I suppose I need to give some background information in order to qualify the content of this post. I am currently a 3rd year dental student. When I started my first year as a dental student I made a post here inquiring about headlamps for dental work. A search turns up several people who have come here inquiring about the same thing. At the time I let it go and got by with standard dental lighting.
Fast forward two years and I am working with patients in the hot, moist, dark environment of the human mouth and sometimes the overhead leads don't seem to cut it. I am also on the verge of purchasing a set of loupes. Any of you familiar with hunting optics or similar things know that a key part of optics is their ability to "gather" light. Loupes give you magnification but can darken the image. A loupe mounted, compact led light would be great. They are becoming quite popular.
When I first inquired at CPF regarding dental headlamps there were several of them on the market but they were incandescent across the board. I thought an LED would be great. I was at a dental convention today and every vendor or distributor selling loupes had an LED headlamp proudly displayed at their booths. If any of you could have seen them you would have just smiled and shook your head. Marginal fit and finish. Little or NO heat sinking. Course threads. Nothing special at all. Some had reflectors. Some had optics. The cheapest light from one of the larger manufacturers was $545 (!!) and I think that may have included a student discount. The nicer version had an external pot to allow adjustment and it had a "3 watt instead of a 1 watt led" and it was right around $950 (!!!!!!). I did see a cheaper one today that was being offered at two different booths. One place had it for $169 and one for $297. It appears to be the Nuwai of dental lights. This one had a plastic housing. Who knows if there was any metal in it all for heat sinking? It was just a luxeon in an IMS17 (probably) in a plastic bezel attached to a 3 X AAA battery holder. No regulation circuitry or anything.
I drew a picture of the $545 light. I don't have any cool rendering software so I just used Paint. The light is just a crude LED mount/heatsink that in threaded into the bezel with what looks like an IMS17. There are no electronics in the head. It is just wired though holes in the back of the heatsink to the battery pack on the belt.
Now as I look at these I just shake my head. I have boasted many times to the guys in my carpool that there were a bunch of people here at CPF that could put together a light that would destroy anything on the market for significantly less. I've decided that it's time to put something like this together. I have a small following of people that are aware of my flashlight hobby who have said that if I get a prototype working for a reasonable price they'd love to have one too.
Often color matching is cited as a problem with LED dental lighting. I think it's a valid concern but I have a simple solution. I just won't use my headlight for shade matching. I think this is not even a concern for big manufacturers. I started talking about binning with one sales rep and his eyes glazed over. I don't think they even try to put certain bins in their lights.
So anyway, I have had my mind filled with questions for about a week now. I have had sleepless nights tossing and turning thinking about readily available bezels, reflector sizes, and the beam patterns they produce with the big three LEDs. I have labored over battery options, drivers, weight and dimensions concerns, and design. I will be purchasing my loupes tomorrow and I am committing myself to build a better light for a reasonable price. Now I do think that a quality light realistically priced would be a great business venture I just want to do it for me and maybe a few friends. The joke is that anything in the dental world is a thousand bucks. I think a nice light with a reasonable price would be shocking first of all and secondly extremely popular.
My musings on this idea have been somewhat compiled into another Paint file that I used to add features to the light I already drew.
My goals are: (in no particular order)
1. Well-collimated light. I want as little spill as possible at a working distance of around 20 inches to keep light out of the patient's eyes.
2. Compact design. I'd like to keep it as small as possible but if a little bigger size results in significantly more features then it will be bigger.
3. Regulated: If possible I would like to have the electronics in the belt mounted power supply to reduce the weight on the loupe but I know it would be easier to have it in the head.
4. Dimmable: via a pot mounted on the battery pack, maybe?
5. Lightweight
6. Good Power source – Belt-mounted. I'd like to use 18650 or similar for good runtime but I'll use whatever solution I find and can implement fairly easily. Ni-mh isn't out of the question if battery holders are that much easier to find.
