Hydra Torch - homemade 6 Rebel PVC and plexi

[jeffosborne]

My first post!

I have been lurking and getting good inspiration from the CP forum and the many homemade lamp builders. My daughter named my light Hydra because it has 6 heads: four -0050 Rebels with 20mm IMS refelctors for the flashlight, and two -0050 Rebels (all in cool white) for the bottom mounted navigation lights. So 450 lumens max out the front, and 200 lumen max as navigational flood light.

The PVC pipe is 1.5" schedule 40, it holds 6 18650 batteries, the charging jack, a 4 amp 20mm fuse, a thermal cutoff for 168 degrees, and the regulating circuitry with heatsink.

The end plate has a small loop for a shoulder-neck strap. It weighs just under 2 pounds!

The mostly plexiglass head started as a Pentium-II class heatsink and fan, with the 6 Rebels wired in three pairs. Arctic Alumina was used to adhese them to the heatsink AFTER 2 coats of clear nail polish was applied to the electrical contacts of the bottom, to avoid short circuits.

I have used this method of insulating and mounting the Rebel LED on many projects without problem.

This is 20 gauge wire, but next time I will use something lighter.

This test of the Rebels was done at 50ma for the photograph. The high switch setting puts 850ma through the LED's.

I designed and built this semi-round PCB to mount to a heatsink with 3 MOSFETS. It has a LM339 quad comparator that (1) via a thermistor mounted behind the heatsinks, detects 130 degrees and turns on the fan (2) shuts down all lights and the fan if temp reaches 250 degrees (3) shuts down all lights and the fan if battery temp reaches 140 degrees (4) shuts down all lights and the fan if battery voltage goes below 9 volts

Here's the 3 MOSFETs on their heatsink. I am using 6 unprotected 18650's in 3 pairs, for a nominal 10.8 volt battery pack. Each MOSFET drives a 7 volt series of 2 LEDs.

The heatsink lives in a notched area of the PVC pipe, just behind the cooling fan. It gets hot!

Also behind the fan are the brighness switches, the yellow swich gives 850ma per pair to the 4 flashlight lamps, or 250ma on low, with a center-off position too. The white switch gives 750ma, 250ma, or 50ma to the two bottom-mounted navigation lights on it's 3 positions.

I had to cut the legs off of the IMS refelectors to make them work right with the Rebel - they were made for Luxeon I or III. Standard 5-minute epoxy was used.

Here the unit is partially assembled. Note the clear plexi wall inside the tube, just this side of the switch. It and the end plate keep the battery area water tight.

Under the 1/8" aluminum end plate is a 1/4" piece of smoked plexiglass that holds the charging jack for the batttery pack. Just under the jack on the far side of the plexi is the 4 amp fuse.
I'll post a beamshot soon. I am very happy with the light and it's performance, but I gotta say it was excruciating to hear of the 100-lumen Rebels being released on the day I was finishing the wiring. My plan is for a smaller Hydra-2 to take advantage of the newer parts.
Thanks to you all for the inspiration and good examples of light building!
Namaste!

Jeff in Evansville

 

[datiLED]

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to CPF!

That is some serious fabrication work there. What an incredible first post. Thanks for sharing.

datiLED

 

[JB01245]

WOW. Great looking light. Lots of thought went into this one. Do you have a photo of how the Rebel sits inside the reflectors?

 

[jeffosborne]

Here's a shot looking down at the opening of the reflectors.
I had to file away some of the material at the base of the reflectors to allow for the wires to pass through:

I centered the LED emitter as well as I could.

Again thanks to all for the inspiration!

Jeff O.

 

[chefgrill]

you must put

[img]pathtoyourimage[/img]

tags arround the url

 

[Bogus1]

That is totally intense!

 

[bombelman]

Dude !! That rocks !! :bow:
Great mod and welcome on CPF !
(The beginning of the end of your savings-account)


:lolsign:

 

[frosty]

Way beyond my abilities, but even I can see that is one clever piece of kit.:thumbsup:

 

[sortafast]

all that work and pics, and not one beam shot? Come on man.

Nice work tho. Pretty intense.

 

[jch79]

Very cool! :thumbsup:

john

 

[LED Zeppelin]

Jeff,

That's one of the most impressive first posts of all time! Very nice work.

At first I thought you had built a light out of a bong.

