I'm at around 130 lights now and I feel that I'm able to learn from these what works and what doesn't and some other things.
Twenty years ago I studied mechanical drawing in school but the teacher was nearly worthless so my skills didn't develop very much. Since then I've done some small projects, sometimes even with metal.
After having a second go on this website and hobby I've found neat features that seem good but apparently are heavy which makes a light less useful. How would I go about learning about the strengths of material such as brass, copper, aluminium, etc.? I'm guessing it as only as strong as it's thinnest part once you start adding knurling or threads to it. Sometimes I think theres a bit of marketing at play with the grades of materials being 'aerospace material' really all you need is enough that you can stand on the light and it not collapse.
I've learned that some lights such as early MagLites used a commercially available pipe until later on so I'll probably look into this. Led Lenser may have even done this back in the day with the V2 as it is just a threaded pipe with a spacer inside. Perhaps it is proprietary but probably not. I really like this design though because it fits a very ergonomic head on it that makes a medeocre light a rather nice one to hold.
Then there is this concern of copyright. Lettering on head resulted in a lawsuit. Do any companys think they own an angle such as Apple thought they owned the rectangle? What about spacing with knurling or above or below the body of the light? I have no interest in profits on this and will disclose the technical details in a free zip file on torrent or the like.
With all the parts so available I feel a lot of things like bulb, led module, switch, lense, battery, and more are available commerical off the shelf.
Besides asthetics another big interest will be having a body that draws away heat. Looking at some designs with FLIR could provide useful information I feel. I'm tired of using lights that need to be turned off after 5, 8, or 10 minutes or step down.
Twenty years ago I studied mechanical drawing in school but the teacher was nearly worthless so my skills didn't develop very much. Since then I've done some small projects, sometimes even with metal.
After having a second go on this website and hobby I've found neat features that seem good but apparently are heavy which makes a light less useful. How would I go about learning about the strengths of material such as brass, copper, aluminium, etc.? I'm guessing it as only as strong as it's thinnest part once you start adding knurling or threads to it. Sometimes I think theres a bit of marketing at play with the grades of materials being 'aerospace material' really all you need is enough that you can stand on the light and it not collapse.
I've learned that some lights such as early MagLites used a commercially available pipe until later on so I'll probably look into this. Led Lenser may have even done this back in the day with the V2 as it is just a threaded pipe with a spacer inside. Perhaps it is proprietary but probably not. I really like this design though because it fits a very ergonomic head on it that makes a medeocre light a rather nice one to hold.
Then there is this concern of copyright. Lettering on head resulted in a lawsuit. Do any companys think they own an angle such as Apple thought they owned the rectangle? What about spacing with knurling or above or below the body of the light? I have no interest in profits on this and will disclose the technical details in a free zip file on torrent or the like.
With all the parts so available I feel a lot of things like bulb, led module, switch, lense, battery, and more are available commerical off the shelf.
Besides asthetics another big interest will be having a body that draws away heat. Looking at some designs with FLIR could provide useful information I feel. I'm tired of using lights that need to be turned off after 5, 8, or 10 minutes or step down.
