The LED Engin LZ4!

[The Yin]

Well, I may take a break half way through this and return later. But, here is what I want to discus; the LED Engin LZ4.

Last night I just worked on my first LED Engin LZ4. I had the wiring planned out, and had my diagram on the screen for reference. I've wired up about ten Luxeons (still new too sabering), so I feared not the actual soldering part. I got my station heated up, got my wires tinned and was ready to tin the pads on the Engin.

-side note: prior to this I had read that the Engin's were tough to solder, so I was prepared for a little trouble.

So, I heated the pad and had a little trouble putting down some solder, but eventually got it. Some I had more problems with then others, but no biggy. Now it was time to add the wiring, which was a little tricky because the two greens (on the RGGB) are on opposite sides of the die. But I got the wiring on and all was looking good. IT WAS NOT.

-Side note 2: by the time of my writing this I have gotten it to work, thanks to some tips posted on the forum.

Just when I think I'm done, one or my wires pops of when I was moving the led, then another, and another and . . .
The next hour or so is a battle between me and LED, I would solder wires down, and they would come free. I cleaned and retinned and cut and stripped wire, but no avail. Alas, I was going to undo it all and try again today, however, there was one wire I could not pull free. I even tried pulling it free with pliers, but feared damaging the LED pad itself, for this one wire would refuse to move.
This in fact gave me hope. If this one could stick so well that it would not be removed with force, then surly the others could do the same?

So to the forums (and Google) I went. That is when I found this discussion. Which is one I had read in the past but had not bookmarked. The info here helped me to succeed.


To the point of this long and drawn out story.

I wanted to start a tread on the best practice methods of soldering blade LEDs (or soldering in general).
Here are some of my points, most learned from others and proven through personal experience. Some, are idea's I'd like to have noted for next time.

1-Heat, heat, heat: The biggest problem with wiring the Engin was (for me) not having enough heat. I needed to heat the pad much more then I was. To get things to work, I would leave my iron tip on the pad for 15 or so seconds, then put some solder down. After that I'd addthe wire and maybe some more solder from the tip (if there was room).

2-Positioning: Using Helping Hands, or having some way to position the Led where you can work with it easy and change the angle when needed makes things much easier. Especially when you have to jumper pads that are on opposite sides of the die.

3-Heat shrink: One of my biggest problems was my design Ideals. I'm wiring my Led to a four wire quick connector. So I had to run the wires through the heat sink and then to the Led. WRONG! This made it hard to get good positioning (see point #2). What I should have done was use thinner wire and just solder them to the Led pads, then run those wires through the heat sink, after everything was tested good. Then I could have solder those wires to a quick connector and just used a few inches, from the hundreds of feet of heat shrink I have, to cover them.

Any way, I've got it wired and working now. I'm still tempted to buy another one and just start over fresh just to have done right from the start. Maybe later.

Please add any point/tip/trick/techniques you use. Or feel free to correct/expand the one's I mentioned above.


Happy Sabering,
The Yin

[Darth Nater]

I had a hell of a time getting one pad to stick good when I did my LEDEngin. I used the tip of a razor and scratched up the pads a little to give it something more to stick to. Not sure if thats advised or not, but it worked for me. I didn't dig in it hard or anything, just scored it enough for some bite. Still, I'd rather do the LEDEngin than a petite crouton. Those small pads make me nervous that I'm going to screw up a $130 card with my feeble skills instead of a $15 LED.

[amwolf]

When I wire one of these up, I use a coffee cup warmer. I think this trick was mentioned in FenderBender's thread... http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...uide-for-noobs. I set the LEDEngin on the warmer for about 10-15 min, then start wiring. Keep the bottom of the star on the warmer surface, so you've got to fiddle with your helping hands to hold it down. Works really well - once you get it hot, keep it hot. I do hate tinning those small, close-together pads though...

[Weaver]

I had the same issue. I actually ended up destroying my first 10W quad by being (wait for it) too careful! I was so worried about destroying the component with heat that I walked on eggshells the whole time. One trace pulled away from the pad, eventually, due to repeated attempts. Another trace was irrevocably bridged. I have two good traces left, but no real reason to use the diode.

When I wired my second quad, an RGBW, I decided to go for broke. I had read all of these things about soldering, but the one thing that helped the most was learning that the component must be hot as well as the solder. "Heat the component, not the solder", and such. I realized that the whole thing was mounted on an aluminum base, which saps away quite a bit of the heat even without the copper heat sink we all know and love. When I let go of the idea that soldering the pads would damage the LED, I was able to get it right on the first try.

This is not to say that the Engin 10W is invincible. It is not. It's very possible to damage these diodes through a number of means. I just had to learn that they aren't quite as fragile as I thought they were.

The coffee warmer was suggested originally by IndustrialAction, on another forum. I brought it up in FenderBender's thread to help others who had the same problem I did. IA also suggests a combination of heat-resistant sheeting and an electric griddle for preheating the LED.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

OK, since we are going to get back on this topic...

The key things you need to wire up a LedEngin.. you need a pair of "helping hands", a good soldering station, good solder (which is important), thinner gauge wire and some patience. I have wired up quite a few LedEngins, and that's all I have needed.

The key here is heat. What I do is I spend several minutes heating up part of the underside of the LED with the iron (at a high temperature - 400 - 450 celsius), and then wire a couple of pads at a time - and repeat as necessary. Once I am done, I let the LED cool off and then I attach it to the heat sink.

[Weaver]

One last point of note: BE CAREFUL.

If you're soldering one of these LEDs, keep in mind that while the aluminum base is technically a heat-sink, that doesn't necessarily mean the heat will disappear. That little star gets deceptively hot, extremely quickly. It won't look hot, but trust and believe, if you don't handle it properly you'll have a neat-looking "birthmark" to show your friends.

The helping hands that were mentioned are an extremely good idea. I honestly couldn't have done it without them.

[The Yin]

One last point of note: BE CAREFUL.

If you're soldering one of these LEDs, keep in mind that while the aluminum base is technically a heat-sink, that doesn't necessarily mean the heat will disappear. That little star gets deceptively hot, extremely quickly. It won't look hot, but trust and believe,

very true, I grabbed it at one point to move it a little, and it was one of those time delayed heat moments. *grabs Led start* "hmm, this is a little HOOOOT!" *pulls hand away*

I wonder if FenderBenber could add some of these tips to his LEDengin wiring guild for noobs thread. I'm sure most of them are mentioned within the reply's, but it would be nice to have it right there in his first post, since there are now 20 pages of reply's.

That thread is a most read for learning to wire these LEDs, so it be nice not having to search out a tread like this one for some bonus info.


Keep up the good builds all, and happy sabering. I've got a PC to continue soldering. Almost there, Almost there . . .