 

[koala]

:thumbsup::twothumbs:bow:

 

[aerosimon]

Fantastic first post and great engineering.. Welcome to where you clearly belong jeffosborne. I can see you will be a project man to look out for in the future here

A few questions. Sorry, I have little LED knowledge, but want to ask more about your manufacture/engineering:

1) Any advice on securing that 1/4" plexiglass? Is it custom cut or handfinished with file etc? Did you glue it in place then drill and screw those 3 fixings?

2) How does the cooling fan work? 3rd pic shows what looks like exhaust past the heat sink to the underside.. Does this mean it isnt completely waterproof?

3) Estimated time from first thought to project completion? Was it a set plan from the start then just a manufacturing project at the end?

Congratulations, this is way up there as a home-made project, as far as Iv seen.

:thumbsup:
aerosimon

 

[ManBearPig]

That looks like something Egon Spangler would make.

Nice job!

 

[jeffosborne]

First, muchos gracias for all the positive feedback on my Hydra torch! Sometimes I feel like it's a Frankenstein, other times it can seem elegant.

Second, I have passed a decent BEAMSHOT to my provider and will post that photograph later today.

I do plan to post the schematic as well, perhaps this weekend.

aerosimon:
1. the 1/4" smoked plexiglass came from Art's Auto Glass, where they mostly replace the broken glass in your automobile. They keep 1/4" and 1/8" thick plexi in clear and smoked for custom jobs. I expect that most glass-supply shops will cut it to size for you. I cut mine with a hack-saw, then used a coarse file, then a finer file to get the size I wanted. I needed the 1/4" thick material so I would have enough width to drill and tap #4-40 screw holes for the 1/8" plexi mounted on it's top, front, and bottom sides. No glue for the housing, because I want to be able to disassemble the unit for future mods, repairs, etc.
2. the cooling fan, when it is on, draws in air from the four corners of the area where the round tube and the square head meet. The hot air is exhausted out the bottom vent, as you noticed. I hope to install fan-filter material at the corners and over the vent so it is more 'splash proof'. To be able to use it in the rain is a design goal. I still need to find a good o-ring or rubber washer for the aluminum tail-cap, and then the LiIon battery area will be safe from the weather. Not a diving light or even dunkable, for sure!
3. The Hydra design and build were a work in progress since May 15 or so. An inordinate amount of time has gone into it, but it has been a lot of fun! I powered up my first Luxeon in January of this year, and immediately began building floodlights for my use in photography and building a micro-lighting home controller (future posts are planned for these...). I am firmly in the Luxeon camp for my love of the smooth dispersion and quality tint of their products. But I also have Nichia and Cree LEDs in my floodlight 'slave lamps'.

My Future Electronics order for ten -0100 Rebels shipped yesterday. Yes!

More to come...

Jeff
- aka Egon -

 

[jeffosborne]

Re: Hydra Torch - beamshot plus

Here we are about 3' from a white concrete block wall, 1/60 sec. at f2.8 ISO 100:

The center spot is a little irregular due to slight offsets of the reflectors, and perhaps even slight tilts of the LEDs.
While we're at it, here's a shot of most of the circuit on the breadboard:

In this setup, the big 10mm LED is pretending to be the fan, driven by the small MOSFET nearby. The quad comparator IC has open collector outputs, so it was a simple matter to use them, through a small signal diode, to turn off the MOSFETs by clamping their gates.
When the battery goes under 9 volts, and the circuit shuts down the lights, it draws only 3ma! One ma for the LM339 IC, one ma for the LM336 precision 2.5v reference IC, and one ma for the error lamp.
The error lamp:
Between the two brightness-level toggle switches is a high efficiency 7-segment LED display (HDSP-A101). When the fan is on, the decimal point lights. When the LED heatsink is too hot, the lights & fan power down and the leftmost segment of the LED lights. When the battery compartment gets too hot, the center segment of the LED display lights. When the battery goes below 9.0 volts, the right hand segment lights up.
This way, if the light does shut itself off, I know what condition caused it! I will get some photos of this and update the post soon.

Jeff

 

[bombelman]

Re: Hydra Torch - beamshot plus

This is some advanced -.-.-.-.-.- here man !! Nice tho ! :bow:

 

[griff]

Re: Hydra Torch - beamshot plus

I'll take it!!! No S**t I'll Take it

 

[matrixshaman]

Welcome to CPF! You have a lot of talent in both electronics and design as well as fabrication. I hope you stay a while and enjoy the forum and continue on the path of creating LIGHT! Look forward to what you do with the 100 Lumen Rebels. That beam actually looks great for a multiple LED light.

 

[DaFABRICATA]

That is AWESOME!!!
Good job!!! It's cool that you made almost everything from scratch!
I think I need to buy a few rebels......