7. Bright but not too bright. I don't want it so bright that the teeth shine back or that I see spots when I look away. This will be a function not only of drive current but also what LED I use which is dependent on what beam pattern I can get from various LED/Reflector(or optic) combos.
I an not a newbie here are CPF but I'm not much of a modder either and haven't had the cash flow to experiment with many of the components that are popular here. I really want to make this happen but I don't have a lot of money to throw at it and I need some expertise to draw on. So here I am.
My first questions deal with reflector LED combinations. If I can't find a good combo then it won't matter if I've found the perfect battery holder. I first thought of using an Aleph head as a host since they are somewhat available and have a well known process for building light engines. It seems the Aleph 19 head is the most available and the easiest to put an led in. Will any iteration of the A19 give a good tight beam? I've seen lots of beamshots but none up close. If anyone owns one does it bother the eyes if they shine it in their mouth from 20-24 inches? Are there any optics that would fit in an A19 head? What is the length and diameter of the A19 (I couldn't find this in the McGizmo forum)? If there was an acceptable led/reflector combo instead of screwing it on a flashlight body I could just screw an adapter onto it to attach to my loupes.
I've also considered some "ready-made" options like the Fenix heads available without bodies or even working out an adapter that would allow me to just attach a KL1 to the loupes. Are there any other obvious host bezels that would are easy to come by that lend themselves to a multitude of reflectors or optic solutions?
A lot of the optics in lights I've seen appear to be acrylic balls. They produce a very tight circle of light with no spill. Does anyone have any experience with the acrylic balls available at the Shoppe and do you know of any heads that will hold them?
As you can see my thoughts are all over the place on this. I just need to nail down a host that will lend itself to the beam pattern I need as a jumping off point and then I think I may be able to get things going.
This isn't something that I can devote all my time to but I want to establish my ideas here so I can stop back every few days to get new information or post updates. I'd like to try and work out something in the next month or two. I don't need anything that looks real slick, I just want something that functions well. I can refine things later if it goes that far.
If you want to see the manufacturer versions to get an idea of what I'm talking about you can visit www.surgitel.com, www.orascoptic.com, or www.designsforvision.com.
I've never posted anything this long so if anyone has actually read this far, thank you and I'd love to hear any input you have.
Fast forward two years and I am working with patients in the hot, moist, dark environment of the human mouth and sometimes the overhead leads don't seem to cut it. I am also on the verge of purchasing a set of loupes. Any of you familiar with hunting optics or similar things know that a key part of optics is their ability to "gather" light. Loupes give you magnification but can darken the image. A loupe mounted, compact led light would be great. They are becoming quite popular.
When I first inquired at CPF regarding dental headlamps there were several of them on the market but they were incandescent across the board. I thought an LED would be great. I was at a dental convention today and every vendor or distributor selling loupes had an LED headlamp proudly displayed at their booths. If any of you could have seen them you would have just smiled and shook your head. Marginal fit and finish. Little or NO heat sinking. Course threads. Nothing special at all. Some had reflectors. Some had optics. The cheapest light from one of the larger manufacturers was $545 (!!) and I think that may have included a student discount. The nicer version had an external pot to allow adjustment and it had a "3 watt instead of a 1 watt led" and it was right around $950 (!!!!!!). I did see a cheaper one today that was being offered at two different booths. One place had it for $169 and one for $297. It appears to be the Nuwai of dental lights. This one had a plastic housing. Who knows if there was any metal in it all for heat sinking? It was just a luxeon in an IMS17 (probably) in a plastic bezel attached to a 3 X AAA battery holder. No regulation circuitry or anything.
I drew a picture of the $545 light. I don't have any cool rendering software so I just used Paint. The light is just a crude LED mount/heatsink that in threaded into the bezel with what looks like an IMS17. There are no electronics in the head. It is just wired though holes in the back of the heatsink to the battery pack on the belt.
Now as I look at these I just shake my head. I have boasted many times to the guys in my carpool that there were a bunch of people here at CPF that could put together a light that would destroy anything on the market for significantly less. I've decided that it's time to put something like this together. I have a small following of people that are aware of my flashlight hobby who have said that if I get a prototype working for a reasonable price they'd love to have one too.
