Any controllable RGB flashlights anywhere?

[Ken_McE]

Controllable RGB flashlight - It\'s Coming.

I am well into the process of making a controllable multi color flashlight. It has six colors all switched independently. About 50 LEDs total. It is not really like any other flashlight I have seen - it's heavy and square and Lexan and steel, held together with bolts and screws, and built with a robust indifference to weight and beauty.

 

[Ken_McE]

Controllable RGB flashlight - It\'s Coming.

I am well into the process of making a controllable multi color flashlight. It has six colors all switched independently. About 50 LEDs total. It is not really like any other flashlight I have seen - it's heavy and square and Lexan and steel, held together with bolts and screws, and built with a robust indifference to weight and beauty.

 

[enLIGHTenment]

Re: Controllable RGB flashlight - It\'s Coming.

Dichroic mirrors can be used to combine light from multiple colored sources without the losses of a diffuser. Lenses would be required to match up the divergence angles from the LEDs.

 

[EricB]

[ QUOTE ]
Only problem is that it is only the milky type RGB LEDs that work properly when mixing colours. And that means less 'throw' power and more fiddling with reflectors, and certainly less effiency because of the diffusion. Mind you I haven't tried a large array of RGB milky LEDs with a reflector yet....mmmm. Couplets in a 'lava' lamp yes, but at only 20mA per chip it wasn't very bright.
I've tried clear RGB LEDs in 5mm round, superflux and 1W heatsink types (check out www.powerleds.com). In these LEDs the beams dont colliminate and there is a very noticable and annoying divergence. This is caused by one lens being shared by the chips. Instead of a yellow beam, with R/G on...you get two beams one red and one green pointing in different directions. Until the manufacturers figureout how to get the RGB beams to converge into one, I'll keep with the seperate LEDs.

[/ QUOTE ] Funny; all the rgb's I've seen mix the colors better than discrete units. But then; I'm not really looking at a "beam"; I'm just looking directly at the source. I guess diffusing the lens over the clear diodes would also take away from the "throw power"?

 

[rgbphil]

You're right...the discrete units do mix well, and are probably good for panel illumination. Trade off for discretes is fringing on the beam splotches. Good news is I've finally printed the artwork and am making the PCB now. I'll try different schemes like a shadow mask and see if that improves things.
Another problem is imaging of the LED wires in the beam. Not a serious problem, but annoying. Made worse when putting lenses on. I'm hoping multiple units together will cancel it out.
I'm keen to see Kens mega RGB torch, 6 colours.....are you perchance putting White, IR and UV LEDs in there as wells as RGB?....then you'd have a multi mega spectrum torch! Cool.
Kens right on the dichroic mirrors, from the descriptions of the new LED vga projector (recently on slashdot) it looks like that's what they're doing and is probably the go for powerful emitters like Luxeon 5Ws, pretty complex though. Any manufacturers on the forum? please.....can you do some cleverness and have all this incoorporated on a single unit? Try holograms as well I reckon, I've no idea of the loss through a hologram, but if it isn't too bad you could probably tune them to correct beam divergence at different frequencies of the RGB chips.

Phil

 

[Ken_McE]

[ QUOTE ]
rgbphil said:
I'm keen to see Kens mega RGB torch, 6 colours.....are you perchance putting White, IR and UV LEDs in there as wells as RGB?....then you'd have a multi mega spectrum torch! Cool.


[/ QUOTE ]

White and UV yes, IR, no. Don't see any point to adding IR to what is roughly a childs toy. I'm hoping to get naked eye visible mixing of colors, ability to light your tent/the world in various colors, don't know any kids who see in IR.

 

[Wits' End]

[ QUOTE ]
Ken_McE said:
don't know any kids who see in IR.

[/ QUOTE ]
Elves and Hobbits /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[rgbphil]

Hi All,
Just completed the LED part of the torch, but got dodgy results. The LED die and the 30 degree LEDs are making mixing difficult, ending in colour blotches. I'll try some 8mm 55degree LEDs and see how that turns out.
Phil

 

[rgbphil]

Hi all,
First Light!!
Made up a new torch with 8mm LEDs, hope to have article on OddOnes LED site next week.
It's made of 9 (3R3G3B) 8mm 100mA 55 degree LEDs, in about 200mm of 50mm PVC tubing and uses a 16F88 PIC as the controller, standard linear cct with BD139s and dropping resistors. Three sliders control HSL (for first light I've got them doing RGB) parameters in manual colour mode, or things like saturation/speed of patterns in automode. Currently powered by 4AA high capacity NiMh batterys w/o regulation, it really needs a little switcher to keep constant voltage to end of the battery life, also the possibility of upping the voltage so I can put the LEDs in series configuration....any ideas?
Phil

 

[EricB]

Still would prefer 9rgb; but I should be so picky. If the colors are mixed well; that would be good enough. I could always get rgb whenever it comes out.

