gunga
Flashaholic
Incredible update. I love the details. I also need a gen 2 light.
Build Log: The 1.5V Project
- Thread starter calipsoii
- Start date
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archimedes
Flashaholic
Photo of the Spyglass Gen1 ...
... and wanting a Gen2
... and wanting a Gen2
What a great thread. The commentary is engaging and the pictures are stunning.
@archimedes: Man, that's a work of art.
Do I hear the siren song of a Gen 2?
@archimedes: Man, that's a work of art.
Do I hear the siren song of a Gen 2?
archimedes
Flashaholic
Thanks @Ladd ... was trying to get a bit creative.
I'll post another, but just to be clear, the colors are edited ...
... since I wanted to see what one of these might look like in titanium [emoji14]
Maybe it will inspire someone, huh, @calipsoii ?
I'll post another, but just to be clear, the colors are edited ...
... since I wanted to see what one of these might look like in titanium [emoji14]
Maybe it will inspire someone, huh, @calipsoii ?
Last edited:
calipsoii
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2010
- Messages
- 1,412
Workin' on it! Need to finish the prototype first to confirm all the changes are ok. All the o-rings have been changed, the threads, the switch assembly, the clip, the driver - this is all stuff that needs pocket-tested before I can say the design is good.
Need to spend an evening practicing my knurls first. Picked up some new scissors that work wonderfully (when they work) but I have a couple hundred bucks of bronze with crappy knurls sitting in my scrap pile waiting to be turned into pill canisters and spinning tops. It's a surprisingly hard thing to get right and you only get one shot - once the material is turned to size, if they come out crappy there's no re-doing it.
Hang tight, working as quickly as I'm able.
Need to spend an evening practicing my knurls first. Picked up some new scissors that work wonderfully (when they work) but I have a couple hundred bucks of bronze with crappy knurls sitting in my scrap pile waiting to be turned into pill canisters and spinning tops. It's a surprisingly hard thing to get right and you only get one shot - once the material is turned to size, if they come out crappy there's no re-doing it.
Hang tight, working as quickly as I'm able.
calipsoii
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2010
- Messages
- 1,412
Machining the Gen. 2 Tailcap
Wait, what?! A tailcap?! Indeed, friends. For the Gen. 2 we're ditching the unibody construction and adding a separate tailcap. There are a couple of good reasons:
I spent a good amount of time practicing my knurls before attempting this one. I've already scrapped many hundreds of dollars because the diamonds didn't turn out. Fingers crossed that I have the technique down pat!
The pass has been made and I see diamonds, but they look kind of rough. This could be because of all the swarf that's been generated. Unlike steel, which deforms rather neatly under the intense pressure of the wheels, copper alloys crumble and flake off. All this crumbled metal then gets pressed back into the workpiece on the next rotation, creating a really poor appearance. A heavy flood of cutting fluid helps prevent the issue.
After wiping off the cutting fluid and swarf, things are looking much better for our workpiece.
Clean things up by shaving the tops and beveling the sides and we're really starting to look sharp!
There's a lot of internal work to be done; several different internal diameters plus a couple grooves. Hard to capture all the time spent making the inside of this thing hollow.
This little guy should be familiar to most of you - a McClicky switch. It's going to be called into action right away here as I start cutting the 11/16-20 threads.
Not bad!
With the internal work done, we can flip the piece around and start cutting a bevel for your finger to sit in as you press the button. This is a tough one to judge because the rubber needs room to deform and your finger needs room to fit. Only testing will tell if this design is pleasant or annoying to use.
And we're done! So quick eh?! The pictures go by quickly but it took 3.5 hours in front of the lathe to get to this point. Time-consuming, detailed work this is.
Ah heck, how about an obligatory glamour shot now that we've cleaned it all up with some soap and a toothbrush?
We're not done until we test-fit a boot and switch in there! The clicking action is nice and clean and there seems to be enough room for my finger. Will need to get it mounted on a body to really tell but things look good so far!
