Super Shark. Thoughts and suggestions

[dat2zip]

With the Osram Ostar 6 LED and now the P7 LED there is a real need for a serious boost driver.

I'm thinking of targeting a dual board setup.

Specifications:

Converter Board Diameter: ~1" or less. This should fit in the Maglight and fixed lighting, bicycle headlights etc.

Target Max Power: 30+ Watts

Battery input range: 6V - 16V

Efficiency: Target - 92%

Output Current: 0 - 4+ Amps.

Thermal Management: Heatsinking from bottom and to the side.

I believe I can make this happen. I also am thinking of the microprocessor daughterboard having three different UIs combined into one.

The Three UI would be:

Rotary switch for three level control.

Analog potentiometer

Input Power UI. (pulsing the power switch)

Since the UI have been developed combining them shouldn't be too much trouble. That eliminates a large development cost for me. Most of the effort will be the development of the converter board.

I'm actually targeting input currents of 8-10A which is way more than 30W, but, having a good beefing switch would allow the 20-30W configuration to be extremely efficient.

This will be a very challenging design. There is no certainty of existance at the moment nor can I promise a prototype, status or potential delivery of such beast.

It does peak my curiosity and of course is something that I would be interested in.

Questions I have are:

Does it matter if the board is round or not?

Any comments, suggestions are welcomed.

Wayne

 

[DonShock]

I just had somebody asking me today about the feasability of using a regular Shark to power a multi-P7 setup. This looks like the perfect solution.

One bit of input based on my experiences working with the Shark. The most difficult thing working on it was replacing the onboard pot with an external one. My thought was to do away with that tiny surface mount pot and use a slightly bigger one that mounted using pins and PCB through holes instead. Desoldering the onboard pot would be easier with standard soldering irons and once removed, it would leave through holes for mounting the wires to the external pot.

As for being round or not, that would be really application dependant. If a square/rectangular board were used, it might be nice to offer a supplemental heatsink that was flat on one side for the board and curved on the other to fit against the inside of a Mag body. Somebody made one out of flat stock that was bent on the ends a while back but I couldn't locate the thread. The current round design is great when you can mount it to the underside of a round LED sink, but when you can't it's a pain to jury rig some heatsinking.

 

[Norm]

I'm with Don on the PC board pins, I can't see a problem with the board not being round as most hosts will be larger lights. It would be good if any daughter board could be pre mounted lots of people seemed to have trouble mounting the Remora board.
I can wait to see what people come up with using one or more P7's oo:
Norm

 

[dat2zip]

I would address the Remora mounting issue. That was really my fault and a design challenge as I wanted the two sets of holes so it would fit the Shark board and the custom board I made for Mike Jordan. That put a crimp on real estate and I was forced to make one set of holes rather small.

Good point on the trim pot.

I had similar ideas regarding the top side heat sink coming out the edge and being round or mating the the inside of the Mag.

If I move forward on this I will keep these in mind.

Wayne

 

[LED Zeppelin]

Great idea Wayne! I could certainly use a bunch of the Super Sharks.

I've mainly used the Sharks for Mag mods, and it wouldn't matter if the board was round or not, as long as it was compact. Some of my mods stuff 3 Sharks and a pot in a D tube, and it would be nice to be able to fit the same number. I know of several cool mods with the Sharks that are in EDC size lights and a round board would be needed. So if you can make a compact round board it would find more applications.

I really like the addition of the copper "C" shape on the bottom of the latest Sharks. It allows good attachment without concern for shorting any protruding leads, and good heatsinking. Something similar would be great.

I also like the idea of multiple UI choices. I like analog pots, but some prefer a Remora-type UI. It would be nice if the discrete levels of a selectable UI were more widely spaced than the Remora - more like the GDuP.

Don's suggestions of a more desolder/solder-friendly board would be welcome, but not at the expense of size. You could offer pre-wired or pot-removed options as you do now with the Remora and Shark as well.

A Super Shark would open new doors for high-output multi-LED mods.

 

[LED Zeppelin]

Wayne, what is the estimated max Vout?

As for being round or not, that would be really application dependant. If a square/rectangular board were used, it might be nice to offer a supplemental heatsink that was flat on one side for the board and curved on the other to fit against the inside of a Mag body. Somebody made one out of flat stock that was bent on the ends a while back but I couldn't locate the thread. The current round design is great when you can mount it to the underside of a round LED sink, but when you can't it's a pain to jury rig some heatsinking.

Don, I've been refining Shark heatsinks for Mags, and my first versions were made from bent 1/16" sheet alum. Then I made some CNC cut SharkSinks for D and C tubes. Lastly I've had to add heatsinks to the topside as well for high powered mods to cool the IC and diode. I made these from brass shapes and solid copper wire. With the top and bottom sinks, I've pushed 25 watts through the Shark no problem.