Often color matching is cited as a problem with LED dental lighting. I think it's a valid concern but I have a simple solution. I just won't use my headlight for shade matching. I think this is not even a concern for big manufacturers. I started talking about binning with one sales rep and his eyes glazed over. I don't think they even try to put certain bins in their lights.
So anyway, I have had my mind filled with questions for about a week now. I have had sleepless nights tossing and turning thinking about readily available bezels, reflector sizes, and the beam patterns they produce with the big three LEDs. I have labored over battery options, drivers, weight and dimensions concerns, and design. I will be purchasing my loupes tomorrow and I am committing myself to build a better light for a reasonable price. Now I do think that a quality light realistically priced would be a great business venture I just want to do it for me and maybe a few friends. The joke is that anything in the dental world is a thousand bucks. I think a nice light with a reasonable price would be shocking first of all and secondly extremely popular.
My musings on this idea have been somewhat compiled into another Paint file that I used to add features to the light I already drew.
My goals are: (in no particular order)
1. Well-collimated light. I want as little spill as possible at a working distance of around 20 inches to keep light out of the patient's eyes.
2. Compact design. I'd like to keep it as small as possible but if a little bigger size results in significantly more features then it will be bigger.
3. Regulated: If possible I would like to have the electronics in the belt mounted power supply to reduce the weight on the loupe but I know it would be easier to have it in the head.
4. Dimmable: via a pot mounted on the battery pack, maybe?
5. Lightweight
6. Good Power source – Belt-mounted. I'd like to use 18650 or similar for good runtime but I'll use whatever solution I find and can implement fairly easily. Ni-mh isn't out of the question if battery holders are that much easier to find.
7. Bright but not too bright. I don't want it so bright that the teeth shine back or that I see spots when I look away. This will be a function not only of drive current but also what LED I use which is dependent on what beam pattern I can get from various LED/Reflector(or optic) combos.
I an not a newbie here are CPF but I'm not much of a modder either and haven't had the cash flow to experiment with many of the components that are popular here. I really want to make this happen but I don't have a lot of money to throw at it and I need some expertise to draw on. So here I am.
My first questions deal with reflector LED combinations. If I can't find a good combo then it won't matter if I've found the perfect battery holder. I first thought of using an Aleph head as a host since they are somewhat available and have a well known process for building light engines. It seems the Aleph 19 head is the most available and the easiest to put an led in. Will any iteration of the A19 give a good tight beam? I've seen lots of beamshots but none up close. If anyone owns one does it bother the eyes if they shine it in their mouth from 20-24 inches? Are there any optics that would fit in an A19 head? What is the length and diameter of the A19 (I couldn't find this in the McGizmo forum)? If there was an acceptable led/reflector combo instead of screwing it on a flashlight body I could just screw an adapter onto it to attach to my loupes.
I've also considered some "ready-made" options like the Fenix heads available without bodies or even working out an adapter that would allow me to just attach a KL1 to the loupes. Are there any other obvious host bezels that would are easy to come by that lend themselves to a multitude of reflectors or optic solutions?
A lot of the optics in lights I've seen appear to be acrylic balls. They produce a very tight circle of light with no spill. Does anyone have any experience with the acrylic balls available at the Shoppe and do you know of any heads that will hold them?
As you can see my thoughts are all over the place on this. I just need to nail down a host that will lend itself to the beam pattern I need as a jumping off point and then I think I may be able to get things going.
This isn't something that I can devote all my time to but I want to establish my ideas here so I can stop back every few days to get new information or post updates. I'd like to try and work out something in the next month or two. I don't need anything that looks real slick, I just want something that functions well. I can refine things later if it goes that far.
If you want to see the manufacturer versions to get an idea of what I'm talking about you can visit www.surgitel.com, www.orascoptic.com, or www.designsforvision.com.
I've never posted anything this long so if anyone has actually read this far, thank you and I'd love to hear any input you have.
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