And of course it tail-stands.
We're making good progress now! Check back again later as I save the largest and hardest piece for last: the body. Then we'll finally see how all these pieces fit together.
>> Return to root post
>> Continue to next post in the series
Wait, what?! A tailcap?! Indeed, friends. For the Gen. 2 we're ditching the unibody construction and adding a separate tailcap. There are a couple of good reasons:
- Improving the waterproofing at the rubber boot.
- Improving the waterproofing by removing the old clip screw.
- The new clip will fit between the tail & body, meaning it can be added or swapped easily and without tools.
- Many more machining operations required.
- An additional o-ring must be added between tail & body.
- The distinctive wire clip is probably not an option anymore (we'll see about this one. I really like that clip, maybe something can be done).
I spent a good amount of time practicing my knurls before attempting this one. I've already scrapped many hundreds of dollars because the diamonds didn't turn out. Fingers crossed that I have the technique down pat!
The pass has been made and I see diamonds, but they look kind of rough. This could be because of all the swarf that's been generated. Unlike steel, which deforms rather neatly under the intense pressure of the wheels, copper alloys crumble and flake off. All this crumbled metal then gets pressed back into the workpiece on the next rotation, creating a really poor appearance. A heavy flood of cutting fluid helps prevent the issue.
After wiping off the cutting fluid and swarf, things are looking much better for our workpiece.
Clean things up by shaving the tops and beveling the sides and we're really starting to look sharp!
There's a lot of internal work to be done; several different internal diameters plus a couple grooves. Hard to capture all the time spent making the inside of this thing hollow.
This little guy should be familiar to most of you - a McClicky switch. It's going to be called into action right away here as I start cutting the 11/16-20 threads.
Not bad!
With the internal work done, we can flip the piece around and start cutting a bevel for your finger to sit in as you press the button. This is a tough one to judge because the rubber needs room to deform and your finger needs room to fit. Only testing will tell if this design is pleasant or annoying to use.
And we're done! So quick eh?! The pictures go by quickly but it took 3.5 hours in front of the lathe to get to this point. Time-consuming, detailed work this is.
Ah heck, how about an obligatory glamour shot now that we've cleaned it all up with some soap and a toothbrush?
We're not done until we test-fit a boot and switch in there! The clicking action is nice and clean and there seems to be enough room for my finger. Will need to get it mounted on a body to really tell but things look good so far!
And of course it tail-stands.
We're making good progress now! Check back again later as I save the largest and hardest piece for last: the body. Then we'll finally see how all these pieces fit together.
>> Return to root post
>> Continue to next post in the series
Last edited:
Check back later? You can count on it!
That's one awesome tailcap, sir!
That's one awesome tailcap, sir!
archimedes
Flashaholic
Can't wait to see the next stage ....
gunga
Flashaholic
Drool worthy.
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2015
- Messages
- 2,123
Another excellent update!
MRsDNF
Newly Enlightened
Looking real good so far.
phosphor22
Enlightened
Fine visuals, again! Love the updates and seeing the process
Last edited:
erehwyrevekool
Enlightened
Congrats :goodjob: I like shaved knurling much more than the aggressive one
calipsoii
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2010
- Messages
- 1,412
Machining the Gen. 2 Body
Oh boy was this ever a lot of work! I started machining 5 bodies and finished with 2 usable ones. Let it never be said that owning a lathe makes things cheap. Time, materials and sanity are all resources with a cost. :duh2:
We start (as we always do) with a chunk of metal. This time there's a lot hanging out of the chuck!
I was feeling wild & crazy for this workpiece so decided to break out the Steel Blue. It's a quick-drying metal dye (also called a layout fluid) that forms an ultra-thin layer that you can scratch to mark your workpiece. It shipped in 3 nested Ziploc bags with a large warning sticker on each and displays warnings on the front, top, and bottom of the bottle. My machine shop instructor only ever said one thing about it: "Love that smell but I guess it gives you cancer or something".
