Anybody out there who will mod an X5T like this?

InfidelCastro

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Jun 23, 2003
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I'm interested in owning an Inova X5T that uses red LED's and two batteries. This would be for longer runtime and no wasted space. I am assuming one would have to pick up a green, blue or white Inova to do this. Then some type of step down circuit would need to be made, so that the red LED's don't fry.

I don't like the red LED's that Inova uses, because they are half as bright as the one in my two year old Microlight II keychain light. So what red LED's would one use that are bright and yet very red to preserve night vision?
 

Sub_Umbra

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la bonne vie en Amérique
I've read that rods are insensitive to wavelengths longer than 640nm which is already longer than most of the lights advertized to preserve dark adapted vision. Most are in the 625-630nm range. Leon at Rigel Systems uses a deep red LED ~660nm for his astronomy lights. He's pretty serious about what he does.

In another thread he mentioned that if you emailed Rigelsys with a request they would work up a price for one of their lights plus some 5mmX660nm LEDs. I don't know where else to get LEDs in that range.

Once you get a light in the correct range for preserving dark adapted vision don't be suprised if you find it really hard to work with. My point is that lights in this range may not be really dim -- they just seem really dim. The human eye is so insensitive to this part of the visible spectrum that those who use them often need them so bright that the afterimage burnt into their cones completely masks the light that their unaffected rods are still able to detect. There's more to dark adapted vision than meets the eye -- sorry. :D

Hope this helps.
 

cratz2

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Apr 6, 2003
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I've always wondered... if you used something like a Down Boy, how exactly does the board just know how much voltage to send to the LEDs?

I've used them... and I know it's going to be a ridiculously simple answer... but could you use 5 red LED on a DB400 or 500? Granted, this would assume using 100ma LEDs such as the excellent TCH3 LEDs from LSDiodes.com, but if you had everything else wired in, but first you used Nichia CS LEDs for example, then switched them to red LEDs, would the voltage each LED sees drop when hooking in the red LEDs?

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robk

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Mar 11, 2003
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Near Daytona Beach, FL
You must think of LEDs as current devices. Limit the current, the voltage drop across it will take care of itself. You can set up a bench power supply to demonstrate it... Set the voltage to 12 or 18, set the current to 350 and attach a Lux I to the leads, the voltage won't exceed 3.5 or 3.6 or so. Crank up the current and the voltage will correspondingly go up and blow the LED.
You can even put another Lux in series wth the first one, as long as you regulate the current, it will only "see" 3.6V or so. Hope that helps. Actually it's a bit more complex, but that's it in a nutshell. Wayne Y. could give you more specific info on running Red or other low Vf LEDs on his DB.
Rob
 
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