I don't quite have a name for this light yet.
Thanks to the price reduction in Luxeons ($3.45 for Luxeon III emitters at Future), I figured it would be fun to make an insane, tons-of-luxeons-in-one-package floodlight.
So I ordered a dozen Luxeon III emitters from Future (I got 12 SWAKs!), a heatsink, fan, and misc parts from All Electronics, and came up with this bad boy:
There's the heatsink, fan (back), and box containing the regulator (top). The heat sink face is about 3"x3".
It runs off ~12V (needs at least that to drive all 12 luxeons at full power)
Here's the business end of the light:
The heat sink has a milled surface (it came that way) which is nice since it recesses the luxeons so they are easy to protect. There are two layers of 1/8" acrylic sheet, one with a hole for the luxeons to poke through, and another that covers everything.
The luxeons are arranged in 4 strings of 3 in series. Each string is driven from a signle regulator through an 0.47 ohm resistor to help balance current. I had originally thought about building 4 regulators driven from a common feedback reference, then decided that that would require way too many parts, and went with the simpler plan.
The white is a thin pad of AA epoxy - I laid this down before setting the emitters to ensure the slugs were all isolated. Remember, electrically connected slugs with series luxeons = BAD.
The PCB strips are to prevent the power leads of the emitters from experiencing any stress by being connected to the beefier power wires.
The rats' nest that's the regulator. There's a switch (left), current sense resistor (bottom), transistor (above the current sense resistor), pot for power adjustment (right), and PCB (hiding under the menagerie of wiring).
The regulator is a simple linear current regulator using an op-amp and mosfet.
The pot allows the current to be adjusted from ~500mA (~125mA/series strand) to ~4A (~1A/series strand).
Yes, this thing will draw 48W!
This is the part of sprockets where we show beamshots:
The target, my garage:
First, lit up with 2 60W bare bulbs:
Next, for reference, A VV0S Lux V in a Mag 2D at 750mA (with reflector):
And without the reflector (flood beam only):
Next, the 12 lux beast at the lowest setting:
it's a bit brighter than the Lux V flood beam
Finally, cranked up to full power (Aziz! Light!):
Thank you Aziz, that's much better...(cookie for the reference)
Thanks to the price reduction in Luxeons ($3.45 for Luxeon III emitters at Future), I figured it would be fun to make an insane, tons-of-luxeons-in-one-package floodlight.
So I ordered a dozen Luxeon III emitters from Future (I got 12 SWAKs!), a heatsink, fan, and misc parts from All Electronics, and came up with this bad boy:
There's the heatsink, fan (back), and box containing the regulator (top). The heat sink face is about 3"x3".
It runs off ~12V (needs at least that to drive all 12 luxeons at full power)
Here's the business end of the light:
The heat sink has a milled surface (it came that way) which is nice since it recesses the luxeons so they are easy to protect. There are two layers of 1/8" acrylic sheet, one with a hole for the luxeons to poke through, and another that covers everything.
The luxeons are arranged in 4 strings of 3 in series. Each string is driven from a signle regulator through an 0.47 ohm resistor to help balance current. I had originally thought about building 4 regulators driven from a common feedback reference, then decided that that would require way too many parts, and went with the simpler plan.
The white is a thin pad of AA epoxy - I laid this down before setting the emitters to ensure the slugs were all isolated. Remember, electrically connected slugs with series luxeons = BAD.
The PCB strips are to prevent the power leads of the emitters from experiencing any stress by being connected to the beefier power wires.
The rats' nest that's the regulator. There's a switch (left), current sense resistor (bottom), transistor (above the current sense resistor), pot for power adjustment (right), and PCB (hiding under the menagerie of wiring).
The regulator is a simple linear current regulator using an op-amp and mosfet.
The pot allows the current to be adjusted from ~500mA (~125mA/series strand) to ~4A (~1A/series strand).
Yes, this thing will draw 48W!
This is the part of sprockets where we show beamshots:
The target, my garage:
First, lit up with 2 60W bare bulbs:
Next, for reference, A VV0S Lux V in a Mag 2D at 750mA (with reflector):
And without the reflector (flood beam only):
Next, the 12 lux beast at the lowest setting:
it's a bit brighter than the Lux V flood beam
Finally, cranked up to full power (Aziz! Light!):
Thank you Aziz, that's much better...(cookie for the reference)