If you buy a half-decent set of calipers, the majority of the body will be made of steel but the tips will be made of carbide (a hard-wearing ceramic). This lets you use them to lightly scratch marks in things... like layout fluid!
Using the scratch lines as start/end points, I cut a little pocket in the middle of the bar stock. The blue dye looks quite striking against the bronze - I wish there was a way to incorporate that into the finished light.
The pocket is just wide enough to slip the toolholder into so that I can cut out the remaining body material.
After taking a few passes, the mid-section of the light is looking much slimmer. This drops a lot of weight so that the end result doesn't pull your pants down.
Time for my least-favorite operation of all! *bites nails*
They might look ok at first glance but there's actually quite a lot wrong with these knurls. Just between you and me, after knurling the 5th body I was damn near ready to quit out of frustration. Bronze is exceedingly flaky and my knurling scissors have been abused so much that they're no longer sharp. Those two factors resulted in a lot of really poor looking knurls. I'm 95% of the way to convincing myself to drop the big cash (and I do mean big: at $1200+ they're not an impulse buy) and pick up some cut knurlers. Those beauties are used by the likes of wquiles and Fred Pilon to create the nice diamonds you always see on their custom titanium pieces. Instead of simply smashing the metal together they actually cut it away, which means soft metals like bronze are no problem. We'll see.
The next picture showcases a few different operations: shaving down the knurls, adding the 45° bevels to each side, and cutting the form for the tail. You can start to see the body shape now.
Our little guy gets up at 05:45, I work 8-10 hours, spend 3 hours putting him back to bed and then it's out to the garage. I'm pretty good about recognizing when I'm too tired to be running the lathe but occasionally I'll slip up and do things like bump my finger against the chuck jaws while they're spinning at 1100 RPM.
The tailcap end gets threaded 11/16-20. The same pitch as a McClicky switch. Coincidence? :thinking:
One of the core tenets of machining is "keep your tool lengths as short as possible to reduce vibration and prevent chattering". I don't think letting my tiny boring hang out 2.5" would pass with any kind of approval from any half-sane machinist. A good choice would have been a properly sized drill followed by a properly sized reamer. But... this is what I had on hand so... let 'er rip!
Someone once told me if you absolutely must make a high vibration cut, you can press a block of wood against your cutting tool to dampen vibration. So I did that with my ridiculous boring bar and it worked, leaving a nice smooth finish all the way down the bore.
But does it fit a battery?
Not much more can be done at this point except part off the workpiece. The head end isn't nearly as pretty as the tail.
In between frustrated knurling sessions I tidied up the workshop a bit. Here's where all the magic happens folks. :twothumbs
Once the body was parted off I was left with the fundamental issue of how to clean up the other end. It obviously needed to be re-mounted in the chuck, but with the middle section gone it would no longer fit in the jaws. The solution was to create a soft Delrin collet. The collet would carefully cradle the workpiece while greatly enlarging the diameter, giving the jaws something to hold onto.
Perfect! Nice and soft with a large diameter to grab on to!
My lathe has 2 sets of chucks: a 3-jaw and a 4-jaw. The 3-jaw chuck is kind of a 'cheater' chuck because you just stick the medal in it and tighten down and all the jaws move simultaneously. The problem with the 3-jaw chuck on an import lathe like mine is that it doesn't spin perfectly true. This is called 'runout' and you can see it as a slight wobble in the metal. It's no big deal if your workpiece spends its entire life chucked up - everything spins around one axis and turns out fine. It IS a problem if you ever remove your workpiece and try to put it back in. Now your partially-finished workpiece is wobbling and your cuts aren't true. In a 4-jaw chuck, each jaw is tightened individually. This gives you fine control over the workpiece but it's a pain in the rear getting things dialed in. For our workpiece, the 4-jaw chuck is now necessary so I pull the old one off to put the new one on.
