

MikeO · Apr 18, 2014

AHA!

The whole back unscrews...

Three more screws...

ahutcheon · Apr 18, 2014

Nice dismantling job - I'd have broken something before realizing the back was threaded.

If you can get to the PCB, and if it is the LEDs that have gone, replacements will be dirt cheap if you can figure out what they are and find a supplier. And soldering surface-mount components is only scary if you don't know what you're doing (I'm a software guy, when I blow something up I hand it to the electronics bods and they make fiddly work seem easy).

Any pics of the lighty-up bits yet?

MikeO · Apr 18, 2014

Stuck here for now...

The plate rotates, the glass is now loose and if I insert a screwdriver through one of the holes, I can rotate the LED reflector unit...

Can't seem to get the plate to shift up the case... :nenau

AberdeenAngus · Apr 19, 2014

Cut the red wire

Fanum · Apr 19, 2014

AberdeenAngus said:
Cut the red wire

No the black one the black one!!!

:doh

Jon · Apr 19, 2014

MikeO · Apr 19, 2014

OK - still stuck.

I'm pretty sure that the main body of the lamp is a symmetrical threaded cylinder, with the front & rear screwing in - this would make sense from a production point of view. Which means I have to somehow unscrew the front end.

I am probably going to resort to a vice and pipe-grips to have a go at one of them to confirm this, unless someone can suggest an alternative? The problem if this is the solution is that I can't work out a way to get the front off without damaging the finish - which sort of defeats the object... :nenau

ahutcheon · Apr 19, 2014

Did the plate/reflector assembly rotate before you took the last three screws out (i.e. did the screws just hold the plate and reflector together, or did they also hold it to the body)? Is that corrosion on the periphery of the plate in one of your earlier photos, or is it hot melt or epoxy or whatever that's been used to secure the plate in the body?

Slipperyeel · Apr 20, 2014

Mike. Well done getting this far. I wondered if before you get medieval with it, you have a loupe to see if that check mark on the outer case is actually break or just a turned detail?

Looking at the images, ahutcheon seems to have the best idea, so the freezer and hot air gun might be your friends at this point :confused:

MikeO · Apr 21, 2014

Success!

Reluctant to use a vice and pipe wrench, I decided to shelve the thing for a few days to think about it. I woke up this morning with my subconcious having provided me with the solution. This is no different from trying to remove the lid from a jamjar...

A quick rummage in the kitchen drawer revealed...

...something I think I have owned for 20 years or so and can't ever remember using before today

I tried it and after a little effort the front bezel unscrewed smoothly from the main body...

...leaving no marks on either surface :thumb2

The main body is not symmetrical - it has a female thread at the back and a male one at the front. Both have O rings.

It looks like I'll just have to identify which LEDs are buggered and then swap them for good ones from the other two lamps...

...that's assuming the LEDs are at fault and not the little heat-shrink wrapped circuit board...

I'll report back when I've switched a couple over...

Mike

Outsider · Apr 21, 2014

Shocked there's no thermal paste between the LEDs and heatsink, or mechanical fixing for that matter (relying on the reflector assembly it seems).

- Outsider
Via Tapatalk on iPhone.

LED Lights - anybody taken them apart?

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