LEDs and Driver Boards, etc

TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
My El Speleo Gnoma light has more or less packed up, it still sort of works but is not ideal. It's not that old but apparently parts are not available for it (I've been in touch with the manufacturer) which is a shame because it was a good light.

So I now have a good quality lamp housing with 26650 battery holder and have been looking for an LED and driver module so that I could hopefully replace the guts of the existing light with something new. However google/ebay do not seem to be turning up anything sensible, does anyone know of a source of LED driver modules and suitable LEDs. The driver would ideally have a few power levels, etc. and needs to be small to fit in the current housing.
 
F

Fjell

Well-known member
Little Monkey? Would the Nora 1 board fit, or be made to fit with a different LED, hacksaw or even stickyback plastic?
 
royfellows

royfellows

Well-known member
TheBitterEnd said:
......., it still sort of works but is not ideal. ....
Click to expand...

This is telling me that it could just be the LEDs. Bit on the dim side, is it?
Thing is that there is nothing to 'wear out' on an electronics PCB, so bar water ingress or physical damage it should be OK. Only mechanical part is the switch, in whatever form.
 
TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
Thanks all, I'll take a look at Deal Extreme  or Kaidomain. Little monkey do the the filthy Edna without a battery box so I could go for that option but then I can get a whole Fenix for less money. I more thinking it seems a shame to not make use of the exiting high quality housing but may be that's just flogging a dead horse.

The switch failed so I replaced it, however it was a fiddly job and now the light thinks the battery is flat even though it isn't. I am told by the manufacturer that the heat from resoldering the switch might have caused the fault. It's not a short as the voltage drop on the lowest setting when switched on is of the order of 10mV. The light works but includes the "handy" feature of causing the light to flash every few seconds when the battery is low. If it wasn't for the flashing it would be OK and obviously there is no saying what else is on the way out and might fail unexpectedly.
 
TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
Well, there 'ya go (am I reading this right - this includes the drivers etc. ? )

http://kaidomain.com/KDLITKER-P6-TRI-Triple-Luminus-SST-20-1000-Lumens-3V-9V-P60-Drop-in
 
royfellows

royfellows

Well-known member
Sorry about guessing it wrong, but the LEDs most common, like the Stenlights I have fixed.

Sorry, more guessing, but I would check all the other solder joints, using a fine tip for the small components. If you can work out the schematic, you could test at different points with the multimeter. The PCB is US anyway, so more experimentation will loose nothing.

As far as dropping anything in as a replacement, bear in mind that the existing tactile switch wont carry any appreciable load, just a few mA. Its momentary anyway. You would need a soft switching driver. I assume the lamp is operated by a tactile switch covered with a rubber like button, from a photo I found on the web it looked like it.
 
The_quiche_whisperer

The_quiche_whisperer

New member
I was looking into these https://www.taskled.com/dualflex.shtml there was a post on Facebook a few months ago where Biff had been messing about with one of his mates and he said they were good for a diy build. I never got around to buying one though.
 
MarkS

MarkS

Moderator
The_quiche_whisperer said:
I was looking into these https://www.taskled.com/dualflex.shtml there was a post on Facebook a few months ago where Biff had been messing about with one of his mates and he said they were good for a diy build. I never got around to buying one though.
Click to expand...

They certainly are good. I have one in my DIY light and it has been going faultlessly for many years.
 
Y

yuvals

Member
First, it is really shame that El speleo does not provide support for their lights especially considering the fact that the Gnome is not so old, I also had bad experience with their customers support :( 

As others said, Task led have great quality drivers and the dual led driver is specially designed for caving lights. I have used it in my homemade light and also to fix a malfunction ElSpeleo SE.

If you choose to use DE, drivers take into consideration that most drivers there are designed to work with clicky switch and not momentary.

I wrote a caving FW for Nanjg 105c driver that support dual channels and momentary switch in case you are able to burn FW to the driver 
 
David Rose

David Rose

Active member
My Scurion recently malfunctioned because water seeped into the battery box, travelled up the cable and wrecked the electronics.

Rolf has fixed it and upgraded it to 1500 lumens. It's clearly now an even more fantastic light.

I just wish I had a chance to use it  :cautious:
 
C

crickleymal

New member
TheBitterEnd said:
Well, there 'ya go (am I reading this right - this includes the drivers etc. ? )

http://kaidomain.com/KDLITKER-P6-TRI-Triple-Luminus-SST-20-1000-Lumens-3V-9V-P60-Drop-in
Click to expand...

Fairly sure that will include drivers. Delivery can take some time though.
 
royfellows

royfellows

Well-known member
Assuming it fits.

You can 'soft switch' any driver designed to work from 'hard' on - off.
Two ways.
One is to get the part number off the control chip and run a data sheet up by web search. One pin will be the control and soldered to ground. De-solder and ground it through your momentary push button. Possible but not for certain and finicky de soldering with risk of trashing.

Other way is switch the whole driver through an N channel power MOSFET using a Maxim 16054 push button controller. Bit complicated is the fact that the Maxim chip runs on a low voltage and would need power it from a low quiescence linear voltage regulator such as an LM2936.  I use a circuit like this as a soft transport lock in one of my lamps, I can put the wiring schematic up tomorrow if anyone wants.
 
TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
Thanks all, I've ordered from Kaidomain, not the one linked above because it wouldn't fit but an LED and Driver board. I also noticed that they do Nitecore headlights which look the same as Fenix so I threw one of those in the basket whilst I was at it as a plan B. Hopefully it will arrive before we get back to caving., I'll let yo know how it goes.
 
F

Fulk

Well-known member
Nitecore headlights which look the same as Fenix
Click to expand...

I believe that Nitcore is an American company, Fenix is Chinese, so I rather doubt the above statement.  ;)

Anyway, which Nitecore did you order?
 
TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
An American company that sources it's products from China?

Nitecore HC60, nothing at all like a Fenix HL60, no, no no  ;)
 
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