Hi guys. Just thought I would take a few minutes and post about my latest flashlight mod. This time it was a 4 AAA Energizer DoubleBarrel that went under the knife (well, Dremel Tool actually). I modded it to use 4 20 degree Nichia Whites. I had already modded one of these to use 1 LED and was very pleased with it, but I just thought I would experiment and add a few more LEDs. (In my best Tim the Toolman Taylor) More power, Arr Arr Arrrrr!
Well, time to get to the details. I used a couple of ideas that I had been kicking around for a while and came up with a couple of new ideas in the process. The first thing to be done, of course, was to rewire the DoubleBarrel from it's original 3volt configuration to a 6volt configuration. Then I made a dummy AAA cell to bring the 6volts down to 4.5volts. Also, anyone that has ever done this mod on a DoubleBarrel will notice that you will have to drill out the center of one of the endcaps so that you can reverse the direction of one of the batteries. This is a protection feature that Energizer uses to make sure that you don't reverse the direction of the batteries accidentally, but in this case, you want to be able to reverse the direction of a couple of the batteries so the protection has to be defeated.
I finally got to try out my Penny heat sink idea that I'd wanted to try for a while and, in the process, I figured out a new twist on my original idea. First I drilled a single hole in the middle of the Penny instead of using several holes like Silviron did in his Penny heat sink mod. (BTW, kudos to Silviron for being the first (to the best of my knowledge) to put my Penny heat sink idea to practical use). In this LED arrangement, you may notice that I turned all Anodes (Positive leads) to the center and all Cathodes (Negative leads) to the outside. This allowed me to easily solder all negative leads to the inside of the hole in the Penny and all positive leads to the center of the hole. Probably the neatest thing about this configuration is the fact that you don't have to use heatshrink tubing anywhere and you don't have to worry about leads accidentally touching where they aren't supposed to. I used Epoxy to glue the 4 LEDs together, angling them slightly inward. This is a little trick that I learned from studying the 2 LED LEDCORP bulb. It makes for a more concentrated spot. I also used my handy dandy Dremel Tool to polish the Penny so that it would solder more easily.
Now on to the electrical end of things. I was really surprised by the results of the current draw tests. All 4 LEDs together drew less amperage than my 2 LED Turtlelite 2. Of course about a fourth of the amperage of 2 LED LEDCORP "bulb" in the Turtlelite 2 is sucked up by just having a resistor present, but these amperage draw test results were still surprising. Using 3 AA batteries that tested at 4.5volts, I got a current draw of 68ma on my 4LED module. Using 3 AAA batteries that tested at 4.4volts, I got a current draw of 62ma on my 4LED module. This is compared to the 90ma current draw of the Turtlelite 2 running at 6.1volts. This seems strange to me that a 4LED module would pull less amperage than a 2 LED even taking into consideration the resistor in the 2 LED bulb. The amount of light produced is about equal to the Turtlelite 2 and at a third less of the amperage. That is much better results than I had expected to find. I wonder if the 4 LEDs being heat sinked so well would make such a difference in power usage. I thought that with 4.5volts going to 4 LEDs that the current draw would be around 100ma at least. At 3.6volts they are expected to pull 20-25ma per LED so I wonder why they are pulling only 15ma each at a higher voltage. The only thing I can think of is that these have a good heat sink. Any ideas on why this is?
Well, that about covers it. If anyone has questions, answers, general comments, Etc. feel free to post. Sorry about the quality of the pics. I don't have a digital camera yet and for some reason my scanner didn't do so great of a job this time. I may try to add better pics later.
Well, time to get to the details. I used a couple of ideas that I had been kicking around for a while and came up with a couple of new ideas in the process. The first thing to be done, of course, was to rewire the DoubleBarrel from it's original 3volt configuration to a 6volt configuration. Then I made a dummy AAA cell to bring the 6volts down to 4.5volts. Also, anyone that has ever done this mod on a DoubleBarrel will notice that you will have to drill out the center of one of the endcaps so that you can reverse the direction of one of the batteries. This is a protection feature that Energizer uses to make sure that you don't reverse the direction of the batteries accidentally, but in this case, you want to be able to reverse the direction of a couple of the batteries so the protection has to be defeated.
I finally got to try out my Penny heat sink idea that I'd wanted to try for a while and, in the process, I figured out a new twist on my original idea. First I drilled a single hole in the middle of the Penny instead of using several holes like Silviron did in his Penny heat sink mod. (BTW, kudos to Silviron for being the first (to the best of my knowledge) to put my Penny heat sink idea to practical use). In this LED arrangement, you may notice that I turned all Anodes (Positive leads) to the center and all Cathodes (Negative leads) to the outside. This allowed me to easily solder all negative leads to the inside of the hole in the Penny and all positive leads to the center of the hole. Probably the neatest thing about this configuration is the fact that you don't have to use heatshrink tubing anywhere and you don't have to worry about leads accidentally touching where they aren't supposed to. I used Epoxy to glue the 4 LEDs together, angling them slightly inward. This is a little trick that I learned from studying the 2 LED LEDCORP bulb. It makes for a more concentrated spot. I also used my handy dandy Dremel Tool to polish the Penny so that it would solder more easily.
Now on to the electrical end of things. I was really surprised by the results of the current draw tests. All 4 LEDs together drew less amperage than my 2 LED Turtlelite 2. Of course about a fourth of the amperage of 2 LED LEDCORP "bulb" in the Turtlelite 2 is sucked up by just having a resistor present, but these amperage draw test results were still surprising. Using 3 AA batteries that tested at 4.5volts, I got a current draw of 68ma on my 4LED module. Using 3 AAA batteries that tested at 4.4volts, I got a current draw of 62ma on my 4LED module. This is compared to the 90ma current draw of the Turtlelite 2 running at 6.1volts. This seems strange to me that a 4LED module would pull less amperage than a 2 LED even taking into consideration the resistor in the 2 LED bulb. The amount of light produced is about equal to the Turtlelite 2 and at a third less of the amperage. That is much better results than I had expected to find. I wonder if the 4 LEDs being heat sinked so well would make such a difference in power usage. I thought that with 4.5volts going to 4 LEDs that the current draw would be around 100ma at least. At 3.6volts they are expected to pull 20-25ma per LED so I wonder why they are pulling only 15ma each at a higher voltage. The only thing I can think of is that these have a good heat sink. Any ideas on why this is?
Well, that about covers it. If anyone has questions, answers, general comments, Etc. feel free to post. Sorry about the quality of the pics. I don't have a digital camera yet and for some reason my scanner didn't do so great of a job this time. I may try to add better pics later.
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