The picture below is a strobe light that is used while snowplowing. It died on me, so I took it apart and pulled the strobe tube out. Along with it, came the piece that the prong fits into. (the right one in the picture) Is there any chance it would work if I were to solder the prong and all back onto the board?? Thanks for any advice.

 

Originally posted by Dennis@Mar 2 2005, 10:33 PM
The picture below is a strobe light that is used while snowplowing.  It died on me, so I took it apart and pulled the strobe tube out.    Along with it, came the piece that the prong fits into. (the right one in the picture)  Is there any chance it would work if I were to solder the prong and all back onto the board??  Thanks for any advice.

[post=5775]Quoted post[/post]​

It looks as if the board is discoloured at the RH socket. It may have been due to a 'dry' soldered joint giving a high resistance connection, and overheating. I think I would clean the PCB up at that point and try resoldering it. Nothing ventuired - nothing gained!

 

Hi,

I would imagine that the xenon tube inserts from the other side of the board. The wide foil (on the board) means that it is a conductor for heavy current. Any fault with the original soldering might have caused the solder joint to overheat and fail. So might a bad xenon tube...

The hole is now pretty oversize, and trying to use solder to fill it may not do well. Try to clean up the lead on the tube. Steel wool or even scraping with a small knife blade (hold the blade at a right angle to the lead) should clean it up. It need to be as shiny as possible.

The green stuff on the circuit board is solder mask. You'd do well to scrape off a fair amount around the hole to expose fresh copper. Don't worry about how much area you expose - it's all going to get soldered. Snap the tube back in and solder the other leads to hold it in place. Take about 1/2" of braid off some coaxial cable, or some solder wick if you have that. Poke a hole in it so it fits over the last lead, and solder it to the lead and the foil. Watch the heat so you don't cause the foil to come loose off the board.

If everything is nice and shiny with solder, and the tube is still good, that should get the strobe working again. Check to see that the solder flowed onto the tube lead.