Building a high quality lithium LED flashlight

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I would like to build a high quality LED flashlight that uses two 3 volt lithium batteries. Does anyone have any idea what would be the best light to use? I was thinking one that uses a PR type bulb would be the best as the resistor could be built into the bulb base and could hold several LEDs. Would any of the Sure-fire flashlights work for this? How about the Streamlight Scorpion or the UK2L? Any suggestions appreciated.
 
The UKE 2L uses a lamp/reflector assembly, all one peice. Same with the Surefire P60 series lamps. The Streamlight Scorpion is probably the closest, it uses a small Bi-Pin lamp. You can actually just put a 2.5mm LED right in the light. I don't know of any 2L light that used a PR base lamp.

Brock
 
Brock,

Could the reflector hole be drilled out to accept a 5mm 5600 white LED like the 2 AA Maglight? This might be bright enough if run with a small resistor.
 
I have built several 3 volt lithium based lights with great success. My favorite is a Durabeam (old style with the clear lens). I used 3 Nichia 5600s in a PR base. No resistor since the AA lithiums have enough internal resistance to run the LEDs very nicely without it. Another favorite is a waterproof 2 AA light. Again 3 LEDs in a PR base with no resistors. I bought the AA lithiums from Allelectronics.com. $4.00 each, but they really seem to last and they allow me to get some really bright light out of standard 2 AA flashlights. At $8.00 for a pair, I haven't done any endurance testing. {;-)

John [email protected]
 
Been reading this board for a while which led to some tinkering last night, I have some PR LED corp bulbs for 3 and 4 cell units so I wanted to see about putting a 4 cell(6v) in a UKE 2L(6v). I first went to put my new spare bulb in my UKE before I went to sacrificying my old one and presto the new one was NO GOOD. Well enough I sacrificed it-pryed the plastic base away from the bezel and brass looking body easy enough, then had to break out a black plastic inner ring before I could try to fit the bulb. Needlenose plyers tugged most of that out of there. Various scraping tools got it down flat to approx. correct depth, then drilled bezel to fit bulb. PR bulb fit in there perfectly diamater wise, took a little work to get the depth right. The negative wire on bezel was kept intact and with a slight filing on the PR flange it actually is a perfect pressure fit to hold contact against the wire- I didn't even have to solder it, which is cool cause I'm not sure what temp iron I'd have to use anyway. Works fine, not the greatest beam quality but a superb survival type light. Beam has dark center probably 18" at 10', other than that a wide beam similar to a TurtleliteII but not as bright or diffuse. But a good no brainer conversion.
 
Made this a while back out of a standard surefire (burnt out) P60 lamp - it's LED now (3)- working on a new design that's white instead of red. For "quality" - I recommend the surefire frame to hold the lithiums - can't be beat, and the DL123s offer excellent energy density. Plus you can find 6P surefires in the $45 range, which isn't a bad starting place for a light frame with two lithium cells!

p60led.jpg
 
Did you use a resistor? How long do you think the batteries will last with a three 5600 white configuration?
 
Here's a photo of the Durabeam using 3 5600's and 2 lithium 3 volt AAs. I keep it in the glovebox. With a 10 year battery shelf life and the LEDs, I'm pretty sure it will never let me down!

John
durabeam.jpg
 
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