Canoe Light???

[InitialImage]

Hello All,

I need help with a light.

I have the Colorado River 100 (100 mile canoe race) coming up in about 9 weeks and need to make a new bow light for my canoe as I'll be paddling in the dark for some of the race. I will use a Mag head with either 3 or 4 leds in it. I have some Cree Q5's. I haven't made a light in a long time and am very rusty on the power end of it. Going through my old stuff I have an Nflex driver from 2004 that I would like to use. I'm tempted to buy one of George's newer ones that is more customized to biking applications, but I'd rather use what I already have.

I'll only need the power to last for one night. I figure I'll need light from about 9pm til morning at the worst, but I'm going to try and finish by 2am.

I plan to leave the light on constant and will use the driver feature to boost the brightness when needed.

What battery setup do you suggest? Voltage, type, etc.

Consider me a rookie with all this since I haven't made a light of any kind in about 4 years.

Thanks for your help and I'll see about pictures when it is completed.

 

[Lyndon]

Is your light so you can see where you're going, or is it for collision avoidance (other people not hitting you?).

I'm also making a canoe light, but the one I'm working on is so I can see what I'm doing in the boat (getting fishing lures, etc): it's mounted under a thwart. Also plan a 360 deg white light when that one's done.

 

[ahorton]

Do you have an idea of how much you want to spend?

For a bow light I assume you'll want lots of flood because you'll have a narrow beam light attached to your head. (That's what I like anyway).

If money wasn't an issue then you'd start thinking about triple MC-E or P7 lights, about which there are several threads with good info.

The battery pack could be a big bunch of 18650s inside a waterproof case.

 

[jar3ds]

oh yeah... custom waterproof case with like 5 p7's running off of 6 18650's!

 

[ahorton]

Sounds like you're not thinking about fitting it all in the mag head or lasting more than an hour (if you run them at full power).