Luxeon 5W dive light....

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Love those new Luxeons....Except, I see everyone is trying to make flashlights with smaller power supplies. My goal is to use a large power supply (for a dive light).

This would work excellent for my application since the ocean would essentially act as the heatsink - so heat issues would be non-existant. I'm thinking of using the UK sunlight D-8 (or similar) body, and modifying it to hold about 4-5 luxeon 5 watters....according to their website it should put out about a total of 480-600 lumens max. This is compared to UK's HID light, which of course uses only a 10 Watt HID, with an output of approximately 400 lumens.

Yeah, I know its crazy (since the UK HID light can be bought for about $200, and considering my version would waste about 20-25 watts compared to the 10 watts of the HID) - BUT it would make a cool, and reliable, dive light!

Plus I am thinking that no complicated DC/DC converters would be needed (just a constant current power supply) since the UK D8 has the capacity for up to 8 D-cell batteries (which would leave plenty of juice!)......Let me know what you think of my hair brained idea.....

 

[TripleDouble]

Heat would still be an issue in a plastic light. The water would only have a cooling effect if the heat is effectively conducted to the outside of the flashlight, and in the case of a D8 or other plastic light, it won't. I really wish it could though...maybe someone needs to invent a flashlight with thermally conductive polymer.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

But if the lights were mounted properly (ie close to the front lens as possible) heat would be conducted away via the front (albeit not as much as the actual silicon substrate). It really depends on the design that I come up with, I'll probably add an additional heatsink to combat the problem. The possibilities are endless.....

 

[ElektroLumens]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by eccentric_mofo:
Love those new Luxeons....Except, I see everyone is trying to make flashlights with smaller power supplies. My goal is to use a large power supply (for a dive light).

This would work excellent for my application since the ocean would essentially act as the heatsink - so heat issues would be non-existant. I'm thinking of using the UK sunlight D-8 (or similar) body, and modifying it to hold about 4-5 luxeon 5 watters....according to their website it should put out about a total of 480-600 lumens max. This is compared to UK's HID light, which of course uses only a 10 Watt HID, with an output of approximately 400 lumens.

Yeah, I know its crazy (since the UK HID light can be bought for about $200, and considering my version would waste about 20-25 watts compared to the 10 watts of the HID) - BUT it would make a cool, and reliable, dive light!

Plus I am thinking that no complicated DC/DC converters would be needed (just a constant current power supply) since the UK D8 has the capacity for up to 8 D-cell batteries (which would leave plenty of juice!)......Let me know what you think of my hair brained idea.....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You would need to use a lot of heat sink, which would need to have direct contact with the water. Plastic acts like insulation, and will trap the heat in, and the expensive Luxeon Stars might burn up.

If you could find a way to allow water to contact the heat sink plate, that would be the ticket.

Wayne www.elektrolumens.com

 

[Jonathan]

I'd suggest a two component light; a lighting head and a battery compartment. The lighting head should be a flat plate of aluminium with the Luxeons mounted in a compact arrangement. Wire the Luxeons to a cable which penetrates this metal plate with a waterproof seal. Cover the Luxeons with some sort of transparent dome, possibly just a glass or plastic jar, possibly something specially built up. Acrylic sheet and tube could work quite well.

Place your batteries in another sealed tube, along with any control electronics, and run a cable between.

I think that the LS device would have a serious benefit over the HID lamps: you could dim it without hurting lamp life or efficiency; in fact your efficiency would go up. I bet there are many times where you want some light, but not full blast.

A second serious benefit is the much longer lamp life.

-Jon

 

[MrAl]

If you could find a way to allow water to contact the heat sink plate, that would be the ticket.


A piece of stainless steel tubing running
through the light side to side near the
top could run directly under the LS
heat sink. The water would flow through
the pipe providing some real nice heat
removal. You'd have a real nice water cooled
LS system there :-)
You could drill out a hole for the tubing
though a small aluminum block which mounts
directly to the bottom of the LS heat sink.

--Al