Hi everyone,
I had a blast posting my first build thread the other day so I have decided to do another.
.
This is a light that a customer asked me to build a while back, and I am actually just now finishing it.
This thread is going to show a few things, some of those things are going to be on "how to" build a quality light, and some of them will be "how NOT to" build a light.
Any way specs are
Pewter 2 C mag with extension and recessed tail spring to accommodate 2x 18560s.
Download multisink
3 NW 5A MCE emitters
3x Ledil boom 10 degree reflectors
UCL lens
Powered by 2x IMR 18650s
I will also be showing the electrical path for a driver if you want 3 mode.
Lets start with modifying the body. The first thing that needs to be done is to recess the tail spring to allow room for the 2x18650s. For that I simply removed the old mag spring and made one out of the spring from a cheap light. The factory mag spring is just a bit too thick to use for this.
As you can see I also soldered a piece of 22G wire to the spring because I want the resistance through this entire light to be as low as possible.
Next using my dremel with the saw bit I cut a groove around the base of the tail cap on the inside so the spring would "snap" into place and make good contact.
Now the spring fits tightly into place and wont fall out.
The next thing we will need is an extension because even with the recessed spring 2x18650s still don't quite fit into the light. For this I took a 1" copper coupler and cut the end off. The ring measures about 4mm or so with my calipers.
Now for the meat of the project. I already had in my possession several NW MCEs, so I ordered a heat sink from Download and began work. It would be difficult to tell what exactly the electrical path for this light is by the pics so I drew a little map to make things more clear.
The arrows show the direction of the current flow. ( For the veterans that may have been unnecessary, but I want to make sure anyone who is willing can understand. I like to include everyone
) Basically what you are doing is treating the emitters as individual die. Wiring 6 of them in parallel and 2 series.
This is the electrical path for the DD version, which is what the buyer for this light requested. Single mode for maximum brightness.
I went ahead and assembled a driver for the 3 mode version just because I wanted to see if it would work.
For this you will need a 3 mode 7135 chip driver like the one from Download or Shiningbeam, and 1 or 2 1400ma boards to use as slaves depending on what you want the max current to be. Remove the diode on the slave and replace it with wire. Then connect the POS NEG and ground of the two boards like this.
The other connections for the battery and led will be made to the Shiningbeam driver, unless you make a sandwich.
Here is the electrical path for the 3 mode version.
This pic only shows 1 cell but the light still uses 2x18650. Also you will need to heatsink the driver in order to stabilize the current. Other wise it will heat up quickly, causing the output and efficiency to drop.
On to the emitters and heat sink.
All wired up and ready to go...
I said in the beginning of this thread I would out line both some things "to do" and some things "not to do". The above pictures are examples of the latter.
I know several members have probly done similar builds using bare emitters, but for me it did not go well, and I don't recommend it to others. I have used bare emitters for projects in the past, but for this project especially for the direct drive version it just ended up being a waste of time and money. I didn't have any Arctic Silver Epoxy at the time so I had to use Arctic Alumina. I got this all wired up reflectors and all only to find out when I put an aspherical lens over it that one of the emitters had only 3 dies working
At first I suspected a short or a bad connection, but after some trouble shooting I discovered that not to be the case. I replaced the emitter, and proceeded to do another torcher test of the light ( ie several minutes of continuous run time). Shortly after I had the same result.
In order to resolve this issue you will need to take certain steps.
Step 1: Remove all emitters and wire from heat sink.
Step 2: Clean remaining Arctic Alumina epoxy off of heat sink with rubbing alcohol.
Step 3: Place Arctic Alumina Epoxy here.
Step 4: Get Arctic Silver Epoxy instead.
Step 5: Go stand here.
Now wait here for the next three weeks impatiently for MCE emitters on pcb with individual die access to arrive from Cutter Electronics.
LOL
I don't actually recommend going the long route this way that's just how it happened to work for me. Also AA epoxy is good stuff, the failure here was on my part I just thought the trash can thing was funny.
Anyway on with the show. In order to get the emitters perfectly centered I placed the heatsink inside the head of the light with the bezel on so that when I glued the emitters I could be sure the edge of the reflectors would not be under the edge of the bezel. This will eliminate any "flowers", and ensure the emitters are perfectly centered.
I used Arctic Silver epoxy for this to get the max heat transfer while still holding them in place.
I showed the wire path with the above diagrams, but here is a picture of the DD version in real life.
With this done a quick check for unwanted contacts between the wires and the PCBs. I did find a couple so I lifted the wire slightly and put liquid tape under the wire to prevent shorts.
In order to gain access to those precious individual pads some material from around the edges of the reflectors had to be removed.
After this was done I went ahead and glued the reflectors down with some Locktite 1 minute epoxy.
The switch can then be wired up.
Some Arctic Silver on the threads of the heat sink and on the base for maximum heat transfer.
After putting this all back into the light, all that remains is a sleeve for the 2x 18650s. For this I cut a piece of 3/4" SCH 40 PVC to length. Then cut a strip down the side about 1/8- 1/4" wide so the pipe will fit into the light. The sleeve will still fit very tightly into the body, so tight in fact you may want to drill a small hole near the bottom to stick an allen wrench into to be able to pull it back out.
The final product.
Beam shots later.
Credits:
While there are many that contributed in some way the members I would most like to thank are Download for his work with the "Poor mans mulitlux setup".
And jwyj for challenging me to build this light, and for the great patience he showed toward me while building it, since I ran a bit over the 3 week deadline. I hope you like it James, its comin your way express mail to Malaysia tomorrow AM.