Here's the workpiece sitting in the 4 jaws. You can see how the 2 slits in the collet fit nicely between the jaws allowing an even grip.
We need to get this thing perfectly center before we work on it. This little tool is called a dial indicator. Wobble in the workpiece causes the hand on the face to move. It's then a matter of tightening the jaws until the wobble disappears.
After 4-5 minutes of adjustments, things are looking pretty darn good!
If it weren't centered properly you would see it here in the wall thickness - one side would be thick and the other thin. Not something we want!
We're working in such a tight space that my standard threading tool won't even fit without destroying things. Since the threads aren't very deep I can switch to this tiny little threading tool bought specifically for this task.
Hey that looks pretty good! The ledge at the bottom gives the head something to tighten down onto for a nice, positive feel.
Of course we need to make sure the driver pill actually threads in there.
There are sharp edges galore so we start adding countersinks and bevels all over the place. Can't have any sliced fingers or nicked batteries!
Almost done! The knurls are full of flakes and the threads full of swarf so its into the soap bath for this workpiece.
You know, I think this'll work.
I'm still waiting on o-rings and switch boots (c'mon FastTech, hurry up!) so no final assembly shots until those get here. At that point I'll know whether all the joints are waterproof and the machining correct. That's ok though, gives me some time to flash the drivers and make sure I'm happy with the firmware. You guys'll stop back to see everything put together, right? :devil:
>> Return to root post
>> Continue to next post in the series
Oh boy was this ever a lot of work! I started machining 5 bodies and finished with 2 usable ones. Let it never be said that owning a lathe makes things cheap. Time, materials and sanity are all resources with a cost. :duh2:
We start (as we always do) with a chunk of metal. This time there's a lot hanging out of the chuck!
I was feeling wild & crazy for this workpiece so decided to break out the Steel Blue. It's a quick-drying metal dye (also called a layout fluid) that forms an ultra-thin layer that you can scratch to mark your workpiece. It shipped in 3 nested Ziploc bags with a large warning sticker on each and displays warnings on the front, top, and bottom of the bottle. My machine shop instructor only ever said one thing about it: "Love that smell but I guess it gives you cancer or something".
If you buy a half-decent set of calipers, the majority of the body will be made of steel but the tips will be made of carbide (a hard-wearing ceramic). This lets you use them to lightly scratch marks in things... like layout fluid!
Using the scratch lines as start/end points, I cut a little pocket in the middle of the bar stock. The blue dye looks quite striking against the bronze - I wish there was a way to incorporate that into the finished light.
The pocket is just wide enough to slip the toolholder into so that I can cut out the remaining body material.
After taking a few passes, the mid-section of the light is looking much slimmer. This drops a lot of weight so that the end result doesn't pull your pants down.
Time for my least-favorite operation of all! *bites nails*
They might look ok at first glance but there's actually quite a lot wrong with these knurls. Just between you and me, after knurling the 5th body I was damn near ready to quit out of frustration. Bronze is exceedingly flaky and my knurling scissors have been abused so much that they're no longer sharp. Those two factors resulted in a lot of really poor looking knurls. I'm 95% of the way to convincing myself to drop the big cash (and I do mean big: at $1200+ they're not an impulse buy) and pick up some cut knurlers. Those beauties are used by the likes of wquiles and Fred Pilon to create the nice diamonds you always see on their custom titanium pieces. Instead of simply smashing the metal together they actually cut it away, which means soft metals like bronze are no problem. We'll see.
The next picture showcases a few different operations: shaving down the knurls, adding the 45° bevels to each side, and cutting the form for the tail. You can start to see the body shape now.
Our little guy gets up at 05:45, I work 8-10 hours, spend 3 hours putting him back to bed and then it's out to the garage. I'm pretty good about recognizing when I'm too tired to be running the lathe but occasionally I'll slip up and do things like bump my finger against the chuck jaws while they're spinning at 1100 RPM.
