Camping Lights

[eva04]

Hi there guys and girls! I go camping quite often and would like to set up a "lamp post" style flood light. I want to be able to direct the lights both horizontally and vertically. Please keep in mind I'm new to flashlight modding (and CPF!) so my electronics knowledge is quite limited, so bear with me!

So anyway, onto the project details! I have a Fullriver DC105-12 12v AGM battery in a battery box with a switched female cigarette socket as the power source. The project will be for the light unit which attaches to the battery via the cigarette socket. I'm aiming for a flood light rather than throw as I want to illuminate a large area. The budget for the lighting unit is 100USD, sourcing parts from DealExtreme (or others if required).

To keep it simple for myself, I have decided to use LED drop in units, more specifically being the 'Cree XP-G R5 320-Lumen White Light LED Drop-in Module' (sku.32953) which will be connected in parallel. The reason for this is so that I can run 1, 2, 3 or 4 lights without having to do a lot of cabling. Doing this also gives me the option to add more led modules down the track. I've heard that this particular driver running at 12v is inefficient and hence produces excess heat. I'm not worried by the inefficiency as I have plenty of battery power at my disposal and the heat problem should be fine given the light will be run outdoors. Anyway, is my choice in LED feasible? If not please suggest another… one thing I am unsure of here is whether the reflector will provide sufficient flood. I doubt it will, which makes me question:
- Which reflector should I use?
- What optics should I be using? (The drop-in module doesn't include one, which should I get?)
- Would it be more economical to buy each component separately (led, driver, heat sink, reflector, optics) and put it together myself?
As a comparison for the level of flood I am looking for, the x2000 from DX in flood mode would be ideal.

I want to use sku.28980 for the cabling, as I can disassemble the lighting unit while travelling. I'll cut the cable into two and solder the female end to the springs on the drop-in module. I plan to have the drop in unit and the cabling housed inside PVC, unless anybody is able to suggest a better alternative. The male end of the cable will be attached to the male cigarette socket. The problem I face here is having to attach 4 male DC cables to the male cigarette socket, it's going to be a bit messy and restrict the ease of future module additions… any ideas how to improve this?

Also, any idea's on making the setup a bit water resistant?

List of parts for the project:
4x LED Drop-in units (sku 32953)
4x Reflectors (if the one supplied is insufficient for flood purposes)
4x Lenses (any idea which ones to get?)
4x DC Extension cables (sku 28980)
1x Male cigarette socket (salvaged from a phone charger)
4x PVC tubing for drop-in and cable housing
4x PVC tubing caps with a hole drilled in the middle for the cable
1x 3m extendable pole
4x Mounts (sku 13004)
4x Velcro straps
Hot glue gun, silicone, solder, extra cabling etc…

Here's a picture I whipped up in paint a while ago when the idea was fresh. Please ignore the switch, as I just realized I can just use the switch on the battery box for the 12v cigarette socket. Also ignore the wiring through the pole, although it seemed like a neat idea at the time, it seems like too much trouble to do, so I'll settle with Velcro straps to reduce cable clutter.

Although it's a relatively simple project, I would like it if you experts could approve or improve my plans before I go on ordering and destroying those drop-ins. Thanks for reading my long winded plan, I'd appreciate any advice!

 

[VidPro]

oh no this wont do at all, its ALL wrong , from one end to the other :shrug:

cool idea, and its smart to use those drop-ins because the price is so cheap on them.
so let me tell you all the places it is wrong, Just for Fun

Drop-ins are usually designed for a flashlight head, and will need some sort of heat syncing capability, and plastic is not a heat sync.

