I have purchased a pile of the subject LEDs and am experiencing many failures with connecting them. I’m not new to soldering (have built kits for decades and worked as an electronics tech for a few years). But I confess I am confounded and doing something wrong. We are soldering 6 LEDs in series and connecting them to Picobucks. However, many appear failing when we solder them. (I have a meter that, when put in diode test mode it supplies just enough current to light the LED (totally awesome discovery), and I can put the test probes right on the LED leads themselves, so I know it is not a connection issue between the board and LED). Using 700 degree F iron; it does take a bit to get the solder to flow because of the metal board. We have had about 10 failures so far. Although not positive, I can’t think of anything else. I am now resorting to sticking them to a heat sink while soldering to see if that helps. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? haha!
It’ll be helpful if you could provide a picture of your current set-up/wiring scheme, and we can go from there
Just an aside: the product page mentions that if you are driving all 3 LEDs on a board you MUST run a heat sink https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15200 - ensure this is the case, if so.
Yes, I admit I am concerned for heat dissipation. We never run all three channels simultaneously, as we prefer colors to white light. My testing has been with a picobuck supplying, but only connecting jumper clips to one color at a time (but hope to run two colors at once in the future. However, I am PWM controlling them and plan to never run them at more than 50% duty cycle).
Admittedly, our hope is that our aluminum holder (LEDs heat sink tape mounted) will provide sufficient sinking for the product. (Just FYI, I checked the current at about 220 mA for the circuit).
