My homebrew LED housing is finally finished! PICS!

[DrP]

SO, although it's been just over 2 months in the making, I did have a particularly busy spell at work over X-mas, coupled with the fact I was using a buddy's lathe/mill, I had to syncronise mornings off with him!

So, finally finished it, and boy am I proud!
Truthfully, it's not the lightest thing on the planet, but the general consensus seems to be that proper heat sinkage gives better effects, so that's what I was going for!

I'm planning on funning the cree triple LEDs at 1 amp, giving a light output of about 700ish lumes (apparently). In the near future, I'll probably switch the LEDs for the quad kit, as I'm confident there'll be enough heatsink for that too.

THe battery was from smudge (from STW), and this fits nicely into a lumicycle batt bag (can't remember which one, but it's the middle size!). The clamp is an O/S lumi jobby too.

The LED kit came from cutter, and the power plug and push switch were maplins.

All in all (cutter kit, battery AND charger, little gubbins) i reckon it's cost about £120, plus plenty of my time, but i don't mind that as I really enjoyed it!
This was the first light I've made, and as such there was about £20 wasted on bits i thought i'd need, but didn't (not included in overall price!).

If i were to make another, this cost would be less as I now know what I DON'T need, and I already have a decent batt (15.6v, 3.6Ah).

So here's the pics, ranging from 'google sketchup images', to the real deal! No beam shots as yet ([cough] as I broke the maxflex, another one on it's way[/cough])....

Yes I know summer's on it's way, but it's not here yet!

Anyone for a midnight ride??!!

Cheers, DrP

 

[Steve K]

Very nice! and shiny too!

I just finished up a new headlight too, and find myself complaining that the sun stays up too long. Maybe I need to move to the southern hemisphere??

It's a great feeling to finish up a project like this, and just use the light. Hopefully it'll be a couple of years or more before I get the itch to start work on the next generation light.

congrats on a job well done!

Steve K.

 

[StevelKnievel]

Nice! That light turned out very well, I'm sure you have plenty of heatsinking for the quad.

Just out of curiousity, what 3D modeling software are those screen shots from? Congratulations on an awesome light!

 

[DrP]

Cheers for the comments!

I'm awaiting the replacement driver board - I've yet to fire up this baby to see how warm it gets!

The CAD images were made using the free google sketchup software. Very simple to use. I just saved the image as a .jpg and then posted it to flickr.

DrP

 

[trout]

Drp
Nice work
What happened to your maxflex you say you broke.:mecry:

Be carefull with the connector from maplins cos if your battery is wired centre negative then it will make your housing live positive.
and the Maxflex if connected to the housing for heatsinking wants it to be negative .so goes the Maxflex , I and a few others have got the tshirt for that one.

 

[jeph]

Wow, that's nice. I am new to this forum and have looking on the bike forum for lighting ideas.

I have a question on how you did the heat sinking using the 3 led Mr16 size lens. How did you do heat transfer to the round housing?

Also, did you make that clamp? If not where did you get it?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[jeph]

actually I looked a bit closer at your "cad" drawing. Is the housing solid in the middle with just a hole for wiring? I was thinking of using the MR16 triple or quad with a tube for a housing. Getting the heat sink to make a good thermal contact to the tube looks tricky.

Jeff

 

[1 what]

I agree, very nice :thumbsup:.
Makes me feel extra slack about my own use of old plumbing fittings.