Dodge
Newly Enlightened
This is my first serious mod, and I'm no engineer so please don't flame me for bodging some parts...
I have long liked my 18V DeWalt Snakelight - it uses the same batteries as my power tools, and provides a nice amount of light in an easily-directible form.
But I was sure it could be made much better. For working on vehicles, a floody light is more useful than a spot beam, but on the other hand it would be nice to have the option of some throw when needed.
If you're in the US, these Snakelights can be purchased for as little as $20.
I dismantled the head, and removed the reflector and much of the internal baffling (note: one of the screws is a nasty anti-tamper torx screw with a central pin. Fortunately I had a tool, but otherwise it might be necessary to drill out the pin and use a standard torx driver)
Then I cut a disk of 1mm thick aluminium (sold as aluminum in the US
). This was easy as the perspex reflector cover was exactly the right size. I drew around that onto the aluminium sheet then cut the shape out with tin-snips.
The plan was to attach a 40mm computer heatsink and fan to that. In the event, I couldn't find a 40mm one, but had a 50mm heatsink with 40mm fan. Actually this worked out better after having 10mm sawn off one side:
Here it is (the wrong way round) testing for fit:
The heatsink was bolted to the back of the aluminium disk with thermal compound (arctic silver) underneath it. The fan, designed for 12V, was extremely noisy at 18V, but tests showed a 120 ohm resistor dropped the noise to an acceptable level while still providing decent airflow.
Then I took four R2 Cree bare emitters (from a CPF bulk buy). I trimmed the corners to electrically isolate the backs, wired them together (which was quite a challenge to my soldering skills) and glued them to the aluminium disk with arctic adhesive.
The driver I chose was the "Wired Buckpuck" from LED Supply
http://www.ledsupply.com/wired-buckpuck.php
1 amp max, with variable output. This was to be controlled by a potentiometer which I mounted in the top (the spindle will be cut down later)
Now there's no point in having a fan and heatsink in there if there's nowhere for the air to go, so I drilled holes in the back and sides of the case:
Here's everything assembled - it's a tight fit:
Now the final bit was to cut down some collimator lenses from Kai. These are designed to fit over a Cree, but only when soldered from the rear. My wires got in the way, so they had to be modified. The idea is that these can be easily removed to turn the device from a thrower to pure flood. It sort of works, but the lenses are fiddly to fit properly and keep straight.
Beamshots: Here's my garage whiteboard with the orginal incan bulb, which DeWalt claim to be 430 lumens (although elsewhere it's quoted as 430 lux!)
Here's the same exposure with the Crees and the lenses in place:
And with the lenses off in flood mode:
I'm very happy with this light and use it almost every day when working on my car - or on other light projects.
I have long liked my 18V DeWalt Snakelight - it uses the same batteries as my power tools, and provides a nice amount of light in an easily-directible form.
But I was sure it could be made much better. For working on vehicles, a floody light is more useful than a spot beam, but on the other hand it would be nice to have the option of some throw when needed.
If you're in the US, these Snakelights can be purchased for as little as $20.
I dismantled the head, and removed the reflector and much of the internal baffling (note: one of the screws is a nasty anti-tamper torx screw with a central pin. Fortunately I had a tool, but otherwise it might be necessary to drill out the pin and use a standard torx driver)
Then I cut a disk of 1mm thick aluminium (sold as aluminum in the US
). This was easy as the perspex reflector cover was exactly the right size. I drew around that onto the aluminium sheet then cut the shape out with tin-snips.
The plan was to attach a 40mm computer heatsink and fan to that. In the event, I couldn't find a 40mm one, but had a 50mm heatsink with 40mm fan. Actually this worked out better after having 10mm sawn off one side:
Here it is (the wrong way round) testing for fit:
The heatsink was bolted to the back of the aluminium disk with thermal compound (arctic silver) underneath it. The fan, designed for 12V, was extremely noisy at 18V, but tests showed a 120 ohm resistor dropped the noise to an acceptable level while still providing decent airflow.
Then I took four R2 Cree bare emitters (from a CPF bulk buy). I trimmed the corners to electrically isolate the backs, wired them together (which was quite a challenge to my soldering skills) and glued them to the aluminium disk with arctic adhesive.
The driver I chose was the "Wired Buckpuck" from LED Supply
http://www.ledsupply.com/wired-buckpuck.php
1 amp max, with variable output. This was to be controlled by a potentiometer which I mounted in the top (the spindle will be cut down later)
Now there's no point in having a fan and heatsink in there if there's nowhere for the air to go, so I drilled holes in the back and sides of the case:
Here's everything assembled - it's a tight fit:
Now the final bit was to cut down some collimator lenses from Kai. These are designed to fit over a Cree, but only when soldered from the rear. My wires got in the way, so they had to be modified. The idea is that these can be easily removed to turn the device from a thrower to pure flood. It sort of works, but the lenses are fiddly to fit properly and keep straight.
Beamshots: Here's my garage whiteboard with the orginal incan bulb, which DeWalt claim to be 430 lumens (although elsewhere it's quoted as 430 lux!)
Here's the same exposure with the Crees and the lenses in place:
And with the lenses off in flood mode:
I'm very happy with this light and use it almost every day when working on my car - or on other light projects.