I had a blast posting my first build thread the other day so I have decided to do another.
. This is a light that a customer asked me to build a while back, and I am actually just now finishing it.
This thread is going to show a few things, some of those things are going to be on "how to" build a quality light, and some of them will be "how NOT to" build a light.
Any way specs are
Pewter 2 C mag with extension and recessed tail spring to accommodate 2x 18560s.
Download multisink
3 NW 5A MCE emitters
3x Ledil boom 10 degree reflectors
UCL lens
Powered by 2x IMR 18650s
I will also be showing the electrical path for a driver if you want 3 mode.
Lets start with modifying the body. The first thing that needs to be done is to recess the tail spring to allow room for the 2x18650s. For that I simply removed the old mag spring and made one out of the spring from a cheap light. The factory mag spring is just a bit too thick to use for this.
As you can see I also soldered a piece of 22G wire to the spring because I want the resistance through this entire light to be as low as possible.
Next using my dremel with the saw bit I cut a groove around the base of the tail cap on the inside so the spring would "snap" into place and make good contact.
Now the spring fits tightly into place and wont fall out.
The next thing we will need is an extension because even with the recessed spring 2x18650s still don't quite fit into the light. For this I took a 1" copper coupler and cut the end off. The ring measures about 4mm or so with my calipers.
Now for the meat of the project. I already had in my possession several NW MCEs, so I ordered a heat sink from Download and began work. It would be difficult to tell what exactly the electrical path for this light is by the pics so I drew a little map to make things more clear.
The arrows show the direction of the current flow. ( For the veterans that may have been unnecessary, but I want to make sure anyone who is willing can understand. I like to include everyone
) Basically what you are doing is treating the emitters as individual die. Wiring 6 of them in parallel and 2 series.This is the electrical path for the DD version, which is what the buyer for this light requested. Single mode for maximum brightness.
I went ahead and assembled a driver for the 3 mode version just because I wanted to see if it would work.
For this you will need a 3 mode 7135 chip driver like the one from Download or Shiningbeam, and 1 or 2 1400ma boards to use as slaves depending on what you want the max current to be. Remove the diode on the slave and replace it with wire. Then connect the POS NEG and ground of the two boards like this.
The other connections for the battery and led will be made to the Shiningbeam driver, unless you make a sandwich.
Here is the electrical path for the 3 mode version.
This pic only shows 1 cell but the light still uses 2x18650. Also you will need to heatsink the driver in order to stabilize the current. Other wise it will heat up quickly, causing the output and efficiency to drop.
On to the emitters and heat sink.
All wired up and ready to go...
I said in the beginning of this thread I would out line both some things "to do" and some things "not to do". The above pictures are examples of the latter.
I know several members have probly done similar builds using bare emitters, but for me it did not go well, and I don't recommend it to others. I have used bare emitters for projects in the past, but for this project especially for the direct drive version it just ended up being a waste of time and money. I didn't have any Arctic Silver Epoxy at the time so I had to use Arctic Alumina. I got this all wired up reflectors and all only to find out when I put an aspherical lens over it that one of the emitters had only 3 dies working
At first I suspected a short or a bad connection, but after some trouble shooting I discovered that not to be the case. I replaced the emitter, and proceeded to do another torcher test of the light ( ie several minutes of continuous run time). Shortly after I had the same result. In order to resolve this issue you will need to take certain steps.
Step 1: Remove all emitters and wire from heat sink.
Step 2: Clean remaining Arctic Alumina epoxy off of heat sink with rubbing alcohol.
Step 3: Place Arctic Alumina Epoxy here.
Step 4: Get Arctic Silver Epoxy instead.
Step 5: Go stand here.
Now wait here for the next three weeks impatiently for MCE emitters on pcb with individual die access to arrive from Cutter Electronics.
LOL
I don't actually recommend going the long route this way that's just how it happened to work for me. Also AA epoxy is good stuff, the failure here was on my part I just thought the trash can thing was funny.Anyway on with the show. In order to get the emitters perfectly centered I placed the heatsink inside the head of the light with the bezel on so that when I glued the emitters I could be sure the edge of the reflectors would not be under the edge of the bezel. This will eliminate any "flowers", and ensure the emitters are perfectly centered.
I used Arctic Silver epoxy for this to get the max heat transfer while still holding them in place.
I showed the wire path with the above diagrams, but here is a picture of the DD version in real life.
With this done a quick check for unwanted contacts between the wires and the PCBs. I did find a couple so I lifted the wire slightly and put liquid tape under the wire to prevent shorts.
In order to gain access to those precious individual pads some material from around the edges of the reflectors had to be removed.
After this was done I went ahead and glued the reflectors down with some Locktite 1 minute epoxy.
The switch can then be wired up.
Some Arctic Silver on the threads of the heat sink and on the base for maximum heat transfer.
After putting this all back into the light, all that remains is a sleeve for the 2x 18650s. For this I cut a piece of 3/4" SCH 40 PVC to length. Then cut a strip down the side about 1/8- 1/4" wide so the pipe will fit into the light. The sleeve will still fit very tightly into the body, so tight in fact you may want to drill a small hole near the bottom to stick an allen wrench into to be able to pull it back out.
The final product.
Beam shots later.
Credits:
While there are many that contributed in some way the members I would most like to thank are Download for his work with the "Poor mans mulitlux setup".
And jwyj for challenging me to build this light, and for the great patience he showed toward me while building it, since I ran a bit over the 3 week deadline
. I hope you like it James, its comin your way express mail to Malaysia tomorrow AM.
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