The tailcap end gets threaded 11/16-20. The same pitch as a McClicky switch. Coincidence? :thinking:
One of the core tenets of machining is "keep your tool lengths as short as possible to reduce vibration and prevent chattering". I don't think letting my tiny boring hang out 2.5" would pass with any kind of approval from any half-sane machinist. A good choice would have been a properly sized drill followed by a properly sized reamer. But... this is what I had on hand so... let 'er rip!
Someone once told me if you absolutely must make a high vibration cut, you can press a block of wood against your cutting tool to dampen vibration. So I did that with my ridiculous boring bar and it worked, leaving a nice smooth finish all the way down the bore.
But does it fit a battery?
Not much more can be done at this point except part off the workpiece. The head end isn't nearly as pretty as the tail.
In between frustrated knurling sessions I tidied up the workshop a bit. Here's where all the magic happens folks. :twothumbs
Once the body was parted off I was left with the fundamental issue of how to clean up the other end. It obviously needed to be re-mounted in the chuck, but with the middle section gone it would no longer fit in the jaws. The solution was to create a soft Delrin collet. The collet would carefully cradle the workpiece while greatly enlarging the diameter, giving the jaws something to hold onto.
Perfect! Nice and soft with a large diameter to grab on to!
My lathe has 2 sets of chucks: a 3-jaw and a 4-jaw. The 3-jaw chuck is kind of a 'cheater' chuck because you just stick the medal in it and tighten down and all the jaws move simultaneously. The problem with the 3-jaw chuck on an import lathe like mine is that it doesn't spin perfectly true. This is called 'runout' and you can see it as a slight wobble in the metal. It's no big deal if your workpiece spends its entire life chucked up - everything spins around one axis and turns out fine. It IS a problem if you ever remove your workpiece and try to put it back in. Now your partially-finished workpiece is wobbling and your cuts aren't true. In a 4-jaw chuck, each jaw is tightened individually. This gives you fine control over the workpiece but it's a pain in the rear getting things dialed in. For our workpiece, the 4-jaw chuck is now necessary so I pull the old one off to put the new one on.
Here's the workpiece sitting in the 4 jaws. You can see how the 2 slits in the collet fit nicely between the jaws allowing an even grip.
We need to get this thing perfectly center before we work on it. This little tool is called a dial indicator. Wobble in the workpiece causes the hand on the face to move. It's then a matter of tightening the jaws until the wobble disappears.
After 4-5 minutes of adjustments, things are looking pretty darn good!
If it weren't centered properly you would see it here in the wall thickness - one side would be thick and the other thin. Not something we want!
We're working in such a tight space that my standard threading tool won't even fit without destroying things. Since the threads aren't very deep I can switch to this tiny little threading tool bought specifically for this task.
Hey that looks pretty good! The ledge at the bottom gives the head something to tighten down onto for a nice, positive feel.
Of course we need to make sure the driver pill actually threads in there.
There are sharp edges galore so we start adding countersinks and bevels all over the place. Can't have any sliced fingers or nicked batteries!
Almost done! The knurls are full of flakes and the threads full of swarf so its into the soap bath for this workpiece.
You know, I think this'll work.
I'm still waiting on o-rings and switch boots (c'mon FastTech, hurry up!) so no final assembly shots until those get here. At that point I'll know whether all the joints are waterproof and the machining correct. That's ok though, gives me some time to flash the drivers and make sure I'm happy with the firmware. You guys'll stop back to see everything put together, right? :devil:
>> Return to root post
>> Continue to next post in the series
Last edited:
archimedes
Flashaholic
Looking good ....
FroggyTaco
Flashlight Enthusiast
Such an enlightening experience to see what goes into a single flashlight design.
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2015
- Messages
- 2,123
Fantastic update! Always an interesting read.
phosphor22
Enlightened
Yep I will indeed check back! - this is looking fabulous.
KuanR
Flashlight Enthusiast
Excellent update!