When they say you will waste power running a Cheap Drop-in at 12V they arent kidding, poorly done drop-ins can waste 50% of your power or more WHEN not used at specific voltages they are designed for, even a $25 curcuit can waste 50% of your power if your not in the range of its design, reguardless of its Total possible range.
your running on battery, 3-4-8 hours later your going to wish it was efficient.
Then, the driver IN the drop-in will output all its Wasted efficiency as HEAT, very bad, heating up the whole drop-in that is now not already heatsynced enough, wasting valuable LEDs.

reflector? potentially a Raw Cree 3W thing would not "need" any sort of reflection at all to do a very nice floodlighting of a campsite, but viewing it will still be the most irritating aspect of it.

most drop in reflectors will waste light trying to be a spot, if you dont want spot then you wont need a dropin with reflector type of thing.

Shutting OFF 2-3 of the leds leaving just one going , is a total waste of power , will limit the light to 180* output and will waste the leds.
it is far superior to have all of the leds to be driven with less total actual current, that is way more efficient, and the leds will last way longer before they reduce in output.

 

[VidPro]

so now i will trash your whole design , and give you a new improved one that you can make for less money , will last 20 times as long and run for 2 times with the same power, be fully dimmable, repairable and really effective, but look like you got it out of a trash heap somewhere if you dont do it right

get Cree stars. For camping outdoors get the warm ones. The warm ones put out 1/2 as much light :-( and are not stark bluish, they also dont attract every bug from 100 miles away to your site , and they will be much more pleasant viewing, and colors and for cooking and even for having sex, oops, hey they just look better
I choose the cree for this project, because of its high dome does have a bit of direction to it , and a Star because it is easy to work with and will easily take a optics holder. even use MC-E crees with Quad dies run low for more flexability (or eventual extended lumens modifications).

Mount the cree stars to aluminum plates you buy at the hardware store, mount them to the last 2 inches of 6-10 inches total as heat syncs, but before that lets see what we can do with your rotation design for cheap and easy.

go to the hardware store and buy 1 flat stick of aluminum 1.5" wide and about 1/4 inch thick. cut it into 4x 6"-10 inch pieces, bend 2" of the end at 90* L brackets we will call them.
On the short side of the L, sand them and polish them up a bit, so they are a bit shiney, then DriLL a Big Hole in the other end to fit through your pipe thing, which preferably starts with a piece of aluminum conduit. these are your nessisary (but really cheap) heat sync items.
so get an aluminum pipe, and a few aluminum pipe couplers, then find a pole or stick or plastic pipe that sleeves into/outside the aluminum pipe, to do the sliding up and down for height. It doesnt Need to be aluminum, as you would have enough sync, but if it Was aluminum it could provide a bit of syncing too. and alum conduit pipe is very lightweight.
with Screw tightening couplers you could adjust the pinch and even dissasemble easily.

|____

now test this all out by having 1 of your L brackets facing down and 1 facing up on the pipe now they will twist around the pipe for folding it up , and for changing the lights direction.
2 up/down then a coupler then 2 more up/down, so they dont bump into eachother as they spin around.

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something like this, with 2 items each coupler location |=== so they can spin around like you want. Ok ok so now you can mount your drop-ins on the end of the heat sync L bracket if you must

the stars sit on the ends of this (now) heat sync, and they can change in position around the 360* of the pole, and the heat sync is a reflector of sorts keeping a 180* light out of each one.
keep the hole tight around the pipe, just enough to turn and twist, then use the couplers on the pipe to butt up against the L brackets to keep them up there, adjust as nessisary.

o|_____||___
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o|

once you got all that working right , THEN attach the stars to the end of the L bracket in the middle of the 2" shiney end poking out. (dont do what i would do of trying to work with the metal stuff with the LEDs already attached and wired, that never works). The LED Star ITems will be raw, open, and stuck on the ends of the L bracket heat syncs that will spin around the pole endlessly (mabey to endlessly)

you can mount the stars (now) with screws potentially with thermal transfer goo underneath, or with arctic silver epoxy or if your cheap thin layer of J&B weld (non-quick) . always make sure that your optics holders will still go on before completing any mounting.

 

[TorchBoy]

:welcome: eva04.

This sounds like an interesting project.

