DIY Vision X-Solstice

I'm looking to replace the two auxiliary MR-16 based lights I have on the front of my dual sport with something brighter. I'd love to get the vision x solstice but at $120 each they are a little pricey. Anyone have any ideas for bulbs and wiring i could use to make my own? I'm thinking I could get two of these
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11621

give me your input please.

The Solstice is 900 lumen; the link you posted is only 200. They'd make great back-up lights for my Jeep but I wouldn't have wanted them on my Iron Butt bike...

This guy:
http://martin-led.com/home.html
is a member of the forum. Take a look at what he built; if you have a lathe and some skills, you know, cobble something together.

Thanks for the link. That is basically what I am looking to make. Unfortunately I don't have as much LED knowledge as I'd like. What kind of bulb/resistance would I need to get 900 lumens? I can make the housing easily enough. I just know close to nothing about wiring up LEDs. Any insight is appreciated.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12721
with a constant current driver

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/194209

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/213704

One thing that I would do different than their lights is to use a 27mm kaidomain reflector instead of the sekonix colameter because it has a very floody beam. The housing is really the hardest part. You'll find that the $120 really isn't a bad price though with everything involved. The driver is $12, LED is $25, reflector is $5 but figuring out how to get it all in a small enclosure with proper heat sinking that is also water tight can be a little tricky.

Alright the P7 is looking like a good candidate for this. I can't say I fully grasp exactly what I need to complete a build. I understand I need the emitter, a reflector to throw/control the beam, a driver to regulate voltage to the beam, a heatsink to draw heat away from the emitter, and a housing to protect everything. Is that it?

I realize that running the lights off my bike will mean a voltage range of ~12v-14.4v....what driver will handle this?

My last question. I'm impressed with the P60 drop-ins that I have, both a Q5 and an R2. Both have a max input of 18v. Does this mean I could run them off my bike with no mods? If so I might just fit them to my current housing since these lights are more for marker lights rather than for providing me with useable light(would be a nice side effect though).

BTW the lights I am using right now have an MR-16 base. I was looking for bright MR16 dropins but couldn't find anything.

I found a thread on advrider.com where a guy soldered wires to the springs on Q5 drop-ins and ran them off his bike. I'm thinking I could run 4 of them....probably not as bright or as efficient though. I think I need to learn a lot more about drivers and such.

clint357 said:

One thing that I would do different than their lights is to use a 27mm kaidomain reflector instead of the sekonix colameter because it has a very floody beam. The housing is really the hardest part. You'll find that the $120 really isn't a bad price though with everything involved. The driver is $12, LED is $25, reflector is $5 but figuring out how to get it all in a small enclosure with proper heat sinking that is also water tight can be a little tricky.

Click to expand...

Who's using Sekonix collimators? LEDobsession made his own reflector and I used 8˚ FWHM optics.

What I think I'd like to do is use something like this P7 drop-in.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14413

What I'm not so sure about is how to drop the input voltage from 14+ while the bike is running down to <8.4....any suggestions?

I picked a drop-in for ease but I am able to solder if I am better off building it up. I figure one or two of those would be great for the trail or back road.

One simple way to do with would be a voltage regulator, like for instance the lm338 though it wouldn't be the most efficient way to do it, vs a switching regulator such as the LM2677. Efficient regulators are hard to find for high current emitters like the P7, but not impossible.

However, you cannot run that dropin without an additional heatsink for long at all. I managed to burn up one of them inside a flashlight in a matter of minutes and I believe it was due to poor thermal solution.

Also, using a regulator to drive an additional led driver is a bit of a clunky solution, but I am just saying, its one way, ya know