Rookie Light Build: Help Needed!

[King Kasper]

Hey there guys,

Completely new to the forums Really enjoying getting to learn about how to improve my bike lights

so far i have 2 MC-E drop in's mounted in Power beam cheapo lights, hooked up to 4 18650's mounted in parallel.


I want to build some sort of monster light, something like 10 P7's or the like.




First question:

is it better to mount the Emitters in series or parallel? or is this a stupid question

 

[BrianMc]

:welcome:


If you are going to run something like 10 emitters you will have series strings running in paralel, or in other words some on each.

I think there are primer threads in this forum if you google different topics to help give you electronics 101.

pepko built a 10 MCE light that might interest you. Good practice for you to find that thread.

 

[King Kasper]

Hey thanks for the reply!

so you mean say, 2 strings in parallel, with 5 emitters in series for each string?

i saw the pepko light, was quite a beast! its where ill draw inspiration from for sure



question number 2: where can i source the little reflectors like in these pictures?

cheers!

 

[znomit]

question number 2: where can i source the little reflectors like in these pictures?

Cutter.com.au is a good source for cree LEDs and a nice range of optics to match.

 

[BrianMc]

so you mean say, 2 strings in parallel, with 5 emitters in series for each string? cheers!

Yes. With 9 you could have 3 strings of 3, with 12 3 strings of four, four of 3 or 2 strings of six. Care must be taken as you need a battery and driver to make it work so that affects which combinations of series and parralel make sense. The drive current affects the reistance of the LEDs: more current = higher resistance.

People have developed their designs then posted here for comments before buying or making a host.


Another good resource and can be googled:
http://forums.mtbr.com/forumdisplay.php?f=124