Rayovac mod complete now, see 2nd page for details

[Tater Rocket]

Ok, this will be a HECK of a lot easier to explain later when I can get access to the floor camera (the RA is gone right now). I will need ideas once I can explain what my problem is and can show you it.

First, what I can ask right now. On a luxeon/o, if you take off the black plastic collimater holder, you see an X with a line through it. The line is the trace to the solder pads. But, what is the actual copper trace X? Is it just a heat dissipator? Can I drill through it without adverse effects? I assume so since people grind their heat sinks into a round shape, which would get rid of the X.

Also, who here has done a Luxeon mod on the Rayovac sportsman 3 in 1 headlamp? I can't figure out HOW you would go about doing it. I have an idea, but couldn't show you until I can get our camera, but what i am wondering is how you can fit the luxeon in the head. I tried drilling a hole in the reflector and putting the luxeon through that to use the reflector instead of the collimator, but that didn't work. Then, I drilled out the thing so the entire collimator would fit in. Ok, so it goes in there, but remember, I don't have the actual LED on the collimator right now. I screwed just the collimator and black jacket holder in the lamp, and it wouldn't close all the way, the LED is too tall. How do I get around this? I have an idea, but can't show it until I can get the camera. But if any of you all have any simpler ideas, PLEASE tell me how I could stick a luxeon in this light.

I am planning on desoldering all of the LED's (well, not the white), then putting whites in place of the reds. Then, I am gonna get rid of the resistors the reds are using, and direct drive the 3 LEDs. I will take the resistor off of the single white also, and then I am going to jumper the solder pad from the reds into the white so when I have the light on setting 2 (one is one white, two is both reds, three is the incandescent) all three LED's are on. I will then (if I can successfully add the luxeon in) be able to select from 1 direct drive nichia, 3 DD nichias, or one direct drive white (it pulled .42 amps off of 3 AA batteries that measured 4.53 volts not under load, so will probably pull 300 or so, if that, when putting the 3AAA's under load) luxeon star.

Also, I MIGHT drill a hole in the battery casing lid, and attatch a female M DC power jack in there and seal it with silicone sealer. Then, I can use any 3 batteries I want (3 D's, 3 C's, etc) I want if I run a power cord from my belt or backpack or whatever to the headlamp.

There seems to be room for circuit (that is, IF you can fit one in a half inch sided triangle), unfortunatly, I don't have the materials, knowledge, or ability to make such a thing, or I would make it drive the luxeon at 300 mA no matter the battery voltage. Is it possible to fit a circuit in a half inch triangle? If so, anybody got the materials and (more importantly) the time to build one for me? How much would it cost?

Anyway, thanks for the help in advance, I will be able to show you the pictures later when I can borrow the camera.

This is gonna be a NICE caving light if I can get everything to work right. It will be a nice addition to my dual opalec (currently) main headlights.

Spud

 

[Roy]

I'll betcha the x is actually a + which is marking the positive lead of the led!

 

[Tater Rocket]

No, a little dot of trace material by one of the solder pads marks the positive lead. The giant (relatively) X takes up almost all of the heat sink. It is probably around an inch or so on the sides.

Spud

 

[Lux Luthor]

Originally posted by Tater Rocket:
Also, who here has done a Luxeon mod on the Rayovac sportsman 3 in 1 headlamp?...

...I tried drilling a hole in the reflector and putting the luxeon through that to use the reflector instead of the collimator, but that didn't work...

Spud

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What do you mean by it didn't work? I've done this and it works great. Did you fit the reflector over the emitter far enough?. If you don't, it won't focus right, and it will look like crap.

 

[Tater Rocket]

I put it directly over the dome part, guess I should have put it over the black part too, but it doesn't matter now as I have gotten rid of the reflector....

Oh well, now I HAVE to either buy another reflector or MAKE the original optics work with it. How does the reflector in it work compared to the optics?

 

[Slick]

Th copper X is electrically isolated from both solder pads and functions primarily as a heatsink. I have ground down many LS/o heatsinks smaller than a dime and drilled small holes through them without any problems. Such extreme grinding requires that electical connections be made directly to the emitter leads. When I do this, I use a razor blade to remove the copper trace material that runs adjacent to each of the pads where the emitter leads attach. This will reduce the possibility of a short circuit.

keep in mind that reducing the size of the heatsink will require that you either underdrive the unit to avoid heat buildup or find some other way to compensate for the lost heatsinking. This can become a challenge when working with a plastic bodied light.

 

[Tater Rocket]

Ok, great, that is exactly what I needed to know. I got access to a camera, so I need to finish taking pics, then get them on my computer and such after class, then I can show you all what I am dealing with. What I am planning on doing is getting rid of one or two of the screw mounts and mounting the LS UNDER the PCB, then drilling a hole so the dome comes up flush, and then the optics would be on that. Under the PCB is a bit of space, so I am wanting to put an extra copper heat sink in that area. I don't have any resistors here, so I can't resistor the luxeon

I don't feel like walking the couple miles to rat shack and buy an entire pack of resistors just to use one or two of them either. Oh well.

