just took apart a spotlight now what???

lateround

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I took apart a spotlight I had laying around its an led 200 lumens I am wanting it brighter and Amber colored this spotlight has a cree bulb that I cant find numbers for the size but hooked to the power source is 4 little white blocks with numbers first one says 10w26 second is the same and the last two read 10w3 whats easy ways to improve this light and would like to know what batteries I could use to make this light rechargeable currently uses 4 AA batteries
 
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Ken_McE

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I am not visualizing your light clearly. Pictures might help.
 

LightSward

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I can email a picture not sure how to post them on here

You can use many methods. I often upload and post my images on Facebook as public and then copy paste into forum. PHOTOBUCKET is the key here. You can use Yahoo Flickr, like I often use as well. Upload your photos there and then copy paste the link, photo... There are many others. I had the same problem when I started. If you have Yahoo, you already pretty much have the Flickr, just click and go..!:eek:
 

Conte

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Those are high wattage / power resistors.
That's a poor driver rig.

What they do is drop the voltage to correctly run the led.
Problem is you only get full power when the batteries fresh.

You could probably improve this light significantly by gutting those out and installing a proper driver.
 

spencer

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Drivers can be found in quite a few places. It depends on how much you are willing to spend. For low budget, the Chinese made drivers work well. Deal Extreme (DX) is a popular place. If you want to spend a little more money and get a driver that will be more reliable and with a nicer firmware, USA made TaskLED drivers are nice. These are just a few places where you could get a driver.

It doesn't look like there is any heatsinking in that flashlight either. To do it properly you have to have a way of keeping LED cool (usually a large chunk of aluminum).

I'll give you my opinion based on the few pictures you posted. The light looks extremely cheap. In my experience it is not worth modifying cheap flashlights. By the time you spend money for a new LED, driver, and heatsinking and all the time trying to cobble it all together, you are better off buying a better light.

Having said that, I enjoy projects like this and think it is good for people to do them. It doesn't seem like you have any experience with this and a project like this a good starting place. It doesn't have to be done perfectly with heatsinking and you don't need to get top of line LED and driver. If you trim costs, a project like this is one of the cheaper ways to get into flashlight modding. If you are looking for the best value for your money for an upgrade then IMO modding the light is a terrible idea and you should just get a new light. If you are looking for a little project to do that will give you a slightly better flashlight then modifying the light is a good idea.

I spent in the neighbourhood of $300 for the parts to make a custom modified MagLite. I hardly ever use it so most people would consider it a waste of money but I thoroughly enjoyed the planning and construction of it so to me it was worth it.
 

lateround

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There was an aluminum block I had to take off to get the light off but mostly trying to not spend too much and just try to get a better understanding on building a light with this would be my first project.. how do you decide what driver to get?
 

Conte

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Well, if you can figure out what kind of LED that is, then you can find one to match.

I would consider posting that pic of it in the LED flashlight subforum.
 

alpg88

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led on the pic looks like xpg.
i would not run this led at more than 700ma, assuming it sits on chunk of aluminium, if it sits on small al. plate than 350ma is all i would drive a led in sealed plastic enclosure and with poor heatsink.

i have moded quite a few plastic lanterns, and came to conclusion, if you are not ready to almost compleatly rebuild it, leave it alone.

looks like they set up 4 paralel resistors to have 1,3 ohm total resistance. what batteries was it running on originally?
 
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spencer

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In this case just get a cheap driver from DX. The primary factor you want to look for is drive current. We need more information about the heatsink though to determine this but you will be looking at 350mA or 700mA. Another factor is the output voltage must be in the proper range. In this case you only have 1 LED so the output voltage should be in the 3-3.5V range. Input voltage must be compatible with your batteries which you haven't provided any information about.
 

lateround

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The batteries that it came set up to run on is 4 AA batteries also had a plug on the bottom to hook up to a cigarette lighter jack
 

Conte

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I just calculated some ohms law based on 6v of battery, 12v car plus, 700ma LED @ 3v

Those two 26z resistors in para would be just right to drop 12v down to run that led.

One of those 3z could run it off 4 AA's, not sure why there would be 2.
 

Andrewbp

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Looks like 10 watt - 26 ohm resistors and 10 watt - 3 ohm resistors if reading right. Look like bleeding off extra power as thermal heat. Like previous person said it could be rebuilt more efficiently.
 
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