ION Flux Ver 2.0 Tritium, Strontium Aluminate Torch. Warning - Lots of pics.

[flash....]

Well here it is:
This Mod is part two of the first torch I made using Tritium, Strontium Aluminate & 25 9000+ mcd Nicha's (posted a few weeks ago)
For Ver 2.0 I choose the Craftsman 75th anniversary 3D torch as I did not like the quality of the MAG lamp assy.
This light was made for moddin! Anyone know if it's OEM'd to Craftsman?? or do they make it?
It is all aluminum and has one real nice lamp assembly (aluminum screw down cap for heat sinking ). It also features a nice 3 color battery voltage indicator LED built in. Similar to the Brinkman, it also has a rubber overlay hand grip so it won't slip out of your hand.
I used 3 1 watt LS's and 3 BB700's all provided by dat2zip. (thank you sir!)

This thing is seriously bright!!! brighter than 1.0. I wish I had a light meter to read output power. 2.1 amps of power going to the LED's So battery life may be a concern... I have not done runtime plots yet so I still have no clue. However, I have been blinding the Owl in my back yard quite a bit and playing with it in the house lighting up entire rooms. The battery LED indicator has only dipped into yellow once so far.
Anyhow, in the spirit of ver 1.0, this light has 9 Tritium glowring elements in the face to provide complete emergency lighting for the next 10 to 15 years without any light charge.
I then backed up that with four dusted coats of Bright Green Strontium Aluminate Glow powder from http://www.readysetglo.com/products.html
This time however I did not mix it into Epoxy, but rather used the "dusting" technique mentioned somewhere else on the forum and it works very well. (very bright stuff)
Top it off with the standard NX105 optics and this thing rocks!
My next version may use the new 6 degree optics or I may attempt using a 5W SE and reflector. (or even three mini mag reflectors with 5watters)
Sorry... I love this light way to much to sell it.
Plus it took way to many hours to build. I have included many pics below and will be happy to add any other pics upon request so you can build one of these yourself.

1st pic is the heat sink\original lamp assy I modded for the LS's to dissipate heat. It works very well... the light gets slightly warm and the LS's are well within tolerance for temp (I also used lots of artic silver epoxy and compound on all metal connections. The threaded disk on the left without the thread center shaft is the original lamp assy.

Here is the optics\Tritium assy with cut down reflector as I first set it up. This was before adding the last three Tritium elements and the cut down reflector is really for enhancing the Tritium glow effect. (Dremels are awesome and the black dots are only for alignment purposes)

Next is emitters mounted with Artic Silver epoxy. (awesome stuff) I ran extra grounds in addition to the frame for best current capability.

Here I masked the LS's and painted the surface white then dusted glow powder on the white paint while it was still wet. then followed by 3 coats of clear acrylic and dusted each layer as I went while wet.
Very effective... I will from now on only use this method as it has produced the brightest glow for me to date.

Here is the pic showing the battery indicator. and if you look closely you can see the super bright light striking dust particles as the beam burns a hole in the wall.. (ok kidding about the burning hole thing.)

Continued....

 

[flash....]

Here is the assembled face show the tritium elements doing their stuff!! Wooooooo (this really does allow you to see in totall darkness with adjusted eyes.

and lastly this pic shows the glow powder doing it's thing... Ahhhhhh For effect you know.

Hope my picture service holds up!! whew!
The BB700's were buried inside the switch assy and I forgot to get pics in there. I will also say the combined Tritium elements are way brighter than my Much larger Tritium beta light and Marker lights I have.
I will post Beams shots later tonight if I can get some time...
Again, extra thanks goes out to dat2zip for the awesome BB700!!
funny, my wife used to say she was a "Computer & Corvette Widow" now she finally said "flashlight Widow"
I'm doomed.
Oh well, "sa-la-vie" as they say..... Anyone know where I can get some D size Lithium's for a good price? rechargeable?

 

[Rothrandir]

that is nice!

i'm going to have to get a hold of that craftsman and see what it's all about.

might i suggest royal or dental blues in your next mod of this sort?

 

[Kiessling]

wow !
wow and wow !
this is an assambly of cool ideas!
but a BB700 with a 1W LS?
wouldn't want to be in thir place, poor guys ... cooking for eternity ...

bernhard

 

[Icebreak]

Suhwheeeeeeeet!

Don't be surprised if Aeon drops by to check it out.

 

[Nerd]

This would really be interesting with 3 5 watters.

