Neg2LED
Flashlight Enthusiast
Bowling Pin \'Penguin\' MOD - FULL DETAILS
Hello,
just thought for some peoples convenience i would post the full details/pictures of the Penguin mod - all pics/stuff stolen from the china connection II thread - here. (haveblue: just trying to help!)
First, a pic of the light (pre mod)
After:
Dissected:
inside:
The Bowling Pin to 9LED to Lux conversion is easy...too easy. Put a quarter on top of the sandwich, drill two holes for the wires and attached wires to my Inretech Lux that I don't use because it was never bright enough running direct drive on my Minimag. Then the heat sink epoxy. I'll still have room for the Inretech optics so I might have to stack $$ on the quarter to build up space (and more heat sinking too.)
Beam comparison (before/after)
Penguin Juiced:
all comparisons:
Post by KD9UU:
Kenny,
I have no completed lights based on the bowling-pin however my first one is close to completion. I suspect the run-time would be pretty good in that the slightly modified bowling-pin circuit does not drive the Luxeon sssuper hard [says my fingers under the test star assembly]. Also the boost circuit will make the Lux light with as little as 1.5Vin [minimum my supply can adjust to]. I doubt a CR123 cell would ever drop that low before quitting. Beam-shot I'd expect to look like any other 1/2-driven Lux through a Fraen or NX05 optic. The following circuit I found on the net seems to match what is in the bowling-pin except that the pin's circuit does not have the schottky diode nor the output filter capacitor. click on multiple LED version diagram The output diode mentioned in the photo I'm linking to could also be a 1N5817, you can find those at Digikey . The output cap you can use a SMD-mounted or radial tantalum, I used a 22uf tantalum I had laying around. You can get that stuff at Digikey or.... I found some 10uf surface-mount caps on older higher-end motherboards, easy to harvest [the striped lead on caps I found corresponded with + polarity].
A side-note: when first experimenting with stock bowling-pin circuit direct-driving a Lux I noted that past a certain level of V-in the circuit would kinda lock up on me, that is it would all of a sudden make the Lux dimmer, then when decreasing the Vin the LED would turn OFF -- the only way to get the circuit happy again was to remove power, then it would again run the Lux dim at 1.5V, hmm. After I added some 2ohms resistance in series with the LED that voltage threshold was higher than a CR123 can put out. When I removed the 2ohms and went to adding schottky diode and cap at output I was still fine. There's a fair amount of room to play with inside the boost circuit's cylinder. I removed the circuit while modifying it then reinstalled [which involves resoldering the V+ spring in place, it was easy]. I put the schottkey diode in the circuitboard hole where the LED + wire used to be, then connected the additional cap between cathode of that and ground [emmiter of a nearby transistor].
The light I wish to compare this bowling-pin with is my Lux-modified Dorcy 1AA running off a 3V AA cell I harvested from a DURACELL CR-V3 [that brand CR-V3 uses 2) 3V AA in parallel, other brands may not]
P.S., the stock single LED Brinkman circuit in my above link shows value of R2 at 3.kohms, I think the pin uses 1K there, we could experiment with that value. If I have another pin circuit apart I'll also try a variable resistor at R1 which sets operating freq. of the oscillator [find brightest setting to run a Luxeon and replace with fixed resistor of same value], also of course add the schottky diode and filter cap shown in multiple LED diagram.
ok... i thinks thats all i can do... fee free to point out probs HaveBlue, and ill edit away!
neg
Hello,
just thought for some peoples convenience i would post the full details/pictures of the Penguin mod - all pics/stuff stolen from the china connection II thread - here. (haveblue: just trying to help!)
First, a pic of the light (pre mod)
After:
Dissected:
inside:
The Bowling Pin to 9LED to Lux conversion is easy...too easy. Put a quarter on top of the sandwich, drill two holes for the wires and attached wires to my Inretech Lux that I don't use because it was never bright enough running direct drive on my Minimag. Then the heat sink epoxy. I'll still have room for the Inretech optics so I might have to stack $$ on the quarter to build up space (and more heat sinking too.)
Beam comparison (before/after)
Penguin Juiced:
all comparisons:
Post by KD9UU:
Kenny,
I have no completed lights based on the bowling-pin however my first one is close to completion. I suspect the run-time would be pretty good in that the slightly modified bowling-pin circuit does not drive the Luxeon sssuper hard [says my fingers under the test star assembly]. Also the boost circuit will make the Lux light with as little as 1.5Vin [minimum my supply can adjust to]. I doubt a CR123 cell would ever drop that low before quitting. Beam-shot I'd expect to look like any other 1/2-driven Lux through a Fraen or NX05 optic. The following circuit I found on the net seems to match what is in the bowling-pin except that the pin's circuit does not have the schottky diode nor the output filter capacitor. click on multiple LED version diagram The output diode mentioned in the photo I'm linking to could also be a 1N5817, you can find those at Digikey . The output cap you can use a SMD-mounted or radial tantalum, I used a 22uf tantalum I had laying around. You can get that stuff at Digikey or.... I found some 10uf surface-mount caps on older higher-end motherboards, easy to harvest [the striped lead on caps I found corresponded with + polarity].
A side-note: when first experimenting with stock bowling-pin circuit direct-driving a Lux I noted that past a certain level of V-in the circuit would kinda lock up on me, that is it would all of a sudden make the Lux dimmer, then when decreasing the Vin the LED would turn OFF -- the only way to get the circuit happy again was to remove power, then it would again run the Lux dim at 1.5V, hmm. After I added some 2ohms resistance in series with the LED that voltage threshold was higher than a CR123 can put out. When I removed the 2ohms and went to adding schottky diode and cap at output I was still fine. There's a fair amount of room to play with inside the boost circuit's cylinder. I removed the circuit while modifying it then reinstalled [which involves resoldering the V+ spring in place, it was easy]. I put the schottkey diode in the circuitboard hole where the LED + wire used to be, then connected the additional cap between cathode of that and ground [emmiter of a nearby transistor].
The light I wish to compare this bowling-pin with is my Lux-modified Dorcy 1AA running off a 3V AA cell I harvested from a DURACELL CR-V3 [that brand CR-V3 uses 2) 3V AA in parallel, other brands may not]
P.S., the stock single LED Brinkman circuit in my above link shows value of R2 at 3.kohms, I think the pin uses 1K there, we could experiment with that value. If I have another pin circuit apart I'll also try a variable resistor at R1 which sets operating freq. of the oscillator [find brightest setting to run a Luxeon and replace with fixed resistor of same value], also of course add the schottky diode and filter cap shown in multiple LED diagram.
ok... i thinks thats all i can do... fee free to point out probs HaveBlue, and ill edit away!
neg