PCC
Flashlight Enthusiast
George, would you recommend this driver to power a red Luminous SST-90 emitter powered by two 18650? Yes, I'm planning the mother of all bike tail lights.
H6Flex 6.6Amp Adjustable Buck
- Thread starter georges80
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irv_usc
Enlightened
his site lists the operating voltage is from 7-21V. Not sure if 2 18650s will give you very much runtime if you are running at the max 6.6A.
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
For a single Red LED the h6flex will likely work fine to about 6V (maybe lower given my tests with the h6cc). I assume you would be running it in strobe mode, so in that case runtime would not be too bad given the on/off duty cycle AND the lower Vf of Red's.
** politically correct hat on **
Don't aim the Red LED at the rear driver's eyes - he/she/it may get sufficiently distracted/irritated to veer into you....
** hat off **
cheers,
george.
** politically correct hat on **
Don't aim the Red LED at the rear driver's eyes - he/she/it may get sufficiently distracted/irritated to veer into you....
** hat off **
cheers,
george.
PCC
Flashlight Enthusiast
Thanks for the replies. My idea was to put a somewhat large, thin translucent dome over the LED to give the impression of a larger light. The end result should be a less bright but larger lit surface compared to a tiny but super bright point-source of light that most bike tail lights are these days. I felt that no existing red LED would have enough output to make this system bright enough to stand out so I never did anything with it. Now that Luminous has their red SST-90s and George has the hip6Flex, this can become a reality.
morelightnow
Enlightened
I put an aftermarket taillight on my street bike that consisted of about 15-20 5mm red leds. It was plenty bright and could be seen for way further than the original bulb. I don't think it takes much led power to been seen. You have a good idea of covering it up since that led will be serious overkill in your application. I'm not saying don't do it, just that you will have more light than you need.
Have fun with your project.
George, I bought a h6cc from you because I either didn't know this was in the works or thought it was going to be pwm like the d2flex. Now I have one more component to use for my home led projects which is a good thing
Have fun with your project.
George, I bought a h6cc from you because I either didn't know this was in the works or thought it was going to be pwm like the d2flex. Now I have one more component to use for my home led projects which is a good thing
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kkara4
Newly Enlightened
Your bench is starting to look like my room! We engineers behave in the same way! Fantastic piece of engineering here, I will be buying a h6flex and analysing it thoroughly for my own improvements!
cdrake261
Enlightened
So you can attach a low power led to tell you if your battery pack is dipping below your configured set point?
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
Yes, read the h6flex tech section and manual -> follow the link in my sig. All my currently shipping flex drivers (except the lflex) can drive an auxiliary low power led for battery level warning.
cheers,
george.
cdrake261
Enlightened
Awesome, just one other question about the mag switch and the switch solder points on the h6flex...I have three wires coming off of my momentary mag switch (pos, neg, and green signal wire), am I suppose to wire the signal wire and a ground to swa and swb? If so, which wire to which port? Thanks in advance!
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
The mag switch needs to be electrically isolated from the battery +ve and obviously modified for momentary action. Once you have the switch isolated it doesn't matter which end of the switch goes to SWA or SWB....
Here's a link to modifying the D mag switch and wiring things up by Sway: http://taskled.com/forum/index.php?topic=314.0
cheers,
george.
cdrake261
Enlightened
I already modded my switch, but now that it makes sense that it doesn't matter which one goes where as lone you attach the signal wire and ground, and isolate the power side. Thanks George...
cdrake261
Enlightened
Hey George, is it considerated safe and ok to power on without being attached to a thermal spreader? I got my driver soldered up but want to test functionality before I continue any further... I'm so stinkin' excited about this driver and my flashlight, it's not even funny!
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
As shipped the h6flex outputs a maximum of 1.4A (until you configure it via the menu system). As shipped it would be more than safe to run the driver without it being mounted on a heatsink. It would likely run continuously with no heatsink at 1.4A max output.
cheers,
george.
cdrake261
Enlightened
Thanks again George, much appreciated
cdrake261
Enlightened
Quick question about the led and the voltage monitor, when using the formula to find what resistor you need to light your led, do you use the voltage the batteries rest at full charge to input into the formula or figure what the approximate voltage of your batteries about when you want the voltage monitor to illuminate the status led?
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
Doesn't make much difference. You'll probably only need 10mA to light up the 3mm/5mm LED brightly enough. Choose the fresh off the charger voltage to do the calculation if you want to be conservative.
So, if you use a red LED, it'll have a Vf of around 2.5V.
Resistor = (Battery_voltage - 2.5)/0.01 in ohms
cheers,
george.
cdrake261
Enlightened
So (14.8-2.5)/.01= 1,430 ohms or something close by?
georges80
Flashlight Enthusiast
Yep, simple formula/math (V = I*R, or R = V/I). You could use a 1.5k resistor, close enough, good enough (for ~10mA).
cheers,
george.
cdrake261
Enlightened
I got a blue led, 3.2v typical at 20mA with 16.8v battery pack...680ohms sounds right?