So are you selling these? And for how much?

 

[Stellatus]

Why don't you try my 3W RGB Prolight.

£8.00 + £2.00 P&P

http://www.led-bulbs.com/html/prolight/3WRGB.pdf

 

[rgbphil]

nope sorry, I'm not intending to sell this. It's a pretty amature attempt....but it works.
But I've submitted the first part to the construction to OddOnes site, hopefully in a few days he'll be able to put it up.
Stellatus' post on their Prolite RGB LED looks interesting. The circuit should be adaptable (if somewhat inefficient) to this LED.
Phil

 

[rgbphil]

Hi Stellatus,
These LEDs look ideal, particularly for use in a small package or torch mod.
Could you post or point toward a beam shot though, with all LEDs on. I've been burnt before on RGB modules that don't mix their beams nicely or have fringing artifacts. The spatial radiation pattern looks good from the datasheet...but isn't the same as a picture. Do you also have lenses etc to help get a nice beam suitable for this module?
Phil

 

[WildRice]

I am ordering a RGB and a reflector from Stellatus. He said it should be in by the end of the week, and I would guess another week to get here. I will post how well the mixing is along with all the other details.
For controll I was thinking of using the guts from a SAUCE wand with some high power transistors to boost the outputs. Since all the dimming is PWM this should work fine.
Jeff

 

[EricB]

That ProLight doesn't seem to be a flashlight, but rather just a component. Is this for someone making their own flashlight? I don't make flashlights, so I was wondering if there are any using it; or does your company make flashlights with it?

 

[WildRice]

AFAIK this is a new product. I have build some flashlights with RGB LEDs, but they were not bright enough for anything than a kids toy (they love it BTW). This is the first product to contain red blue and green 1Watt dies in one package. I will have to wait a bit to see how the colors mix in a reflector tho.
Jeff

 

[xenopus]

Eric:
We have a "Forensic Edition" which is wavelength-selectable. 40 LEDs, 10 each of whatever colors you want (presently different wavelengths UV are usual plus blue). "All on" and then 4 other modes through each color -- all controlled with the M*glite on/off switch. Note that pricing would be substantially less expensive with "normal" RGB colors instead of UV LEDs in this product, if you're interested, let me know and we'll price it out for you.
Thanx,
Piers
EDIT -- sorry, maent to say 10 each of 4 colors, since 4 * 4 clearly doesn't equal 40, heh heh.

 

[EricB]

So that means I could have it with red (635-50), green (525-535) and blue (430-470) instead of those UV wavelengths? (I don't know what I'd have to do with the other 10. Perhaps a 30 LED light instead?) Is at least one of these other modes one where I can individually mix the colors (like rgbphil's device)? Then I think I'd be interested; if I can afford it.

 

[WildRice]

Well, I am still waiting for the 3W RGB to show up, mabyee tomorrow /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif . I have in the meantim completed the prototype driver. It IS a sauce wand (still running the the AA battery, with 3 heafty SMD PNP transistors, This segment will be running off some sort of Li-ION. The transistors are handeling 550mA to a LUX III I had to test with. I am goung to try using some 1N4001 diodes to drop the voltage from the 3.6v cell to run the 1.5v circuitry (and act as a undervoltage protector). Depending on how big and well the reflector works compaired to a 'C' m@g reflector, this might all end up being housed in a 2'C' m@g. I'll update ya'll when it gets here.
Jeff

 

[WildRice]

COOL, it finally got here. Although it was 'sold' as an emitter, I was happy to find it mounted to a 'star' base. The connections were for a normal single die unit, so the outward pads didnt work, but this is OK.

Let me say that for general flood lighting, these are REALLY COOL, Bright and even color distribution. The internal dies are spread relatively apart, but this was to be expected. I also purchased a reflector fom PROLIGHT also. With the reflector, the color mixing is pretty good. 1 being the output from a 5mm LED where there are 3 NOTICIABLE color spots, and a 10 being solid white, I would have to give it a 7-7 1/2. The product is well made and works as expected. (although RGB tech has a long way to go...)
With a NX-05 optic the colors were blotchy, and with a severly cut down MM optic, it was really ringy. I might have to see about orange peeling a reflector and see how that works.
The driver setup I have presentally pushes about 200-225mA to each color when on by themselves, and a total of 575mA when all on. I need to work on my driving method. But all-in-all, I am happy. All I have to do now is find a home for it.

Jeff

Thanks again to IdleProcess for the use of his webspace.