This might end up working, I currently have it modified to 3 White nichias, and I THOUGHT I had it figured out to where I could have 1 LED, 3, or a luxeon, but now that i think about it, maybe I don't. I will be thinking about this part of it in calc. I was going to jumper the 2 LEDs to the middle one so when they had power the middle would also have power, but if the middle had power, it would then be sending power to the other two as well.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Perhaps a diode (that only lets current go one way correct?) from 2 to 1, that way I could get power TO one, but it couldn't go the other way to light the other 2. Would this work? Are diodes efficient or do they waste power?

We'll see later,

Spud

 

[Plinko]

Tater,

I've done this mod, and it sounds like you're off to a good start. I didn't use the reflector, so no worries about tossing yours.

I'd probably leave the screw mounts alone though, as this is what keeps the whole light together.

When you open up the case, you see the circuit board inside. I insulated key points on the board, and mounded the luxeon directly to the board, then used a drill (maybe 3/8 or 1/2")to open up the hole going into the reflector compartment. Now you can reassemble the light (with the 3 screws that are in there) and mount the collimator directly on top of the luxeon. I trimmed a bit of the material off the bottom of the black plastic holder that holds the collimator in place, since the black plastic of the flashlight body now has to be figured into the equation. I made 3 indentations in the holder to accomidate the screw heads (and keep it all in allignment) then screwed the head back on. It takes several tries to get the thickness just right, so that it fits on and is not too floppy.

Once the mod is done, it's a fantastic light and amazingly useful! The input plug for another power source sounds like a great idea! You might think about leaving one of the red LED's in, since they run on lower voltage, and will keep shining bright as the batteries go down, long after the white ones have gone out completely. I left the white in the middle, and replaced one of the red's with a turq. When nothing else will light up, I still get about 24 hours of usable light from the red...great for emergencies and what not...and it's like having a crude battery meter to tell you how much juice is left. anyhow, I'm rambling, so I'll leave it at that. Good luck with your mod!

 

[Tater Rocket]

Ok, in electronics, what is this:

__________
|...........|.|
|...........|.|
|_______|_|

Ignore the periods, they are placeholders. I ask because on the board there are a couple solder pads empty and that is on the other side. The two solder pads are negative traces that one goes to the single LED, the other goes to the dual LED's.

Also, I NEED to know if I am right about the diode, and if it will work for what I want. If so, the empty solder pads would be a GREAT place to put it.

What I am planning on doing perhaps is drilling holes in the luxeon heat sink so the screw mounts will go through that. Then, I want to desolder the tabs for the incandescent bulb and put the luxeon up through that. Otherwise, there won't be enough room. Unfortunatly, the dremel I am borrowing doesn't have the cutoff wheel attatchment (he has plenty of the wheels though). I was wondering how I was going to fit the collimator and all in there and have room for the heat sink, then I realized I was planning on having that UNDER the PCB anyway.

When you mounted yours, did you mount JUST the emitter to the board, or did you do like I am wanting to do and cut out the heat sink so it would fit around the mounting holes and all? I guess I am WAY too far to go back to incandescent anyway, so I might as well cut out the part where the bulb goes anyway. The pics should come in tonight, I took them, the guy just needs to email them to me now. I am gonna go check and see if he is there. If so, I'll post some pics shortly.

Spud

 

[Tater Rocket]

Well, here are the pictures.

This picture is of the PCB and the LED's. Note the yellow in all of them, that is because I replaced the reds with whites already.

Now, if image station didn't resize my pics, you could see the full 1600Xsomething goodness. You would then be able to make out my solder boo-boo in the lower right corner of the black plastic where I accidentally slipped and melted it when putting the white LED in. You CAN see the longer leads of the other white LED though.

Once again, at the proper size you'd EASILY be able to see my jumper strips of copper. As it is, you can BARELY make them out if you stick your head real close to your screen since it is only about a third of the screen.

Here is an LS light I made out of 3 NiMH's, a 4AA holder, a slide switch, and a HD red LS.

Here is the red LS on when there are also White flourescents on in the room (granted, the loft DOES shade it quite a bit, but STILL!!!).

And for those curious....

This is the mess I call my room. What all can you spot here?

And here is my current caving helmet. It is simply a modified construction helmet. The empty loops are where the currently carried minimag/opalec is. Both mags have opalecs. The black one is screwed in with pointy screws so if I fall they'll be imbedded in my head....I really should put the shorter flat screws in there.

Spud

 

[Silviron]

Gad! you are really asking for trouble on that helmet!

Use a flathead screw and nut on your clamps, and have the screw head on the inside of the helmet with the nuts on the outside.....

If you need some flathead screws & nuts to do this, let me know and I'll send you some, I'd hate to see you with a self induced lobotomy.

