The GatLight is born (formerly known as Gatling Light)

[mobile1]

After lots of renderings, CAD designs, the GatLight (formerly known as Gatling Light) is born. Here photos of the fully submersibly WATERPROOF GatLight (123 and PILA 168S version). Here is also a video clip to prove it.

Here is a link to a photo-album containing the best photos taken so far.

(c) 2005 / all rights reserved / patents pending


Here is a shot of the light submersed in saturated salt water



Then here the PILA 168S version...


The light is regulated, will use a LuxeonIII. Brightness can be adjusted with a screw driver by removing the battery and driver. You can set the current anywhere between 100ma and 1000mA. The light will is stainless as well as Titanium. And the light will be waterproof to probably 100 to 200ft (still needs testing). Then the lights will also have serial numbers.



Here 2-stainless-PILA, 4 Titanium 123 and 5 Stainless 123



Then here is a formal description:

The housing design:

1. Designed to maximize thermal efficiency by maximizing exposed surface area.
   
   
2. Mechanical housing assembly analyzed using finite element analysis (FEA) in order to insure structural integrity under stress.
   
   
3. Materials: 316 Stainless steel or Titanium (both with hand polished finish)
   
   
4. Water sealing designed to withstand depths greater than 1 meter
   
   
5. Aerospace grade 100 deg. flat head screws per military specification NAS662
   
   
6. Housing screws thread staked for added durability.
   
   
7. Assembly performed in accordance with qualified spaceflight hardware procedures and requirements, in order to maximize reliability and quality.
   
   
8. Silicone environmental seals fabricated with the use of high vacuum degas process.
   
   
9. High precission components: <0.0005" tolerance
   
   
10. Heatsink bars pressed into main body under >500lbs axial force in order to maximize thermal efficiency.

Circuit design:

1. Circuit board designed to meet the requirements of IPC-A-610, Class 3 (High reliability) And NASA-STD-8739.3 (The same requirements applied to spaceflight circuit boards)
   
   
2. 3oz copper plating to provide maximum thermal dissipation.
   
   
3. Circuit designed to handle up to 2000mA of current for short durations.
   
   
4. Adjustable current from 100mA to 1000mA
   
   
5. Future versions up to 1500mA (K2)
   
   
6. Circuit board assembly performed by NASA qualified technician per NASA-STD-8739.3
   
   
7. LED mounted to circuit board using high performance thermal dissipation pad commonly used in spaceflight applications.
   
   
8. Circuit board epoxy potted using aerospace grade thermally conductive epoxy to maximize thermal mass and conduction surface area
   
   
9. Preliminary circuit design rated to 85 deg. C

Assembly testing:

1. Assembly tested using laboratory grade test equipment and processes.

First Run Units: all 40 units are sold and assigned.

If you are interested to get notified when I open sign up for round two, send an email to mobile1 aat gmx.ch

A link to a 3d web model can be found here. A video with photos and images that proof the light is submersibly waterproof is here.

[Anglepoise]

Well it looks fantastic. Wish you all the best and look forward to a review in the future.

[wquiles]

Proto unit looks awesome!

Will

[greenLED]

wow! That looks neat! What kind of optic will you be using? I thought coating the outside of any optic pretty much killed its optical properties.

[mobile1]

wow! That looks neat! What kind of optic will you be using? I thought coating the outside of any optic pretty much killed its optical properties.

Thanks for your comment. The optics we are using is an NX05. Didnt know that coating an optics kills its optical properties, but it would make sense. Anyway I'll test it first on a sample (I should have some time in 2 days). If this is true then we obviously won't do it. I'll know more in 2 days.

[greenLED]

I learned the hard way, after "chopping" down a Fraen LP. I didn't know how to do it, so I ground and polished the sides (not the top). I polished the sides nicely (no scratches, toothpaste finish, etc.) While trying to understand why things didn't look like they were supposed (beam wise), I stumbled upon that info.

If you milled (?) a thin groove around the edge of one of the "disks", you could fill it with GID powder mixed with clear epoxy. It might be a lot of work if you plan on doing a lot, though. hmmm... Tritium vials seem to be popular these days if you want to do the GID "thing". Or maybe mill a depression on the round piece on the tailcap and fill that with GID+epoxy?

[nemul]

Shipping is $40 international, $15 domestic U.S.

ouch!

[B@rt]

International shipping sounds a bit steep to me as well...
Also, coating the optics won't work, since you will change the refraction index and will mess up the way the optics work.

[mobile1]

Shipping is $40 international, $15 domestic U.S.

ouch!

Regarding the international shipping: First this light is produced at cost, which means I pay as much for it as everyone else who is signed up. Because I dont make any money on this I didnt feel like investing even more time to email everyone back and forth figuring out individual shipping costs before they can paypal the money.

