A New Project

[Swallow]

Having finished my bike handlebar headlights ( https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/166203 )
I am now hoping to make some much smaller units to mount on my helmet. I have also just discovered the joy of DealExtreme - we dont have anything like that here in the UK, so I was thinking that I would try to make a butchered/modded system from what is on offer at DX. The theory will be to buy three ssc flashlights from DX (cheap simple units like this http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1995) that can be cut right down so they are no more than 1 1/2" long to be mounted on the peak of my helmet. These to be powered by an external battery or possibly seperate batteries for each of the three units in my backpack.

I am certainly not electronically minded, but am prepared to have a go. Any suggestions as to necessity of drivers, battery choice, series/parallel etc appreciated!

What would happen when wiring a sscp4 directly to a psp battery such as this:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3375
I like the look of this little battery, how bright could it run a seoul? I could get three and a charger and then have the option of having one light for commuting or all three on for mtb'ing.

What battery setup would be required to drive 3 seouls without regulation? Sorry so many questions, but I am in the dark here!!

Thanks again to all who helped me on my first project - now I think this fascination is becoming an addiction as I keep thinking of other applications for these LEDs!

 

[AndyTiedye]

Added to Bike Light Thread Links

 

[sortafast]

for the wiring, why not just run all of the lights on the helmet in parallel if you want to DD. Just watch the max discharge rate of the battery. I have DD off of a single 18650 and have not had any issues. But one thing I did notice, is that as soon as I put a GD750 board from the sandwich shoppe in the light It got a lot brighter thanks to the buck/boost. It was an improvement that was way worth the $$$. IMO running DD really isnt worth it for bike lights, unless you are just using it to be seen. If I were doing the set up that you are looking at, I would take and put a single driver on each light, and run them in parallel off of a single battery pack. This way you could wire it up with a DPDT switch so that you can run just one light, or all three or something to that effect. But take it with a grain of salt. I have killed more drivers and LEDs than I have made work so far. but I seem to have thing for burning things up or breaking stuff :devil:

 

[Swallow]

for the wiring, why not just run all of the lights on the helmet in parallel if you want to DD. Just watch the max discharge rate of the battery. I have DD off of a single 18650 and have not had any issues. But one thing I did notice, is that as soon as I put a GD750 board from the sandwich shoppe in the light It got a lot brighter thanks to the buck/boost. It was an improvement that was way worth the $$$. IMO running DD really isnt worth it for bike lights, unless you are just using it to be seen. If I were doing the set up that you are looking at, I would take and put a single driver on each light, and run them in parallel off of a single battery pack. This way you could wire it up with a DPDT switch so that you can run just one light, or all three or something to that effect. But take it with a grain of salt. I have killed more drivers and LEDs than I have made work so far. but I seem to have thing for burning things up or breaking stuff :devil:

whatdrivers would you go for?

 

[sortafast]

personally I really like the drivers from the Shoppe. They are small, but they can be a beeyotch to solder up (at least for my ham fists). The Shark driver from the shoppe might not be a bad way to go for this light. With that you could just use the one driver for all of the lights, get the remora board or a 20k pot so that way you can can dim the light or have multiple settings. You could also do a single GD driver per LED and run it off of a 3.6v battery pack. This would be a bit spendy, and kind of unnecesary but would allow the use of a lower voltage battery pack. Also the Buckpuck from LEDynamics isn't a bad one either. The only thing with buck style drivers is that you would need to have a batt voltage higher than the total LED Vf. So that would mean more cells in the battery pack. Also, on a side note, I put the GD750 driver in my bike light, and I noticed that the light got a lot hotter than when it was DD only. From what I understand, this is common with Boost type drivers. But really from all my hacking with my bike lights, I have yet to find a driver i really dont like. They all have their +'s and -'s, its just a matter of how you want to set up the light, how much $$ you wanna spend and how much room you have to play with. If $$$ is not really an object, buy a few different drivers and batteries and experiment. thats what I find challenging and alot of fun (keeps me out of the wife's hair anyway). Also, from the riding I have done with my garage built light(s) I have found that 1 helmet light seems to be fairly adequate. 2 might be pretty sweet, but 3 LEDs might be a bit much. I'm all for smaller, lighter and more streamlined.

-Dave

 

[Essexman]

If you look on the DX site they sell drivers too. I think they are under flashlight DIY.
Working out which driver and batts to use can drive you a bit mad, there are sooo many ways to configure the same lights.
good luck

 

[joedm]

or you could buy one of these 4 mode flashlights from Kaidomain (https://www.kaidomain.com/vote/v1.html).

Cut down the body, i.e. just keep the head and use something to mount to your helmet(maybe some aluminium angle stock). Run a wire from the head to your battery pack.

The flashlight is for a standard 14500 battery which is supposed to be 3.7V. You could use any li-ion battery with that voltage (i.e. 18650) and wire a few in parallel to give longer runtime.

I'd do the same but I can't bring myself to cut down the lights when I get them... so I just keep buying them.. thinking I'll use the next one... it's a never ending spiral.:shrug: