Wallet / smartphone form factor, 1000+ lumens, lightweight, tiny runtime - thoughts?

[danjcla]

I'm looking for something lightweight (say under 110 grams) with 1000+ lumens. Batteries can last on the order of minutes. Light can strobe to avoid overheating and/or to take advantage of battery's initial burst spec output amps. My "Allett EcoThin Original Wallet" is 127mm x 95mm x 9mm, 64g (all with stuff in it). Those are the rough specs I'm going for; so my flashlight and the wallet together would be about as thick and heavy as a leather bifold wallet (perhaps with some change in it).


As far as I can tell there isn't anything like this on the market, even in a normal cylindrical form factor. If anyone knows of anything in any form factor, commercial or even custom / previous DIY, please let me know; I've searched a lot and not found.


Failing it already existing, and keeping in mind I'm a newbie and the purpose of this post is to a large extent "is this foolish to even try / will I just be flushing money down the toilet" for ~1200 lumens for ~10 minutes, how does this look?

• Battery: I think the need for high (~3 amps) current draw on a tiny, probably three to low four digit mAh total battery supply will be an issue, perhaps high power Polymer Li-Ion / lipo rechargeables are the only choice here? Like "Polymer Li-Ion Cell: 3.7V, 750mAh (603048-10C), 2.7Wh, 7.5A rate - UN38.3 Passed" from batteryspace. $4.95, 50mm x 30.5mm x 6.0mm, 17g each.
• Lamp: "Cree XLamp XP-L High Density LED Star" from ledsupply. $6.99, 20mm diameter x 1.5mm board thickness (LED +2.68mm)
• Heat sink / case back: F4185 '1/8" X 3" 6061 Aluminum Flat' custom cut to 3" from metalsdepot. $3.79, 3.175mm x 76.2mm x 76.2mm, 50g.
• Case sides and front: Epoxy resin polymer? (or preferably a 7/16 inch CNCed piece of aluminum with all the components inset etc). Will end up around 11mm total case thickness. Need to see if there is a chance the polymer would melt or blacken. Or go and read how other people deal with this problem
• Switch: Not sure. Maybe something momentary and pressure sensitive. The automatic stop mode could just be "wow my hand is getting really uncomfortably hot right now."
• Driver: "17mm Constant Current LED Circuit Driver Board - 3 Modes - 2.7-4.5v 3A XML XPL" from lck_led_com on ebay. $7.25, 17mm x 10mm (but looks like it's actually two 17mm x 5mm pieces.)

So all the above stuff together would be around 8mm thick, and with maximum single-layer pack density would be 50.5mm x 54mm, which should leave plenty of room for a more spread out density and component to component wires, and a recharge port and stuff like that, in the available 76.2mm square space. I think the battery and heat sink will be most of weight, 67g.


If possible I'd like to leave this out as it adds about 3mm thickness; I haven't yet figured out exactly what the bare LED does.

• Optics: "10417 Carclo Lens - Narrow Spot LED Optic" from ledsupply. $1.25, 6mm tall. So optics + lamp = 7.5mm

 

[sunny_nites]

Definitely doable but I don't believe Carlco makes a TIR that small that will work on a XP-L. Might have to try something like a trimmed aspheric lens.

On something that thin for the switch, you would want to go with a solid state device. Those can get crazy flat.

Just out of curiosity, what do you plan on doing with this pocket super nova?

 

[Str8stroke]

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[danjcla]

Definitely doable but I don't believe Carlco makes a PIR that small that will work on a XP-L. Might have to try something like a trimmed aspheric lens.

On something that thin for the switch, you would want to go with a solid state device. Those can get crazy flat.

Just out of curiosity, what do you plan on doing with this pocket super nova?

Yeah, looking at the data sheet re: Carlco, you are right. But ledsupply claims it is compatible; I'll bug them about that. It's possible data sheet just hasn't been updated yet.

Could you point to an example of a solid state switch? I must be using the wrong search terms; all I'm finding is stuff about relays.

Re: purpose, getting wildlife to change vectors to the get-the-f-away-from-me direction. Might be useful for long-distance signaling. Also, esp. if I put in the ability to work at half or quarter capacity, it'd sort of complete the spectrum up from my surprisingly bright smartphone flashlight. But mostly because the first reason made me think about the problem, and then I became surprised that such a product didn't exist, and then I thought about what it would look like, and now I have another pet project .

 

[sunny_nites]

Sounds like a fun project! I always liked flat form factor lights myself.

Sparkfun.com sells a solid state switch that can handle 10 amps (if I recall correctly) but a better and flatter choice would be one of these from lighthound.com.

[h=1]Lighthound Keychain Flashlight Black Body, White LED[/h]

Not sure if I'm allowed to put a link in here or not but do a search on that and you will see what I mean. Those lights have a solid state on/off switch. They can only output around 60mah so you would need to put a P-channel mosfet on it that could handle the current you want to drive your circuit at. I've used those little switch/mosfet combinations with circuits intended for round flashlights that cycle through brightness settings and they work quite well.

