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FrozenGate by Avery

Put a battery in backwards...... :(

SpyderFire said:
I built that , When i placed the heatsink on the coil , it kept the driver from flickering.

From looking at these pictures , I can tell it was not my soldering job on them.

when I solder through the contact points, i use a tinned thin wire and after its soldered through the hole , i clip the excess wire close to the board level.

I never heat the board enough to where components "move around" the board.
Click to expand...
Wait, did you build the entire laser or not ? Or only preset the driver ?

I do not understand, you say that soembody went and redid all the good soldering with his bad soldering . :thinking: Huh?

Input explanation below, please.
 





The HeatSink was applied to the inductor. IMO it should have been installed onto the Driver IC. It very will could have shorted the inductor to the case.
 
@Eudaimonium
I built the entire laser. I dont know how or why the connections were "redone" , other than to make sure they are fine , by either the user or another person with a soldering iron.

@coherent
There was a layer of thermal tape between them? how would it short? please explain how you think that would happen.
 
The IC is a FET, or field effect transistor. It is what makes the most heat.

From the pictures I can tell that driver has never been properly soldered. If it had been the leads for the diode on the board would be tinned, but you can still see bare copper.

If you broke the coil then stuck that heatsink on there that could easily contact the case it is pretty easy to see how it could have been shorted out and killed. At that point the diode was probably being direct driven and thats why it was killed when the battery was put in backwards. From the pictures though I can't ever see how the heatsink was on the coil.

This just reeks of poor build quality by someone who really shouldn't be selling whole builds. The fact that you put a heatsink on the coil and not an IC (the part that has the thermal protection circuit) shows quite a bit in my opinion.
 
SpyderFire said:
@Eudaimonium
I built the entire laser. I dont know how or why the connections were "redone" , other than to make sure they are fine , by either the user or another person with a soldering iron.

@coherent
There was a layer of thermal tape between them? how would it short? please explain how you think that would happen.
Click to expand...
@SpyderFire

I'm not saying it did at all just that it could have. I am actually defending You! The driver You built worked fine until the battery polarity was reversed. Others might criticize the soldering job, but I have seen worse believe me. These batteries pack a very hefty punch, and just because a chip is rated for a certain protection factor DOES NOT MEAN IT ACTUALLY IS. Things happen in manufacturing, so that some will be above the limit and some below. My Advice is to just pop in a new driver and hit Go. Problem solved!
 
Pontiacg5 said:
The IC is a FET, or field effect transistor. It is what makes the most heat.

From the pictures I can tell that driver has never been properly soldered. If it had been the leads for the diode on the board would be tinned, but you can still see bare copper.

If you broke the coil then stuck that heatsink on there that could easily contact the case it is pretty easy to see how it could have been shorted out and killed. At that point the diode was probably being direct driven and thats why it was killed when the battery was put in backwards. From the pictures though I can't ever see how the heatsink was on the coil.

This just reeks of poor build quality by someone who really shouldn't be selling whole builds. The fact that you put a heatsink on the coil and not an IC (the part that has the thermal protection circuit) shows quite a bit in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Exactly this , if the soldering was done properly, the little goldish rings around holes to solder wires to would be silverish color from tinning.

You cannot remove that layer of solder, especially with THAT soldering skill.

It's not my place perhaps, and last thing I want to do is make enemies here, but SpyderFire you do not appear to be telling the truth here.
 
RA_pierce said:
I don't think it has anything to do with reverse polarity. The driver can handle it.
I've accidentally installed batteries backwards a few times with a V5 Flex and MicroBoost.
It looks like the assembler really fcked up the driver.
That is the problem.
Click to expand...

I second that. I have placed my batteries backwards a lot of times and no damage has occured. as the other people said, its a mechanical problem. ask dr lava if he can repair the driver, before buying a new one.
 
Guys, please dont flame spyderfire. No money has actually been exchanged we did a trade.

Please keep on topic here. I really dont think spyderfire should be responsible for anything that happened to this laser. The laser arrived in "working" condition regardless of the workmanship. I did not post names here because I dont believe in pointing fingers. Everything happened when I reversed the battery.

I will see if drlava can repair the driver, if not then I will buy a new one. The laser is in my hands and was broken by me. I am not complaining. I am just going to do the next best thing and fix the problem "regardless" whom of which may have caused it.

As for soldering, I do not "currently" own a soldering iron. I cannot measure the current draw on the driver until I borrow a meter.

I appreciate the help and I think I have things under control now. If you have any more useful information please feel free to post it. I do not want to see any fighting or anything along that line anymore.

Thanks,
Jeff
 
Guys, let's not jump over Spyder for his soldering skills. It's not a beautiful job, but there are no shorts or other severe problems. A real soldering problem would've blown this laser long before this.

What probably happened was that the driver was fixed to the heatsink and worked relatively fine under normal conditions (shorter duty cycle, battery in the right position). However, when the battery was inserted incorrectly, the driver was mechanically dislodged and damaged, as seen on the inductor, exposing parts for accidental conduction. Some short or other problem probably caused catastrophic overheating in the power IC.

The driver should've been more securely mounted, and the heatsink put on the FET or IC rather than the inductor, especially being driven at such high currents. Still, it is unlikely that the soldering job was to blame for the demise of this driver.
 
Bionic-Badger said:
Guys, let's not jump over Spyder for his soldering skills. It's not a beautiful job, but there are no shorts or other severe problems. A real soldering problem would've blown this laser long before this.

What probably happened was that the driver was fixed to the heatsink and worked relatively fine under normal conditions (shorter duty cycle, battery in the right position). However, when the battery was inserted incorrectly, the driver was mechanically dislodged and damaged, as seen on the inductor, exposing parts for accidental conduction. Some short or other problem probably caused catastrophic overheating in the power IC.

The driver should've been more securely mounted, and the heatsink put on the FET or IC rather than the inductor, especially being driven at such high currents. Still, it is unlikely that the soldering job was to blame for the demise of this driver.
Click to expand...
Actually, from what I can tell on the pictrues,

Host used for this laser is a Cree C6. Ya'all see where this is going.

Cree C6 has a little driver pill (as they call it), fantastic little thing, it threads into the battery barrel from the front, and it comes with a little brass ring which you can solder to 16mm boards that usually contain drivers (or simply a contact board in our case).

And from what I can also see, driver was positioned where an LED emitter would have been placed on the driver pill if this was a flashlight.

Hence, battery was hitting nothing more than a contact board secured (pressfited) in the driver pill. Both driver and diode's pins do not suffer any mechanical pressure, which is why I love these Cree lights.

So... back to the drawing board. What could've caused the problem?
 
No SMD diode is going to be able to handle a short from a battery. It most likely failed shorted, sending the full power of the battery into the chip and other components in reverse polarity.
 
If more pictures are required.... I have a better camera I can borrow. Just tell me what u want to see and its done.
 
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