And so the madness continues.. Great job!

 

[yclo]

Great job!

But... you broke the base of a collimator didn't you.

-YC

 

[flash....]

Actually, no the collimator is not broken.... but any epoxy or white paint that ends up on the rim of the emmitter appears that way. I did break one during the initial creation but replaced it. I'm still not sure how it happened and I had to cut it out of the epoxy with my dremel to put the replacement in.
when it happened the thing fractured internally and grew until it split. This Light was a challenge as I had to sand the edges to make them fit. (Minor imperfections I am prepaired to live with.)
I love this light.. Imperfections are another reason I would not want to sell these. The epoxy that holds in the Tritium elements appear to also make the collimators look like small fractures.
But none of this appears to affect beam quality or even be noticable unless you spend a minute or two and study it up close.

Working on beam shots.

 

[vcal]

Looks like you have truly been bitten by the glow bug, flash....

Nice work!

 

[dat2zip]

WOW,

That is really really sweet.

If I read correctly?? 3D??? Umm, kinda in direct drive I would think?? Maybe, not. If you are taxing the batteries hard, maybe the input drops to 3V. What's the input voltage? (I'm hoping it's less than 3.5 or so).

Nice work!!!

Wayne

 

[flash....]

Ok here are beam shots.
The light on the right in both shots is a single very white BB500 with fresh lith's.

The ION Flux 2.0 is on the left with new Energizers.

This one is at 4 feet.

This one is at 17 feet.

Wayne... These are the BB700's you sent all running in parallel. The input voltage is kinda buried inside the light so I can't really measure it. Is there a problem with supplying 4.5v to a BB700?? since these regulate the current to 700ma each I would think the LS's are pulling a total of 2.1 amps collectively. I am not sure what the total amperage would be from the 3D cells as I would need to include the additional current lost in the conversion with the regulators. I would hope not much more than 2.2 Amps total. Do you think I could use lith's or Nimh's in this config?

 

[McGizmo]

Flash,

Beautiful mod! A multi faceted photon factory

The Voltage in should be at or below the Vf of the Luxeons. The couple Luxeons I tested had Vf's at about 3.5 to 3.6 volts with a current of 700 mA target. IF your LED's are similar, you can probably squeak by with a V in of 3.8 to 3.9. If your loaded voltage of the three cells is higher than this, you are in direct drive and the Bad Boys won't start regulating until the batteries weaken to the point of loaded voltage dropping. You might consider putting a dummy cell in the light and comparing the light output. If the flashlight is still as bright, you are likely in regulation. If the light dims noticibly, you are likely in over drive with current in excess of 750 mA going through the LED's.

- Don

 

[flash....]

McGizmo... I suspect you are correct and I am in direct drive as when I finally notice any dimming the battery indicator goes from green to yellow and all three leds seem to step down a notch. When this happens the transistion takes less than a couple of seconds and following that all the LEDs seem to glow at a consistant brightness thereafter. (in regulation) Interesting part is the heat sinking is doing so well I think the LS's are fine when they are direct drive.

On another note, I got in my first LS SE 5W yesterday from future. I want to install it into a 4C cell light but that does not seem to be enough voltage to keep the BB700 at regulation for any real useable length of time and as soon as it falls out of regulation the BB700 gets rather warm. What would be the best solution for pushing a single 5W with 4C cells? Or do I just need to go to a 5Cell light?

 

[dat2zip]

flash,

I think if you run the numbers through (available on my web site) that you will find that 4C is right around the bottom end for this configuration.

http://home.attbi.com/~theledguy/cpf_store/sandwiches/techical_data.htm

The more output drive the BB is asked to deliver lowers the operating zone. It will run fine starting at Vin = Vf and will work downto the Vin as specified by the equations on my web site.

So, you might be better off with a BB500 or a BB400 and drive the 5W with that. It will then safely stay in regulation with the 4C configuration.

I would expect the BB700 to generate quite a bit of heat all the time. Even at 80% efficiency, the 5W LED load is drawing approx 4.76W and the converter is probably dissipating ~.97W or 1W of power. I'd say, that's pretty hot for the board...

For the converter to stay happy, you will have to provide additional heat sinking for the IC and other components on the board in order for the converter to run reliable. For bench testing try adding a fan to see if the regulator stays in regulation longer. If it does, then make sure you provide some additional heat transfer from the converter board to the flashlight housing when you implement your mod. Remember, with the 5W you need to take into consideration heat sinking the converter board too.

Wayne