ahorton
Enlightened
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2008
- Messages
- 715
This is a little something I've been working on.
A request was put to me for a 2000 lumen headlight with a narrow beam and no spill. So after a month of trying to tell him how crazy that was, I agreed to build a headlight with a SSR-90, 40mm aspheric and 10A adjustable linear driver.
I've named it the 'Wormlight' because the mouth reminds me of Shai-Hulud.
The LED is held in place with two M3 screws and a big blob of thermal grease. The most of the body is machined out of one piece of aluminium.
It puts out a lot of heat. It survives because the thing is covered in fins but even so it gets very hot to touch after 10 minutes of full power.
The driver is located in a little box that goes at the back of the wearer's head. Then a cable drops from the box down to a battery in a backpack or on a belt. The box also has an on/off switch and intensity dial which smoothly increases current from 2.5A up to 10A.
Not waterproof, the cable glands are just for strain relief.
The aspheric lens can be screwed to within about 5mm of the emitter dome so it can give a nice round and wide beam.
Personally I think that the SST-90 is far too big for sustained use.
The bodies however, have come out beautifully and my plan is to use them to make slightly less powerful headlights. These are hands down the prettiest headlamps I've ever seen. Not as small as most headlamps. It's about 60mm at its widest but somehow it manages to not look too big. The fins are tapered and the lens-holder which screws in has the worm-mouth that somehow all fits together. Then again I like a meaty looking headlamp that says "Are you looking at me?".
Future plans:
I think a SST-50 driven up to 6.67A by a TaskLED H6flex would be the upper power limit (for comfortable dissipation of heat).
Or an XR-E could be used. In this case I'd put the driver in the head next to the LED to allow a 2 x 18650 battery at the back.
I also have vague ideas about using switches in the head that turn the light off when you screw the lens down. Then it would work just like my favourite old Petzl Zoom. Two switches at different heights would allow settings of:
1. off (both switches - off)
2. wide beam, low power (low mode switch on, high mode switch off)
3. medium beam, high power (low mode switch on, high mode switch on)
4. narrow beam, high power (low mode switch on, high mode switch on)
Or I could use an inline switch between the battery and the lighthead.
All in all, I'm very happy with how these have turned out, even if a 37W headlamp is a bit on the crazy side of things.
My next rogaine (long-distance navigation in the bush) event will only have 3 hours of dark, so it's conceivable to carry a battery that will let me use one of these lights (at low power most of the time but being able to turn it up when I want it). 6 x 18650s give approx 50Wh should do it.
A request was put to me for a 2000 lumen headlight with a narrow beam and no spill. So after a month of trying to tell him how crazy that was, I agreed to build a headlight with a SSR-90, 40mm aspheric and 10A adjustable linear driver.
I've named it the 'Wormlight' because the mouth reminds me of Shai-Hulud.
The LED is held in place with two M3 screws and a big blob of thermal grease. The most of the body is machined out of one piece of aluminium.
It puts out a lot of heat. It survives because the thing is covered in fins but even so it gets very hot to touch after 10 minutes of full power.
The driver is located in a little box that goes at the back of the wearer's head. Then a cable drops from the box down to a battery in a backpack or on a belt. The box also has an on/off switch and intensity dial which smoothly increases current from 2.5A up to 10A.
Not waterproof, the cable glands are just for strain relief.
The aspheric lens can be screwed to within about 5mm of the emitter dome so it can give a nice round and wide beam.
Personally I think that the SST-90 is far too big for sustained use.
The bodies however, have come out beautifully and my plan is to use them to make slightly less powerful headlights. These are hands down the prettiest headlamps I've ever seen. Not as small as most headlamps. It's about 60mm at its widest but somehow it manages to not look too big. The fins are tapered and the lens-holder which screws in has the worm-mouth that somehow all fits together. Then again I like a meaty looking headlamp that says "Are you looking at me?".
Future plans:
I think a SST-50 driven up to 6.67A by a TaskLED H6flex would be the upper power limit (for comfortable dissipation of heat).
Or an XR-E could be used. In this case I'd put the driver in the head next to the LED to allow a 2 x 18650 battery at the back.
I also have vague ideas about using switches in the head that turn the light off when you screw the lens down. Then it would work just like my favourite old Petzl Zoom. Two switches at different heights would allow settings of:
1. off (both switches - off)
2. wide beam, low power (low mode switch on, high mode switch off)
3. medium beam, high power (low mode switch on, high mode switch on)
4. narrow beam, high power (low mode switch on, high mode switch on)
Or I could use an inline switch between the battery and the lighthead.
All in all, I'm very happy with how these have turned out, even if a 37W headlamp is a bit on the crazy side of things.
My next rogaine (long-distance navigation in the bush) event will only have 3 hours of dark, so it's conceivable to carry a battery that will let me use one of these lights (at low power most of the time but being able to turn it up when I want it). 6 x 18650s give approx 50Wh should do it.
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