Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished (Beamshots added)

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

@J.D.:
Who spends a lot of money on LEDs can't effort expensive beer....

 

[J.D.]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

@J.D.:
Who spends a lot of money on LEDs can't effort expensive beer....

hehe touché

by the way - it's becoming dark outside

 

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

The problem for taking beamshots is that I don't have a camera that allows manual settings. So I have to wait until a friend will do some beamshots with me.
I plan to take a M@gCharger as reference comparison and both the xenon low-beam and halogen far-beam light of my car.

Should happen till next weekend....

 

[jirik_cz]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Very impressive. :wow:

 

[JetskiMark]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Fantastic concept and execution.

Kudos.

 

[Illum]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Fantastic concept and execution.

Kudos.

will it surpass your "22000 bulb lumens?" we can only speculate as we soak our keyboards with drool

 

[jtr1962]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Thought you might find this interesting. It's not related to LEDs, but it required the same kind of serious cooling your project does. Very professional job on Mr. Beambastic by the way! :twothumbs

 

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

@jtr1962: Can't wait to see how the CREE MC-E performs when put in your test setup!! I remember you wanted to test a cool white MC-E M-binned, or am I wrong?
If you are interested, I could send you one of the MC-E 4B K-bin for testing (would be nice if it survives cause it is my only spare part...). I used 20 of them in my lamp but bought 21. I think I saw output increasing till approaching 2A per die :naughty::naughty::naughty:

Regarding the mechanical cooling setup:
I think usage of heatpipes would only have helped me weight reducing the two copper bars holding the 26,5mm optic MC-Es.
With each one being about 240g it might have been possible to reduce weight by 200g in total with a mixture of thinner copper and heatpipes.
But like I wrote before: I don't have the equipment to do very complex mechanical shapes, so the 10mm copper bars were the best solution for me.

I think the only way to save considerable weight would be the usage of active cooling. But this breings a lot of disadvantages, too:
- water/dust resistance
- noise
- overall robustness
- total volume
- ....

I wrote down the weight of some of the parts. If I find it back I can give a weight table of the main parts.
This shows that weight is spreaded over many parts and that is wouldn't be easy to reduce it considerably.

 

[rizky_p]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

finally my perfect reading light :twothumbs:

 

[JetskiMark]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

How many calculated emitter lumens does this produce?

 

[foxtrot824]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

You are doing a dis-service to those who have a light problem :wave:. Now I look at the projects sitting on my desk and think a couple hundred lumens of output are worthless. That's an amazing set up, I can't wait to see beam shots.

 

[toby_pra]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Crazy!:devil:

 

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

@JetskiMark:
I could better calculate the emitter lumens once jtr1962 has done some measurements with an MC-E.
I did some relative measurements with a K-bin cool white MC-E and estimated that it should be well over 1000 lumen driven at 1,8A.
Measuring lux/1m with the Carclo 26,5mm optics showed a value of more than 12000 lux/1m, so relying on the candela per lumen value given in the Carclo datasheet (10,4 Cd/lumen) this leads to more than 1000lumen per MC-E as well.
The 350 lumen of the single XR-E, and it should be well over 20000 lumen in total.

 

[vali]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Uhmm... I think it will be great for my keychain

 

[chronox]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Holzleim, can you please give a run-down of your reflow soldering with the iron? Did you ramp the temperature up and down systematically or turn off the iron once the solder melted?

I am getting into homebrew lights myself and am simply amazed at what you have done here with this setup.

 

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Originally I planned to do the reflow soldering to the massive copper in my company at a heat-plate or at home on the ceramic stove top. But both heat source trnsmit most of the heat by radiation I I was not sure if it had worked that good with my 10mm thick copper. I was afraid of applying to high temperature before I realize it.

The I got the idea of using an iron.
On highest setting the surface of our iron is held at about 220°C.

I put the iron in my professional iron holder and let it reach its end temperature. Then I put the copper piece on the hot iron. I had a temperature probe applied to one of the holes in my copper pieces, so I could watch the temperature rise. At ~210°C in the core of the copper I took away the copper piece. Have to mention I used lead-containing solder paste beginning to melt at ~180°C.

The soldering was a rather relaxed process because I did the efford to build the soldering templates your see in one of my picture. Otherwise it would have been hard to keep the LEDs in the right place (3/4 at a time).

 

[BillyNoMates]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Very impressive build - like most others here, I am looking forward to some beam shots!

Can you say more about the different modes and how you intend to use them? You mentioned running in the woods - what setting would you normally consider using for this (assuming you want to run for more than 10mins)?

Thanks.

 

[Holzleim]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

I was running a short time (30min) in the woods last Saturday.
Most of the time I used flood only with around 100mA driven through the MC-E.
When adjusting the three LED group's current I have implemented 13 levels with an relationship of 1,41 between the next higher/lower level (logarithmic).
100mA results in around 1,3W per MC-E and with the 12 flood MC-E and an efficiency of 100 lumen/W at these low drive levels I run with ~1500 lumen through the woods.
This level would last for 70Wh / 15W -> at least 4 hours.
From time to time I used the "Far-Sight" pushbutton that switches of flood and turns on spot and mid to max power. When releasing it restores the old values. This is useful to get an overview over the whloe trail in front of you.
And as it was my first run with the new light I certainly stopped several time to point around with the 110mm aspheric beam or to light up a whole clearing with the "Full-All" button.
I also tried the "Strobe" button for some seconds, and it's really hard to keep running with the strobe light....
To summarize I can say I adopted the control interface to my needs and am nearly satisfied with it. It's useful and fun at the same time.
Considering the lamp's weight I can say: It is worth being carried for the fun it grants....

 

[Zeruel]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

Can't wait for the beam shots

 

[BillyNoMates]

Re: Handheld 500W LED Power .... finally finished

I was running a short time (30min) in the woods last Saturday.
Most of the time I used flood only with around 100mA driven through the MC-E.
When adjusting the three LED group's current I have implemented 13 levels with an relationship of 1,41 between the next higher/lower level (logarithmic).
100mA results in around 1,3W per MC-E and with the 12 flood MC-E and an efficiency of 100 lumen/W at these low drive levels I run with ~1500 lumen through the woods.
This level would last for 70Wh / 15W -> at least 4 hours.
From time to time I used the "Far-Sight" pushbutton that switches of flood and turns on spot and mid to max power. When releasing it restores the old values. This is useful to get an overview over the whloe trail in front of you.
And as it was my first run with the new light I certainly stopped several time to point around with the 110mm aspheric beam or to light up a whole clearing with the "Full-All" button.
I also tried the "Strobe" button for some seconds, and it's really hard to keep running with the strobe light....
To summarize I can say I adopted the control interface to my needs and am nearly satisfied with it. It's useful and fun at the same time.
Considering the lamp's weight I can say: It is worth being carried for the fun it grants....

Thanks for the info.

I can imagine the fun you'd have with the stobe when running on rough ground !!!

I my builds I tend to prefer a 'big' step between brightness settings - usually a factor of three (~5dB) in power terms, but that's just my personal preference.

The ability to swap between flood and spot must be very helpful. Floor for running through woods, spot for trying to find the gate on the far side of a 100m field on a moonless night. I have been caught out before with my 15degree headlight (about 800lm) good for seeing what's around you but no use in the more open spaces......