 

[SnowplowTortoise]

I have to admit that my experience is limited to your competitor's products (and quite limited at that), but I hope my comments are relevant. I think heat sinking will be more and more important as we get into higher power boards. The solution that most people take is to attach the board to the same heat sink as the LEDs. Obviously this is not the optimal solution and the inherent flaw will become more pronounced as we get into multiple multi-die emitters and super-high powered boards. The problem is that there are no main-stream off-the-shelf type options for those of us that do not have access to machine shops (beautiful work on the Moby ****, Led).

So here's why I ventured to stick my nose into this thread. I believe I have stumbled upon a cheap, almost off-the-shelf independent heat-sink for driver boards. If your board could be attached in somewhat the same way as I've shown in the following thread, I think it could make the lives of us scandalously underequipped amateurs much simpler.

www.candlepowerforums.com:80/vb/showthread.php?t=192418

Edit: I just found LED Zeppelin's heatsink sales thread in the Custom B/S/T. Ok, so there are off-the-shelf options. Now there's one more...

 

[dat2zip]

I'm pretty certain that I know of components offhand that will make for a super efficient converter. As power output goes up the challenge and difficulty level goes along with it. This will in no ways be a simple task. If done correctly it's possible to achieve 95% efficiency which would make thermal management requirements easier. Thermal management I would provide with a low thermal resistance path attachment from the PCB. If you attach the low thermal resistance point to a heat sink that would ensure proper heat regulation of the board and components on the board.

I don't have a prototype offhand so I can't tell you what the thermal resistance of the board will be and what the attachment method would be nor can give an estimate of the actual board size. My gut guess would be 3" X 3" or so multilayer PCB. That's a rather large board.

I would also gather that at that size the demand for such a board would be rather limited and not worth the development time and effort.

Making a buck converter that will drive 4A is doable as is using ICs with internal switches. Output currents over 4A would require external switches. A buck design is simpler than a boost.

Wayne

 

[Aircraft800]

I think the new Super Shark Boost Driver should have:

1) a TON of thermal vias and a large copper pad to mount it, like to a LED-Zeppelin Shark Sync or similar setup.
2) programmable low power cut-off voltages
3) programmable high temp cutoff
4) programmable current selection
5) multilevel via switch click

Good Luck Wayne!!

I NEED such a driver for multi LED mods!!

Oh Yea, I forgot to ad, once it's out, someone (LED-Zeppelin ) will always need something MORE, like pushing 7 Seoul P7's, so you will have to be able to do Multiple Master\Slave with one switch combos, and have the ability to do Parallel drivers... Just a thought...

 

[IsaacHayes]

If it's boost and input at 6v min then how will it work with a single P7 which has an input of 3.6v or so?

 

[dat2zip]

If it's boost and input at 6v min then how will it work with a single P7 which has an input of 3.6v or so?

Use three of them.

 

[dat2zip]

I might have a driver in place in next few weeks that will drive two Osrams (6 die) in series at 1A or 4-5 P7 in series from a 12-20V power source.

The prototype will be mocked up in the Makita Dock and depending on the success of that design there might be a investigation phase that will look at how small it can be made.

After a single proto is made only time will tell as to when the part from the factory goes into production. Hopefully, I plan to be ready to use them as soon as they are available.

Open load protection will be greater than 50V.

Wayne

 

[Aircraft800]

WOW, 4-5 P7 in series! LED Zeppelin, you you have a new build in mind ?

Great Work Wayne, I hope all of your hard work pays off, and it still can fit into a flashlight host.

I may have to trade out my Shark for the new SuperShark.

 

[neophyte340]

oh my , i want

 

[saabluster]

I think the new Super Shark Boost Driver should have:

1) a TON of thermal vias and a large copper pad to mount it, like to a LED-Zeppelin Shark Sync or similar setup.
2) programmable low power cut-off voltages
3) programmable high temp cutoff
4) programmable current selection
5) multilevel via switch click

+1 on all the above. I could very much use these features. Sure wish you could make one to run 50 LEDs a 1A though.

 

[spencer]

Any ballpark figures on a price for one of these units?

 

[DaFABRICATA]

PLEASE make these!!!

I need something to run these P7's:devil:

 

[darkzero]

PLEASE make these!!!

I need something to run these P7's:devil:

That monster is gonna melt!

 

[Supernam]

oo:




Wouldn't a regular shark at 1A be sufficient? It'd be 1200lm with very splendid run times. It'd probably over heat already at that level. But then again, screw practicality, let's see 2100lm!

 

[DaFABRICATA]

oo:




Wouldn't a regular shark at 1A be sufficient? It'd be 1200lm with very splendid run times. It'd probably over heat already at that level. But then again, screw practicality, let's see 2100lm!

Short runtimes and VERY Bright will be fine with me:naughty:

I would prefer to have either adjustable output or a UI with at least two maybe three levels...no strobe or SOS needed.

I REALLY hope these come to market