Would be good if you could stick with a Carlco TIR rather than a trimmed aspheric if they make one that will work. The aspheric in a non focus able mode either means the beam is too wide or too narrow. But the aspheric would be better than nothing for sure.

 

[danjcla]

Your scavenging a solid state switch from a cheap keychain flashlight idea prompted me to search more for "prior art" in this kind of flashlight. I actually found something this time - that seems to be unpurchasable now / company failed. It used a touch switch, another solid state idea. In any case it's really nifty; in a more shallow, long, and rectangular case, with the battery next to instead of under the electronics, it'd be almost exactly what I want to do.

More info: Gadgeteer Review, LED Museum page, Imago review.

 

[sunny_nites]

Good find! That little sucker looked pretty cool. Too bad they aren't around anymore.

That tap switch makes me wonder; we used to make a solid state touch switch for red dot optical sights that were attached to weapons back in the late 80's. For the circuit we used a darlington pair transistor. It was a momentary switch but totally electrical with no moving parts. That is probably way outdated with modern tech but pretty nifty at the time.

 

[more_vampires]

Guys, guys, guys.

A concept near and dear to my heart is cell phone light modding.

I have gone as far as to use cardboard and clear tape to mock up aspheric optics to stock emitters in stock cell phone housings. Doing maximum aspheric throw experiments tells me that the regular "flashlight app" is crap.

Defeated by most stock Sipik 68, and the cellphone is alleged to have a lithium ion rechargeable power pack.

This seems unacceptable to me as a flashaholic. If we must have a special built faux cellphone to be a max blaster, so be it.

After crawling cell phone hacking sites slightly smaller than CPF, I'm pretty sure that this is zero public posts on this topic. I'd love it if we can change that.

CPF: The best cellphone hacks I've seen so far (on the down low) concern either an emitter swap or a software attempt to "camera flash" the led. It seems strange to me as a member of CPF that nobody seems to try to combine the two (at time of posting.)

It's like every post is a repost post. Hmmm. Never saw that before? :shakehead

 

[FRITZHID]

Guys, guys, guys.

A concept near and dear to my heart is cell phone light modding.

I have gone as far as to use cardboard and clear tape to mock up aspheric optics to stock emitters in stock cell phone housings. Doing maximum aspheric throw experiments tells me that the regular "flashlight app" is crap.

Defeated by most stock Sipik 68, and the cellphone is alleged to have a lithium ion rechargeable power pack.

This seems unacceptable to me as a flashaholic. If we must have a special built faux cellphone to be a max blaster, so be it.

After crawling cell phone hacking sites slightly smaller than CPF, I'm pretty sure that this is zero public posts on this topic. I'd love it if we can change that.

CPF: The best cellphone hacks I've seen so far (on the down low) concern either an emitter swap or a software attempt to "camera flash" the led. It seems strange to me as a member of CPF that nobody seems to try to combine the two (at time of posting.)

It's like every post is a repost post. Hmmm. Never saw that before? :shakehead

Biggest issue with that is space and cooling. Sure I can cram an xpl hi into my phn, but it's gonna nuke itself (and possibly other phn components) in short order. And then there's the optics...If any.


To the OP, radio shack had a fairly substantial portable power charging pack that was about the size of my Galxy s5, I think that would be a good base to start from. Rip the usb charging circuit out and replace it with a light engine. As much copper heatsinking as you can will provide a nice thermal mass to get a fair runtime.

 

[more_vampires]

Biggest issue with that is space and cooling.

Agree totally.

And then there's the optics...If any.

I think Carclo is the best we're going to manage without wrecking the form factor. Depending on the power pack, this might be possible to "french" install.

To the OP, radio shack had a fairly substantial portable power charging pack that was about the size of my Galxy s5, I think that would be a good base to start from. Rip the usb charging circuit out and replace it with a light engine. As much copper heatsinking as you can will provide a nice thermal mass to get a fair runtime.

I got one of those from someone who didn't use it, now I don't use it. Been thinking about light mods to it. Were there any room in that case at all, I would leave all of the USB stuff in there so you can still charge/powerbank as intended plus a light.

Mine is a "Mophie" brand, suspected 18650x2 parallel in there. They claim lol 4000 mah, so I'd probably upgrade the cells while I was in there.

Been percolating on this a lot before I tear into it. It's already got charge indicator lights, pack protection, and all that jazz.

Oh yeah, the warranty was already void. What we need is a good metal chassis power bank host with a smidge of room left inside.

 

[FRITZHID]

The radio shack one I saw couldn't have been an 18650 type, way too thin. Was just slightly thicker than my phone. I suspect Lipo or some kind of prismatic cell(s). Was rated somewhere in the 10kmah.

 

[more_vampires]

Just found the Worley Flatlight. Credit card sized, but there's no way it's 1000 lumens. Looks cool, though. I think it's on kickstarter.