 

[VidPro]

now find yourself a real driver that does DC-DC instead of one that tosses out all your power, after all SLA batteries dont like to be deep discharged and they weigh a ton besides, so spending $25 on a real driver at this point will save you 25Lbs of weight, and $25 bucks replacing a Lead acid battery that will die after the first few camping trips because of a deep discharge.
http://www.taskled.com/products.html

then wire the leds in Seires , preferably all 4 in series, if you get desperate with voltage i/o then wire them 2x2 series parelell.

as long as you can now DIM these lights and rotate them in the direction needed to have the light BE in, you wont need to turn any of them off , and instead run all of them all the time on Lower More efficient area for the led, which will also have the led run for many years longer run on low.

run some nice Braided copper wire from led to led, because the braided wire wont fail as often as single strands will, and finish with some thin copper braid (ac) lampwire from the hardware store to go down the center of the pole (speaker wire will work almost as well).
when you put the wire down the pole put about 20 twists into it, so when you collapse the pole the wire squishes in there without getting bunched up.

at either end of the connecting wire, put your driver in there using radio shacks smallest project box, this could go on the wire at the end before the battery, or up top of the light itself. the project box will give you a way to secure the wire ends internally, a possibility to waterprooof, and you can put status leds, battery meters, and a waterproof momentary switch to run your special american made primo driver that will actually work 20 years from now.

then cap the whole thing off with either a $1 lamp shade from the doller store, or some of that diamond diffuse plastic (found for diffusing florescent fixtures) (not White diffuse the clear patterned stuff) bent into a round, that way it wont fry peoples eyes out that look directally into a 2mm blazing light hunk.

If you want more diverse lighting patterns Now with a Star item on the end, you can get Carlco (sp) optics of many kinds from flood to spot to line, Mount (permanentally) an Optics Holder onto the star item (dont forget the GITD powder) on the top of the star item, now get some optics, and change the optics at a whim , for camping i would recomment the 25* flood , but a "Line" optics might be interesting conservation of light. they are about 10* horizontal and 40-50* wide. with optics holders and different optics you can have 4 beams with different patterns for different uses. spot to the outhouse trail , no optic flood for the tent area, and a 25* flood for cooking.
Putting only reflective mylar in a round optics holder without optics will give you probably the best possible camplight flood (works great for headlight), but even putting relfective mylar behind the optics can spew some more light (randomly) back foreward. cheap tricks for scrunging lumens.

>|_____||___
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>|
. . . ___.||_____|[<
. . . ___.||_____
. . . . . . . . . . . |[<

if the driver is PWM only style, and not "current control" then toss in one more item, an electrolytic capacitor inline with the ouput of the driver, this will change the pulses into a more DC current control, and if you choose your microfarads wisely you will see an increase in visable light comming from the same PWM power. the leds will then be sort of current driven, even with the PWM dimming control, and will run more efficient even with the slight losses from charging the capacitor.

 

[TorchBoy]

... spending $25 on a real driver at this point will save you ...

There is no way you need to spend that much on a driver for this project. It would be better to buy an inexpensive multimode driver and a 12 V SLA low battery cut-off switch instead.

then wire the leds in Seires , preferably all 4 in series,

You are very unlikely to have enough voltage for four LEDs and the drop the driver itself introduces.

Edit: The 20 Ah AGM gel cell presently at my feet (fully charged) measures 12.75 V with no load. The best buck drivers have a ~0.52 V drop, so that's just 12.23 V for four LEDs, or 3.06 V each. That'll make light but it's only about enough for 350 mA for XP-G, which have a lower Vf than most white LEDs. And as the battery flattens, you wouldn't even get 350 mA. Not so good, then.

 

[unit311]

Me thinks you should get a propane lantern and save yourself a lot of work. Why do you want your campsite so bright anyway?

 

[VidPro]

You are very unlikely to have enough voltage for four LEDs and the drop the driver itself introduces.

