Components for LED light?

[Peter Atwood]

My friend and I are building our first flashlight. He has the machining and lens material taken care of but is lacking in electronics knowledge. As am I.....

What items specifically do we need to build an LED light? Where can we get said items? We would prefer a reliable industrial source where we could expect easy repeat business (no ebay sources)?

How much would the cost of components be to give us something halfway decent as far as light output and runtime? Something you guys would really dig!

The whole point of the exercise for me and my friend is to get some cool new toys. My friend is willing to try a small run of wild designs in aluminum and then maybe check out other interesting materials if we can get our processes figured out. After that some serious sized runs are possible.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Peter Atwood]

Forgot to mention, we'd probably start with a AA battery but might go with 123 right away. I guess it depend on what the LED needs. So, I'm guessing we need the LED, reflector, and what for electronics? Would the Mad Max or Badboy series do the trick? What else would be required? Thanks!

 

[lambda]

Oh boy, you've got a lot of work ahead, but fun work it will be!

Are you thinking small AA size, or big D size flashlight? How many cells? Regulated? Buck/Boost converter? 1W or 5W Luxeon? Low Dome, High Dome, or Side Emitter? Reflector or lens? Water proof or just resistant?

Lots to consider when starting from scratch.

CPF is great place to get some ideas of what's possible, and then just let your imagination take it from there.

What all CPFers want is a very small flashlight that runs off a single AAA battery, but with the brightness of a search light..........

 

[Rothrandir]

ignore lamda...you'd will be working on that light forever!

badboys and madmaxes work great.

luxeon's (i'm assuming and hoping you will use these) are the brightest, and are available from several sources, the cheapest being www.futureelectronics.com. call them for a lower price then what is listed.

i suggest you look here: mclux thread and read the entire thread for some great ideas and feedback (it's nine pages long...so you'll want to grab a beverage of your choice and maybe pull up the recliner). it's a great way to know what people want. (although i don't recommend you copy the thing exactly either

).

good luck, and i hope to see results soon!

p.s. - if you're looking for beta-testers...

 

[Peter Atwood]

OK, so I take the Mad Max or Badboy board, a battery, an LED emitter and the casing and I'm good to go? Or are there more parts to it than that? Thanks for the answers so far!

 

[EMPOWERTORCH]

Most first time modders try something a little less adventurous to start with.
My first torch mod was a rubber 2AA torch which someone gave to me with a defunct bulb. Instead of binning the dead bulb, I removed the glass envelope and soldered in a single red LED! I re-installed the bulb into the torch and hey presto, bright red light like I'd never seen before. A hobby was born! Then I found CPF and discovered the many types of LED torches you can buy, mod or build from scratch!
I would start simple and work your way up to Luxeon mods.

 

[Peter Atwood]

I hear you Empowertorch! That does sound like a good place to start. My situation is somewhat unique however. My buddy's shop produces extremely high precision CNC work for industry and military applications. So now he wants to build a few cool toys. When he saw my Surefires he was smitten. Then came the CMG and he was a little more interested. Then he saw the ARC and it was all over. Now he's chomping at the bit to do something really different design wise but with a high output LED. What is the current dream configuration you guys have that is within reach? Give me the specs and we'll see if we can make something new and interesting....

I've done some more reading tonight and it looks like we'll go with one 123 for sure and probably a Luxeon LED. Which LED can we use with 123 batteries? The 1.5w or the 5w or both? What board would we have to get to make it work? Is there anything off the shelf or do we have to have them made or what? Sorry for the horrible newbie questions but please bear with me. We'll try to make it worth your while

 

[Rothrandir]

actually, it is 1w or 5w, people just overdrive them making them more.

a luxeon is way different from a regular nichia type, instead of two skinny legs, you have two "arms" reaching out the side, and a slug on the bottom to dissapate the heat. the luxeon needs to be mounded onto an aluminum or copper heatsink with arctic silver or comparable thermal adhesive. regular epoxies will not work as they will isolate the heat.

1w luxeons are happies with 3.42v and 350ma, but with adaquate heatsinking, i have taken them up to 4.5v and at least 700ma. 5watters create a lot more heat so they take a lot more heatsinking. 5watters just aren't worth it quite yet, especially not in small type flashlights. i made a 5w rb 5d *ag mod, and it gets quite warm after short usage.

a badboy or madmax will turn 2aa's ((3v) or d's or c's etc.) into enough to sufficiently power the led.

a good thing might be to read the spec sheets at www.lumileds.com and see what they can take.

basically, what you need to do is buy a couple luxeon emitters (emitters are the best) and attach them (arctic silver, artic alumina...) to a slab of aluminum or copper and start messing around adding different currents (don't go much over an amp

)

after you get the feel of the led, and understand how it needs to be attached to the heatsink, you can start feeling how you want to design the flashlight around the thermal needs presented by the luxeon.

 

[Peter Atwood]

Thanks Rothrandir. That's the kind of info I'm looking for!