Enlightened me on parts to use for a canister light.

[Cjarlif]

Hi all, I´m all green on how to bulding lights, but not to diving... I whould realy need som advises help me geting started, I been reading the forum up and down but realize that a need some personal advise for the spec of my lamp.

Last week I had revelation when I was pentrating deeper in to the abyss, when at 38 msw I suddently realization that my lamp was a piece of s***. So I bought the divelight companion from airspeed that inspired me to start building my own light. Unfortunetly it´s not so much about LED, since it´s from 2003, and LED seems to be the wepon of choose to me.

My diving envoirment is often a a low viz, 0.5m - 3m avg. 1.5 m coldwater. Some times wreck, but this light will be for openwater.
There is often an high amount of particals as well.
Later I will have a friend cnc a housing in aluminium. But want to build the electronic part first to expermiment with, volym, distans to lens, shape and so on...


Is 3 to 6 XR-E R2 the best option or XR-G, XR-E Q5 or ssr 50? Whats dirrfrent about XR-E, WC or WG?
Asperic lenses from DX? With a beam (in water) of 5-7 dgr?
And whould love to have the possibilty to 3 modes 10/50/100%

Grateful for every advise!
Cheers. (My english speeling is´t the best i konw

 

[gcbryan]

Personally, I think 3 XPG R4 sounds like a good, efficient combination. That would be 3 amp and close to 1000 lumen with a lower vf of 3.2 V so around 10W.

I think you could use either reflectors or aspherics with XPG's.

WC just refers to the color of the light output...White Cold.

 

[Packhorse]

XP-Gs dont perform as well as XR-E's with aspherics.

But I think 3 XP-G's with LXP optics in a 5.5deg beam all running off a KD 3 mode 2.8amp driver would be a fairly simple and powerful option.
They should fit inside a Mag lite head too. Just need to get a heat sink.

WC is the colour code for the LED. Check it up on the Cree data sheets for more info.

 

[Cjarlif]

Ohh this is so much fun, Thanks! Really appreciate the answers. This maybe obvious, but why should i run them in seriall? I will propebly will use NiHM or SLA.

What is the benefit to run a flexible ampere and constant V vs. running it vice versa.

Whats the pluses and the minus with seriall/parallel between the emitors
and
Whats the pluses and minus running the batteries seriall or parallel?:candle:

 

[Packhorse]

Ohh this is so much fun, Thanks! Really appreciate the answers. This maybe obvious, but why should i run them in seriall? I will propebly will use NiHM or SLA.

What is the benefit to run a flexible ampere and constant V vs. running it vice versa.

Whats the pluses and the minus with seriall/parallel between the emitors
and
Whats the pluses and minus running the batteries seriall or parallel?:candle:

You really need to spend a few days reading through the forum to get a proper understanding of it all.

LED's require a constant current. If they get too much current they blow.
Its not a good idea to serial and parellel most battery types eg NiCd NiMh and SLA's ( dont use SLA's). Infact NiCd's and NiMh's dont like being charged in parallel so you serries them all. This ends up in a higher voltage pack. You wire your LED's in a way to make the best of the battery voltage. 10 NiCd/NiMh= 12v 3 XP-Gs in series require about 10 volt so a buck type driver only needs to drop 2 volt or you could use resistors. I'd probably use a AMC 7135 driver.

Li Ion batteries are happy to be wired parallel or series or both meaning your voltage choices and pack sizing is alot more flexable.

In the end though it really comes down to the driver, the battery choice and the type and number of LED's.

 

[vasilios]

Hi cjarlif, where in sweden are you located?
Mabye your friend can CNC my divelight as well, with payment of course.