First saber, a little confused

[plamadude30k]

Well my friends, I must say I'm a little confused. I received my luxeon k2 kit in the mail today along with my MHS hilt. I've soldered before, so I know how to do it *relatively* well (I'm no expert). I soldered the connections between the battery holder and the resistor and the switch without a problem, but when I tried to solder the ends of these to the LED I did have some difficulty. It wasn't a pretty job, but it looked like the connections were solid. When I put in the batteries and tried to turn it all on, nothing. So my first step is to try to resolder the connections, and I am moderately successful, but still no light. Next, I came to the forum here and made a relatively extensive search for this situation. The only reason I can see for why it wasn't working is that I somehow killed the LED. What would you all suggest as the next step?

[Malaki Skywalker]

Have you checked the polarity? Neg and Pos? Are you using any quick connectors? To me it sounds like you got your polarity mixed OR dead batteries, have you tried a fresh set?

[JediKnightBJ]

Could you take a picture of how you have it set up? That would help us determine what might be wrong.

[plamadude30k]

Wow, I feel stupid. You'd think that an astrophysicist and a fan of star trek could figure out to change the polarity. Thanks for the (now obvious) suggestion.

[Novastar]

Did it work?

Also, to test an LED, you can briefly just "touch" the + and - leads from a "test" battery pack... just to be 100% certain the LED works. I always do this before installing an LED... gotta make sure it's WORTH wiring up, the little BAAAAAHSTURDS!

What is nice is wiring up a simple alkaline AA 3.0v test pack (1.5v x 2 = 3.0v). I use the ones with the "9v snap connectors", lol. Then I snap on a connector with leads that go nowhere and touch them to the LED.

This is safe for *ALL* Luxeon IIIs... and pretty darn safe (in general) for most any LED... even tiny ones. MOST of the time.

Obviously this won't light up a Lux V, but... make yourself a 6v pack to do that if you like, and you should see SOME light. Or do 7.2v Li-Ion for a brief touch, and you'll see light alright.

And obviously... this method trumps any silkscreens that may be reversed in error (P4s anyone??)... or even some LED that is unlabeled. Or... maybe you don't feel like checking the part # on the back to find out what stupid color it is. Maybe you're a goof-troop like me and you toss all your LEDs into one little section of a parts container and you have to be like "what's this, oh red, ok what's this oh cyan, what's this oh blue, what's this oh amber"...

What can I say. Lazy Novastar. LAZY NOVASTAR!!!!

My solders are evil too... they always have horns, and I gotta clip 'em off like Hellboy's. EVIL SOLDERS.

[plamadude30k]

Yeah, it worked. Now I have to worry about soldering this little guy, which seems to be rather a lot harder than any soldering I've ever done before.

[Rb-wan Organus]

Buy a new LED

[Lord Maul]

Welcome to the boards rb-wan

The problem was already solved. He had the polarity on the LED reversed on accident. But yeah, if that didn't fix it he would want a new LED most likely

[Obi-Ben]

Just out of curiosity, how easy is it to kill an LED if you mess up the wiring?

[$tarkiller]

VERY easy.