.

voltage or amperage, one or the other or both could be the limitation.

that is exactally right, that is why i would suggest getting a really good high powered DC-DC type of driver, which there are Few of, if i remember right even the taskled items wont pull off all 4 amps in a Dc-DC, you would have to use 2 :-(

like http://www.taskled.com/techmaxflex.html should do it , it will 14V it wont do full 3 amps, so if battery voltage is to low it wont cut it. it should work with the 12V input though ??? it wont do 4 MC-Es
(edited, i am so confused) SERIES high voltage series LEDs, piece of cake.
Low voltage parelell would be a problem. But if you feed in 12+V and output 14V Series LEDs , its only 1.5A max ???

the task LED drivers will also give you status , protect the battery with cut-offs and other such crasy things that cheap drivers dont bother with. plus ranged right i can get 90+ efficency with them, they make cheap drivers look . . . Cheap .

i think if were talking cheap though :-( probably have to use something cheaper. the task led drivers are like having an extra battery sometimes because of thier vast efficiency.

Sending the voltages UP in this situation with a DC-DC higher voltage boost driver would be best efficency, and cope with the wire length, and with driver mosfets it is all about the amps, so if the voltage is high and the amps are low, even the driver will be much more efficient and long lasting. most buck stuff just tosses out good power for heat :-(

http://www.taskled.com/techcchipo.html
want real power this one with an externally mounted current control pot , should be sufficient for a CPF version camping light, say 30 crees

 

[VidPro]

Me thinks you should get a propane lantern and save yourself a lot of work. Why do you want your campsite so bright anyway?

why have a 25,000BTU fire at a campsite when 100BTU would warm your tent :devil: oh thats right to admire the forest (burning in a pit)

 

[TorchBoy]

voltage or amperage, one or the other or both could be the limitation.

Yes, they do tend to be related.

if i remember right even the taskled items wont pull off all 4 amps in a Dc-DC, you would have to use 2 :-(

So you're recommending $70 of drivers now, which means there wouldn't be enough money left in the budget to buy enough LEDs to run with those drivers.

VidPro, you're normally more clued up. Are you posting with too little sleep? :tired:

 

[VidPro]

no you confused me. i am perfectally awake :wave: and know exactally what i am doing

1 MaxFlex should cover it, i looked really hard at all the specs and ramifications, and that is what i got. Piece of pie.:sleepy:

as long as the input voltages are high (battery), and the output voltages are high (series leds), there arent a lot of amps in this scenario, so the 3amp max mosfet even of the 16V max input variety should be enough.
check my work, check my math, then tell me how badly i screwed it up.

i got confused because i rarely have the high input voltages, here we got voltage galore, so it should be perfect.

 

[georges80]

Here's my tripuss from several years ago (2004) - still gets used on camping trips and being able to direct light from above is SO MUCH MORE superior than stupid lanterns that put light in your eyes. Since the pictures below I've upgraded the LEDs to 100l/w Rebels in the 3 heads. I've also replaced the Fatman that was boosting with a Pot to direct 12V input from the vehicle power and using a bflex instead.

Being able to dim 3 LEDs is much better than having a separate on/off per LED. I also turn on autosleep in the bflex driver (1/2 hour), so it can be left on & plugged in and we can get into the tent and the light will go through the dimming cycle after 30 minutes and turn itself off.

Pictures don't do the light output justice - especially now with the 100l/w rebels in the light heads.

This picture shows the 3 heads aimed in different directions, one towards the tent, one down to where my wife was reading and one towards the fire ring. The bright light in the distance was from my younger son using a LED torch while he was digging for something... boys like digging...

The tripod is a coleman unit and can extend to about 7' in height.

The light heads are a flood pattern. This is still with the Fatman driver and the LEDs adjusted for lowest output (around 40mA).

cheers,
george.

 

[DM51]

Why do you want your campsite so bright anyway?

I suspect that is not the real purpose here. Read the clues in post #1:

I go camping quite often and would like to set up a "lamp post"...

... any ideas on making the setup a bit water resistant?

I think it's for his dog to use, lol

 

[TorchBoy]

I also turn on autosleep in the bflex driver (1/2 hour), so it can be left on & plugged in and we can get into the tent and the light will go through the dimming cycle after 30 minutes and turn itself off.