So I picked a flat rate that works for singarpore to germany, to south america. Also a large portion of the $40 is actually insurance.

As it is, even if I might pay a bit less on some international shipping, at the end you get a light whose production costs more then what you currently pay. Just to give you an idea. The long rods were quoted as $2 each (each light has 12 of them) - which is what we pay. The machinist just told us that he should have charged at least $4 - since they are such a pain to make. The machinist also pretty much quoted all the other parts at cost.

Then each light has (incl. the screws) 47 metal parts (and a driver with 15 parts). The mechanical complexity of this light is much more complex than your standard cylinder type light. Then the costs you pay dont even factor in the time to assemble each light's 47 parts. . The price we charge however is about equal to a standard cylinder type light. Our goal was to make this first run as affordable as possible.

I dont want to complain here, but I just want to give you an insight about the financials of this light. If the $40 seem too high then consider the surplus as a payment towards the labor to assemble this light (even though that wasn't the intention).

[MSaxatilus]

I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but you mention that the light will be waterproof?

How would this work with the battery being exposed?

Thanks for the clarification,
MSax

[mobile1]

I'm sorry if this has already been asked, but you mention that the light will be waterproof?

How would this work with the battery being exposed?

Thanks for the clarification,
MSax

Sure no problem. Well that's one of the things that is patented. Here in short. A battery itself is water proof. According to Energizer part of the manufacturing process actually involves dunking the batteries into liquid to get rid of dust. The only problem with that is corrosion when both poles are under water. Also some batteries are not water proof at the poles.

The revolutionary feature with this light is that instead of water sealing the entire battery, we only water seal each pole with a custom silicone mold. The battery parts that are exposed are already water sealed - so no need for us to waterseal them again.

We do the same with the optics in the front, instead of watersealing the front of the optics, we do the watersealing in the back, so that the optics is exposed but no water can enter the driver/LED compartment.

Here are the advantages of this design:
1) heat sinking area (rods) is 3 times larger then that of a traditional cylinder type design (its actually larger then the head of a Mag2D)
2) Instead of heating up the light, the battery acts as a heatsink as well.
3) Exposed battery allows to add glow paint to the battery which allows entirely new design and visual effects.
4) Exposed optics makes for an extremely interesting side view when the light is turned on (See photos above)
5) Less material - less weight.
6) Unique, never done before. In a flashlight collection this light is the one that will stand out.

Our vision basically was this:
When you show this light to others, that you can turn it on and then drop it into a bowl of water and then look at their dazzled faces

We havent done water tests yet to see whether we succeded with our vision. We'll see - however my partner who designed the interfaces (and normally designs stuff that flies to Mars) thinks it should be about 100 - 200 ft water proof. We'll see.

[Trashman]

Looks great. How about a photo of the light with a glow painted Pila installed? (It's hard to wait)

[mobile1]

Looks great. How about a photo of the light with a glow painted Pila installed? (It's hard to wait)

Yes I am dying to see that photo as well. Here is the challenge. The prototype is in Colorado (with my partner), the PILAs are in Indiana (battery supplier) and the glow paint in California with me. However a couple of PILA's are on their way to Colorado. I might send the glow paint over there as well even though the PILAs will get painted here....

[LEDcandle]

this is a super cool light...
A few questions :
1) Do you have the dimensions?
2) Do we add 4% surcharge for CC thru paypal payment? (Meaning $197.6 for international shipping of a Stainless Steel R123?)
3) Do you have the *estimated* lumen output and throw? Do you have estimated lumen figures of the adjustable levels with the screw? (Like the lowest setting and adjustable in increments of X....)

Thanks!

[ChocolateLab33]

I can't wait.

[MSaxatilus]

Wow! Very interesting. I think I'm in on this project.

[mobile1]

some answers

LEDCandle
1)Here are the dimensions of this light:
Diameter 1.125 inch (PILA & 123)
Length 123 version: almost 3 inch
Length PILA (168S) version: 4.25 inch
(it might be a bit longer or shorter depending on how much thicker we will make the knob in the back. This is with 0.25inch more)

2) I cover the 4% paypal charge (which I originally didnt factor in neither).

3) Well lument output will be a LuxIII @ 1000W which is 80 lumens. The optics is a 6 degree NX05.
I don't have the adjustable levels since it is a pot with no preset levels. However we will do some tests soon and publish runtime, brightness and temperature data. Some preliminary tests showed that turning brightness down just a bit not very noticably, doubles runtime. We try to create some data on that (quater turn=impact on brightness/runtime) - so you can choose yourself whether you want brightness or runtime.
This week we still want to tweak the driver a bit (to make an electronic feature work that might extend runtime by 15-20% if we can make it work)

[Panzergrennie]

Hi, i just want to say something regarding the shipping costs.
I had the opportunity to obtain a shipping address in the USA so i only had to pay 15 $ which is really ok.
But the 40 $ for international shipping is reliable as well.
If you compare those light to other custom lights in this forum i must say that 165 $ for the Pila Version is extremly cheap.
And if Walter earns some Bucks via the shipping costs, well in my opinion he deserves it.
There are many people buying more expensive lights that are by far not as exclusive as Walter`s and so there is no reason to talk about the shipping cost.

