Help with an old dive light

[Pontiaker]

A friend on the knife forum picked this up at his local city auction, I think he got it pretty cheap. One end has a little control knob and another screw off cap to access a charging port. I took the whole thing apart and it looks like it has 8 D size cells, probably 12v? The switch does not have any physical contact with the inside unit, does it work on some kind of magnetic signal when you turn the switch? It has two bulbs, a smaller one and a larger primary bulb. The unti is about 16 inches long and 4 inches in diam. I want to first make it work again with modern batteries and second mod it into a killer spot light. I have NO experience with this stuff. I will first try and install 12v worth of modern batts, any idea what batts I should use? maybe 3 18650's to start with? Should I just start with two and see if it operates with the lower voltage? I have one of those jump start 12v battery packs, the kind they sell to keep in your glove box to jump your car through the cig lighter? Since this is a 12v pack would this work? Its pretty small and lightweight and the pack would fit in the tube no problem.Though the battery pack is made up of much smaller cells than the D cell batteries.Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Matt

 

[kabkbak7321]

Hi Matt

Matt chiming in here. Just send it to me I'll keep it safe for you.
After looking at it as closely as I could there does apear to be to
relays on the back of the rear facing board. They are probably controled
by the two magnetic reed switches on the same board. The upper reed switch controls the lower left relay. And the lower/centered reed switch controls the lower right relay. I cant tell from the pic's witch one is high or low beem. It does apear the the 2 smaller brown wires coming from the relay on the right side under the black wire from the batt pack are probable going to the smaller bulb that creats a flood bean off center.

So the lower/center reed switch probable controls the low beam.
Now the batt's are prob rechargable and there are 8 of them mostlikely
at 1.2 volts each so total voltage to the bolbs is going to be more like 9.6 volts DC.

Please feal free to chime in if I made a poor judgment call here.

Good luck,Matt

 

[Patriot]

Since you have all the room in the world I'd go with eight 18650's 4S2P. You can run pretty much any ballast that you want to with that.

 

[kabkbak7321]

You can run pretty much any ballast that you want to with that.

Yah I'm thinking this 50/70 watt ballest and a 4300k bulb, Maybe a new 4in deep parabolic reflector. With all that you could probably still fit 2 rows of 14 18650 for 28 in total with a charging/balancing board to boot.

 

[Pontiaker]

I knew I came to the right place with this:thumbsup:

Iam a newbie to the HID stuff, can someone point me to some wiring diagrams for a build? I need to research some normal stuff, maybe a simple build at first with an upgrade later on....
Thanks!
Matt

 

[Pontiaker]

Well I fired it up! Its not that bright and almost all flood, not much throw....Didnt really expect much though. I pulled the wires off the batteries and ran long jumper wires out of the charging hole and reassembled the light. Used my hand held 12v jumper pack to power it up. The switch will work turning either both bulbs on or just the primary bulb but it will not shut the light off. So now I have to plan a build. I really like the shape of the light and plan to do something with it, I just have to figure out what now.Any help with showing me where to get parts, etc appreciated. Where do I get the reflector, glass ect.?
Thanks!
Matt

 

[Pontiaker]

Anyone interested in building me some components for this? Maybe the control circuts, wiring? I can install, build the battery pack and buld/reflector to fit...

 

[N10]

don't know it it makes sense but he might be able to use the stock reflector itself since there's 2 bulbs and there's a "cut" that'll allow the side wiring of an HID bulb to go through without much modification.....unless he wants real throww...then maybe he should change the reflector..

 

[Pontiaker]

I would not mind trying the stock reflector first. I would like some real throw down the road but I will probably use this as a learning project and mod it as I go or can find parts:thumbsup:

 

[Patriot]

I'd use the stock reflector too. It's good enough for a project and will throw a nice smooth beam. If you ever get the itch to upgrade it further down the you'll have that choice. I'm not sure how old the light is but I also think it would be neat to use the original reflector for nostalgic reasons. I guessing that played some factor in choosing to purchase it.

 

[Pontiaker]

I actually got it for free But the reason Iam so hot to mod it is a really really like the size and shape of it, kind of like a huge flashlight with a handle stuck on it:thumbsup: It will fit great tossed in my gear bag or set in my truck or even the Vette. I want to keep a small 4 inch reflector, dont want one end to be huge, harder to stow,etc... I know I wont get as much performance because of this but thats ok.

My next idea is to pull apart my Lowes $24.99 10million CP HID and install the parts into this tube with the small reflector or even cut down the large smooth reflector to 4 inch diam and fit it in this unit. What do you guys think about this plan?
Matt

 

[wes_wall]

Matt: That is a killer housing! You have lots of possibilities with it.

The switch is a reed type with relays to do the actual switching and power handling. You need to send it to me to be sure. LOL

I can help you with a solid state reed relay. I have plans and have built several by making the boards and mounting components to them.

IMHO: I would use all that space for a monster battery pack and cram it full of LEDS and driver(s). I would use multiple reflectors. Depending on how the trigger (the outside portion of your switch) works, you could do multiple drivers and multiple positions on the trigger to give you power or durability. These guys on here really know about the drivers though, and I am really kind of dumb about the electronics. Because the housing is made of aluminum and will be in the worlds largest heat sink, you can drive the heck out of the LEDS if you thermally connect the internal heat sink with the housing.