OK, that's a reason why someone might spend that much on a driver, and it comes down to what you want these lights to do for you.

 

[TorchBoy]

When they say you will waste power running a Cheap Drop-in at 12V they arent kidding, poorly done drop-ins can waste 50% of your power or more WHEN not used at specific voltages they are designed for, ...

DX user isotco says here that it's an AX2003 in that drop-in. The AX2003 datasheet indicates it should be around 87% or so running at 12 V with a single LED at 1 amp. Let's not scaremonger.

 

[VidPro]

well i read that and its all over the place .
and efficient?
the SPECS provided say 1000mA current output measured at LED <-- that would be ~3.3-4Watts

It draws 1.1A at the tailcap on a pair of 16340 cells (black rose) < at least 2 times the voltage of the led ~7 watts
2.23a draw off 2 123a primary seems way high (drew 222) < almost 2 times the voltage of the led ~13 watts

Scared? sounds like i wouldnt even know what i was going to get (as usual) .
but isnt the important thing that trying to heat sync 5+W with Only that little hunk of aluminim will have it looking pretty sad after time

The reflector is clearly designed for XP-E/G emitters.
Cons: - The emitter wasn't centered properly.
- It has a ridiculous drive current of 1.8A when driven off of two 16340s, will need to fix that.< at least 2 times the voltage of the led ~12.6watts

regulation from a dx driver , is like guessing the capacity of a dx battery.

http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP-G.pdf
the xp-G max drive would be about 6 Watts ever, not ~10+Watts LOL the DX own specs claim 3.5-4Watts at the led, everyone showed way more watts used.
where do you get the efficiency??

No surprise, with the stock sense resistor the regulator will dump up to 2.5A at the emitter if the input voltage is high enough (isotco)
totally ill suited for an area light application that will be on for hours.

 

[eva04]

Apologies for the late reply. I thought this thread was going to be a dead one.. turned out to be quite lively! Thank you all for your valuable input. I'm glad I asked before I went ahead and built this potential disaster. I've replied to you all below:

VidPro:
Thanks for your in-depth advice and new workup. I am new to all this, so please keep the technical jargon down to a minimum. In terms of fabrication, I only have a drill, angle grinder and a dremel at my disposal. I'll try to make my response in order of your reply.

1. I kind of see where you are going with the efficiency problems with running less than all LEDs at any given time. The reason I wanted this was so I could add lights later on. In any case, I have decided to stay with a fixed 4 LED setup that cannot be turned off independently. I think this will simplify things a lot more.
2. Fully dimmable? Awesome! And of course, runtime and reparability etc are also important.
3. With the replacement parts you refer to, would it be possible for you to give me a DX link? Ie. When you refer to warm Cree stars, I can only imagine which one you are referring to. XR-E R2? Q2? Q5? P4? XLamp MC-E … ??? Please specify as I can't find an XP-G R5 star on DX. Also yes, reduced bug attraction would be ideal.
4. Interesting use of pipe couplers for the rotation device. I've just googled 'pipe couplers', they seem nice and sturdy, but they also look expensive? Also I think I have some arctic silver epoxy left from PC mods, but I want to be able to change the star units in the event the led dies, so I might go for arctic silver paste and attach the star using screws.
5. 25 bucks to replace the battery? It actually cost me AU$330….
6. Checked out http://www.taskled.com/products.html and am completely clueless as to which one is suitable, especially considering that the appropriate star led has not been determined. Anyway, I'll take a stab at it, is it this that you're referring to: http://www.taskled.com/d2flex.html ? Dimming control? how does that work…
7. okay just read a later post of yours… so your recommending http://www.taskled.com/maxflex.html ? I've never soldered up a driver before, would you be able to walk me through the wiring if I were to purchase it? Also Georges80 has a 30min timer, I'd like that feature if it isn't too expensive.
8. Excellent tip with the twists in the wire through the pole!
9. Already got a battery meter and momentary switch on the battery box
10. Carlco optics? I'll take your advice into consideration, depending on what's left of the budget. I saw these at www.cutter.com.au they are actually located in my city. Maybe it'll be cheaper to get all my parts there?
11. And… you've lost me with the PWM … electrolytic capacitor and microfarads….
12. Could you please clarify which LED and driver I should be getting? I'm prepared to buy some stuff outside of DX, if possible mostly from Cutter (as it's closer to home) & TaskLED.. ofcourse this depends on the cheapest source. Don't want to break the budget now!


