Reflector design

[Dave McReeferson]

I have a bunch of Cree XP-G's on hand and have been thinking of making some lights with them. I am poking to make a tactical style light with the maximum achievable brightness and as tight a focus as possible.

I have strong manufacturing skills including the manufacture of precision optics, and a good understanding of the electronic side of things. What I lack is a good understanding of optical design, and I figured there may be some folks around here who could give me a nudge in the right direction. As I mentioned, I have experience in the manufacture of optics, and I have the equipment to get the job done, including CAD modeling resources, but I am not sure where to even start.

Parabola? Asphere? Where to start? I realize I probably have left the question a bit wide open with a whole lot of details to be filled in, but hopefully it is enough to get some discussion rolling.

-Dave

 

[Dave McReeferson]

I am going to have to apologize here, I have committed the cardinal sin. After spending more than my fair share of time on various forums over the years, I should know better than to post a question without first doing a simple search of the forum. Let me do some more reading, then come back with any questions I still have...

-Dave

 

[jspeybro]

Hi,

the optic/reflector all depends on what type of beam you want.
If you want to make a reflector, these are typically parabolic with the emitter in the focal point. The rays of light that hit the reflector will come out as a parallel bundle of rays and create a hotspot. Rays that come out in angles that are too small compared to the optical axis, will miss the reflector and create spill around the hotspot. The deeper the reflector (the higher the parabola), the more light will be centered in the hotspot. The hight of the reflector is mostly limited to the size of the light, but if you are going to build a light around the reflector, you can choose whatever you want.

with manufacturing precision optics, do you mean that you can also diamond turn glass optics? Aspheric lenses are often used to create an image of the LED at a certain distance. Depending on how the led and lens are mounted there is little or no spill light. for aspheric lenses it is usually important to get the smallest focal length for a certain diameter, or the smallest F-number as you prefer. The smaller the focal length/diameter ratio, the more efficient it captures the ligth. These are typically less efficient compared to reflectors, but depending on the type of beam you want, this may be a prefered solution.