[HarryN]

I am amazed that you pulled this off for a cost even close to $ 165. I have built some much less mechanically complex lights and the costs were in that range. Wow, very nice work.

[LouRoy]

I would like to buy the Stainless R123 unit if it is still available. PM sent.

[PrebKlok]

Not sure if this has been asked before, anyway I couldn't find it. What software do you use for designing and rendering the light? I really like your images. I have just bought a mini lathe, and could need a good program to make some sketches and previews before I start turning.

[mobile1]

Not sure if this has been asked before, anyway I couldn't find it. What software do you use for designing and rendering the light? I really like your images. I have just bought a mini lathe, and could need a good program to make some sketches and previews before I start turning.

PrebKlok Solidworks was used to design the light and Photoworks to render it. Its probably too expensive and a bit complicated to just do some sketches. However Andrewwyn is using another CAD program which is more affordable and much simpler to use. However I can't remember what it is called. He has a thread going on here "The Nano's are coming..." or something like this, just ask him.

[andrewwynn]

for quick and dirty modeling it's impossible to beat 'sketchup' http://www.sketchup.com it's not cheap but there is a demo you can play with. you can also use http://emachineshop.com but only for one part at at time.

-awr

[XFlash]

PM Sent.

[mobile1]

The spare units I have had are all gone.

Everyone interested in a 2nd production run light, please send an email to mobile1 aat gmx.ch so I can contact you with costs and delivery times, when I open sign up for the 2nd run - after the first run has been delivered

In a couple of days I'll post images of a real R123 version (with a glow painted battery)

[Dr_Joe]

I learned the hard way, after "chopping" down a Fraen LP. I didn't know how to do it, so I ground and polished the sides (not the top). I polished the sides nicely (no scratches, toothpaste finish, etc.) While trying to understand why things didn't look like they were supposed (beam wise), I stumbled upon that info.

If you milled (?) a thin groove around the edge of one of the "disks", you could fill it with GID powder mixed with clear epoxy. It might be a lot of work if you plan on doing a lot, though. hmmm... Tritium vials seem to be popular these days if you want to do the GID "thing". Or maybe mill a depression on the round piece on the tailcap and fill that with GID+epoxy?

How about a tritium vial in every other, or every third rod ?
I have an Orb "RAW" with 4 tritium vials arranged at 90 degrees around the circumference of the battery tube. No matter how it's put down you can usually catch 1 or 2 of them very easily in the dark.

[mobile1]

Glow Paint: The groove is probably too much work, the tritium vials could be interesting, however don't know much about it (is this tritium solid or powder or liquid?). An epoxy mixed with powder inside this vials would probably be stronger. Or just a thick glas or plastic tube filled with glow powder. We have to look into that. The question would be how to mount these glow powder bars, since the bars are tabbed on each side. We can't do it for the first run since there is already enough work involved to get them all going. (however since the bars are modular, I dont see a reason why bars can't be exchanged later if we offer such an option).

Regarding coating the optics, it doesnt work - finally tested it. It pretty much renders the optic useless - however the glow paint glows like crazy - which defenitely wants me to do something with glow paint in the front... We'll keep working on finding a way to add some glow paint around the reflector... I'll check with my production guy to see what he thinks about the options you guys mentioned.... (however don't expect it in the first run).

Thanks for the great suggestions!!

[Archangel]

Have you verified that water doesn't destroy the optical properties of the optic? (smirk) Boy do i dislike using nearly the same word in a sentence.

[mobile1]

Archangel: Well the optics probably doesnt work that well under water - however it probably wont be as bad since the contact medium (water) is transparent). However even though the light will probably be 100-200ft waterproof, it isnt intended to be a real dive light, for that its way too small I think. The main goal is more that you can drop it into a bowl of wather and see people's amazement. That you dont have to worry about rain, or accidentially dropping it into water...
And if you want to use it as a backup for diving, it will still produce enough light (for example even with the glow paint on there was still sufficient illumination)

I'll test it in water and see, the optics might even work under water, since the material of the optic is more dense then water.

[andrewwynn]

glow paint on the rods would be a cool mod for an end user.. mix up glow dust in epoxy and dip the rods (cover the threads first).. trim the drips off the ends and re assemble.

tritium vials at typically $12 each would get pricy to try to use them not to mention how to install... the rods won't turn to the same place on each rod so you'd have to cut the grooves after assembled etc... def. not a 'simple' procedure.

-awr