Torchboy:
Hi! Glad to be part of the community =)
1. 12 volt SLA Low voltage cut off switch? Sounds great! I think I'll need one of those for the LED setup, but it'll be even better if I could hook it up inside my battery box as it's going to be used for more than just lighting.
2. What's the workaround if I can't run 4 LEDs in series?


Unit311:
I have several propane/LPG lanterns. For every trip, there's a trade-off between space and comfort. There is only so much that one can bring on a camping trip. So, with the addition to the battery pack, we have to leave something at home. In this case, it will be the lantern and LPG gas cylinder or the portable lantern & propane cans & refills or our other gas operated lighting alternative. The battery pack serves as a multipurpose device (charging laptops, phones, cameras etc), whereas LPG only do lighting and cooking (I usually cook on coals anyway). Every trip is different and will require different equipment. With that said, in future we will be upgrading our car with roof mounted solar panels. Without having to rely on gas, we can use the sun to charge the batteries of which we obviously then use for lighting at night. Why so bright? Why not? If it were to substitute our current LPG lantern, it will have to be equally if not brighter. Brightness gives us the ability to walk around without having to use torches and ofcourse provide some security to animals wanting to enter the camp site (never happened before!). We use light to illuminate the camp site (tents, cooking & dining area). We usually camp along a river with a slight slope. The cars, tents etc are usually kept up there, and we usually gather down by the river, so there is no real loss in the whole "camping experience" by having bright lights.


Georges80:
Your setup is almost exactally what I'm looking to build! I really like the idea of dimming and especially the auto-sleep timer. I'm actually looking to have a pole taller than yours. The tripod looks superb, but I worry that it may tip over in the wind. I was planning to jab mine into the ground and strap it to the 30kg battery box. How waterproof is your setup? Is that a 12v agm you're running it off? What's that steel hook used for, besides using it to mount the DIY box?


DM51:
HILARIOUS! But where I camp, there's plenty of trees around for that sort of business =p



Looking forward to replies, Cheers!

 

[TorchBoy]

VidPro, you should have read all of what isotco said. He actually said "It is actually a quite nice module (apart from the mis-configured driver pushing way to[o] much current through the LED)". So if you configure it correctly simply by changing the set resistor you will have "quite a nice module" with the well respected and quite efficient AX2003 driver chip. The AX2003 has a datasheet which includes efficiency graphs. I suggest you read it.

Also not all DX drivers are poorly regulated. Simply because you don't know how well regulated they are doesn't mean they're not, and what you've said is an insult to the work I've done with my LED Driver List to make sense of drivers from many retailers.

Eva, I suggest you make something similar to George's setup. Sorry, I haven't found a reasonably priced 12 V cutoff switch yet (the local places that used to have them no longer do). Perhaps Cutter might have something.

Even if you don't use George's driver there are inexpensive well regulated buck drivers that will reliably power 1 to 3 LEDs from 12 V. They don't have that autosleep mode though. You really can't do 4 LEDs in series unless they're driverless or underpowered (or both), or they're IR, red or orange LEDs. Or you could use a boost driver. I'm sorry I can't be bothered sorting out the rest of VidPro's good and bad information.

 

[DM51]

TorchBoy... you will see that I have highlighted (in dark red) some words in your post above. These are not terms I would expect to see anyone using when referring to a respected member. They are insulting and disrespectful. Please edit your post to remove them.

 

[Mettee]

Nice Cruiser George!