[LWright]

In a second of extreme stupidity, I over volted my Niterider Minewt. Is there any option or do I buy a new light head?
I see head only are available on the niterider site.

 

[Homebrew]

What exactly did you do? Put the wrong battery on the Minewt head? If so, you should just need to replace the light engine (LED). I'd probably recommend doing that anyway because higher bin SSC P4 are readily available for about $5 - $10 depending on bin. Look for U or U2 bins in pure white tints emitter only (no stars). It's a relatively easy DIY. Do a search and I'm sure you can find some more details on modifying the Minewt.

If you messed up the electronics in the battery, you're SOL.

 

[LWright]

Just messed up the light by plugging it into a magicshine battery. being stupid, I assumed the minewt used four AAA and the magicshine four AA = same voltage.
Upgrading sounds great, will check out the diy.
Thanks

 

[Jim311]

Call NR and see what they offer you. Try being honest.. the worst they can say is that they won't help you out. You did pay a premium for the light, might as well see what their customer service has to say?

 

[MtbMacgyver]

Just messed up the light by plugging it into a magicshine battery. being stupid, I assumed the minewt used four AAA and the magicshine four AA = same voltage.
Upgrading sounds great, will check out the diy.
Thanks

The Minewt and Magicshine battery packs are the same voltage (7.4V). But the magicshine has the regulator in the light head and the minewt has the regulator built into the battery pack. So by plugging the magicshine battery into the minewt head you connected the LED directly to 7.4 volts without a regulator. That fried the LED in the minewt head instantly. Replacing the LED, as Homebrew suggested, will fix the problem and increase the light output slightly.

Btw, neither battery pack is using AA or AAA batteries. They both use 18650 cells. The minewt has 2 cells, both in series. The magicshine has 4 cells in a 2 parallel / 2 serial configuration.

 

[LWright]

Thanks, just ordered a SSC P4 U bin LED
Any hints on the solder job? I can solder 16 ga wire just fine, but circuit boards, not so sure about. need heat sinks?

 

[MtbMacgyver]

Thanks, just ordered a SSC P4 U bin LED
Any hints on the solder job? I can solder 16 ga wire just fine, but circuit boards, not so sure about. need heat sinks?

It's really not that bad and you don't need anything beyond a normal soldering iron. The P4 just has 2 leads and the center heat sink on the LED isn't soldered, so they're quite easy to remove and install. Being only 2 leads, you can heat one lead at a time and the led will tilt up to disconnect the first lead. Then you heat the second lead to remove it from the board. You may need a little bit of heat sink compound, but you can get that at Radio Shack or a computer store that sells components like CPUs.

Here's the thread with discussion and pictures about swapping out the LED.

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=458590

 

[LWright]

Guess I need more practice. Did not heat one side enough and ended up ripping off the contact that is glued to the circuit board. got a piece of wire soldered in so the lite works, but I won't be real surprised if it does not stand up to real life use. Next stop, magicshine torch.