 

[Tater Rocket]

Lol, I bought some shorter screws that have a flat end. It is a pain in the arse to get them in, but I only need to get them in once. The new screws stick in myabe 3/8 of an inch and have the flat end, so I SHOULD be set, although I do like the idea of using nuts and putting the head on the inside. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the thin band on the hose clamps being the right sized hole, the nut would hold it on either way. It is a nice mount though, I can leave the hose clamps on and just loosen them to get the light out. The black one is a bit loose, but the silver one (on re-assignment) is held tight. It'll be great when I have 3 MORE white LED's in front that can be aimed up and down, along with an LS there too. I REALLY wish I could get another battery carrier and battery cap for this thing. Imagine what I could do with that!!!! Well, lets imagine! I could (have someone else) build a constant current regulator for me that would work with varying voltages (from around 2-7 would be GREAT, just like the opalec). Then, I could use from 2-4 (5 with rechargables) batteries of any size I want, all I'd have to do is take out current batteries and holder, slide the other in (holder would be wired to the cap, or hot glued on so the plug would not get pulled loose). Then plug up any battery pack you want using a standard M sized plug that is about a dollar or so each at rat shack. D cells would be light since I could put them anywhere, I could have as MUCH runtime as I wanted, and constant current, don't have to worry about building small on the circuit as there would be about a 3/4 inch diamter hole about 3 inches long to work with electronics. Man, I REALLY want this to happen now, this would be freakin great!

Spud

OH yeah, forgot to mention that the pointy scres are only sticking in about half an inch, so even if I fell onto them, by the time they passed through my skull they wouldn't go into the brain very far....but I still don't want them entering my head ;-) So yeah, I should put those shorter...NOT pointy screws in there.

 

[MR Bulk]

Like your bed-over-desk/workbench setup. Been thinking about outfitting my kid's room like that to double up her available homework space.

 

[B@rt]

Hey Spud, if you copy the url of the pics and add ".orig.jpg" at the end, you will get the original...

Unfortunately this does not work with linking.

 

[Tater Rocket]

Ahh, cool, thank you! So, if anybody wants to check out the 700k 1600Xsomethig pixel originals, feel free 🙂

I still need to know if my whole concept of a diode is right and if it will work. I REALLY wish I knew where I could get a spare battery container and end cap, that would be SO awesome. I am gonna call rayovac and see, but I seriously doubt they'd let me get just those two items.

If I don't get any ideas otherwise, I might be drilling the holes in the heat sink so it can slide over the screw mounts and fit under the PCB.

Plinko, please reply as to where you mounted your Luxeon (pics would be GREAT if possible). I would LOVE to have this done by tomorrow at 6 pm so I can show the cavers 🙂 Anyway, yeah, I need to eat breakfast then go to chem recitation. I have about 4 hours off after that, so I'll run an errand then come back and try to work on this.

Spud

 

[Tater Rocket]

Well, checking out one of those links in electronics forums makes me believe that the two empty solder pads ARE for a diode. What the site shows as a diode looks just like the little drawn trace thing, so it probably is for a diode. If I understand this right, it drops the voltage by .7. Ok, so if a nichia will run at 3.6 volts, then I'll be fine when the batteries are new, but the one that had the diode would be screwed after the batteries get past 4.3 volts total? That sure wouldn't take long to get to with an LS.

Then again, it says a germanium based diode only has a voltage drop of .3. This would be a lot better, are these germanium diodes expensive? This would be great because I could take the batteries down to 3.9 volts (still quite high) and still get 20 mA out of the nichia. That is, IF I wanted to run all 3 at the same time anyway, if it was real important I could just do direct drive off of 1 or 2 LED's. Anyway, I might as well get one (if they are cheap) just to try out and see how well it works.

Spud

After searching the radio shack site I am still at a loss as to what I would need to get. Could anybody help me with a part number for a germanium diode?

 

[ElektroLumens]

Hey Tater Rockey,

Your Red LS mod is the kind I like to do. Tape, epoxy, wires, switches, etc.

Okay, at some point I'll have to take a photo of my work area, my garage. It's really scary!

Maybe we can start a thread on seeing who has the messiest work shop. I bet I win!

Wayne J.
www.elektrolumens.com

 

[Plinko]

Tater,

BrightGuy has the battery holders fro sale individually, but they're for the Streamlight headlamp, which looks almost idetical. I was gonna order some up, but I'm waiting for a few more pieces, to save on shipping costs. If it doesn't fit right in, it shouldn't be too hard to make the necessary cahnges to get it to fit properly. Since you're looking for the spare cap as well, you might be best off buying another headlamp just for parts...$12 isn't too much for the whole thing.

Good luck!

 

[Tater Rocket]

Thats true, and then I could simply use the reflector that I can't use now because I got rid of it..... I may have to do that. that would be easier. But I still NEED to know WHERE and HOW to mount the LED, does it go UNDER the PCB or on top, or what? Heat sink or just emitter. Please help me those of y'all that have done this mod.

Spud

 

[Plinko]

In my version, I took a LS/O and removed the optics and emitter from the aluminum plate, using just the emitter, mounted to the top side of the board. It got HOT!!! I ended up putting a couple (3) 10 ohm resistors inline to keep it cool and extend the runtime. I also made an aluminum heatsink on the bench grinder that fits perfectly into the space between the board and the battery compartment, but I found that after putting the resistors on, a heatsink was no longer necessary. I use mine for extended backpacking trips, so longevity (not intesity) was my goal.