For 5W Luxeon -- THE Perfect Rechargeable Battery

So that's $173.90 for the battery and charger. $40 for the 5W luxeon and $20-30 for a housing.
230-240 for a rechargeable 5W light.
The Zorch is looking good!

Mr. B, have you taken the time yet to wonder down the power tool isle in the hardware store and gawk at the rechargeable batteries for power tools? Some very interesting batteries there also that just might work.......

Hmmm, that's true ain't it? There's a lot of 7.2V batteries out there...

And since the 18- and 24-volt jobbers are taking over, wouldn't one be able to get 7.2V's for cheap?

Actually I am hoping Duracell or somebody comes out with a new standard alkaline battery -- AA sized and rated at 7.5V...

How about 2x 3.6v B&D Versapak Batteries?

Joe, yeah, that's the ticket! How many mA are they rated at?

Radio Shack has a 6-C cell rechargeable NiMH pack for their R/C model cars. I use two in series for powering a small portable 5 watt all-band ham radio transceiver, it runs far longer than the internal 8-AA battery pack... One of these would be "da ballz" for a 5 Watt Luxeon, 7.2V @ 3400 mA/H, toss in a resistor if you're timid... Go DD if you dare (and have a good heatsink). two in parallel would be even better, use a couple of low vF diodes to isolate the packs from each other, but still deliver the juice to the Luxeon.
Such a home made light would be shorter, but fatter (like me) than a 4 D cell maglite.

I have the 5 watt emitters. I have the batteries,
just need the time and some extra materials
to cobble it all together, hopefully it doesn't qualify for the stupid and ugly flashlight contest...

/ed brown in NH

Considering the juice these puppies take - Rechargable is the way to go...specially if you want small.
Heres a batt if you want a regular looking flashlight.
http://www.camcorder-battery.org/SHARP/AD-MS10BT.HTM

I found one like the one bulk found made by Polaroid...sold by Wally World for $22.00...Higher amp rating.....$29 for a charger. I like this one - I'm cheap, but size does count...so something smaller and more exspensive is still possible.

Has anyone seen those sticks used for laptops?

MR Bulk:

Both the NiCd and NiMH Versapak's just have a 3.6v designation - no mA rating.

I wonder if it's possible to get a lithium polymer battery (like those from a cell phone) to run an LS and have a usb connector added in to charge the battery from a pc/laptop - or is it just fanciful thinking?

I won an auction on ebay for a dozen lithium cell phone batteries rated at around 1000mah. So we'll see...

Just a BTW, those aren't true lithium polymers that are used in cell phones. They're a lithium-ion/polymer hybrid. They haven't figured out yet how to make the true polymer style work at room temperature.

Lithium Polymer is definitely cool. Essentially little packets of energy that can be formed into any space you have available.

Mark

Of course this whole route is much cheaper if you have a charger like a Maha 777...

As far as camcorder (and phone---mostly phone) batts go, be careful! There are some out there with rediculous mAh ratings. (Reduculously low, that is)

SO with this in mind...I issue a challenge. No I won't buy the final product, I can't afford it! But here's the challenge:

Use a camcorder, cell phone, or other rechargable 3.6 volt battery. Circular, round, it doesn't matter.

Turn the battery into a flashlight. Standard formfactor flashlight. Round body. Smaller is better.

Develop a way of charging the battery without taking it out of the light. The charger doesn't have to be "drop in," you just have to be able to put the flashlight on the charger without dis-assembling it and it should take less than 5 seconds (After practice--10 before) to put it on the charger.

Who'll step up to the plate? Comeon! (I can't believe I am goning to say this) put the Arc LS to shame!

You mean, exactly like this:



lol, sorry I know not exactly what you want These are very small NiMH packs and just a couple of regular LED's, but they do charge from any NiMH recharger with a 9v port.

You could certainly do something similar with a much bigger pack and a luxeon or whatever. You can see the whole saga of my "ugly lights" at http://www.sentman.com/led/

I suppose someone could even make them look professional and real.

Thanks,
James

If only we could get LiIon 123 batteries. At 3.6V, these are the ideal rechargables for LEDs. 2 in series drives 5W LS. 1 drives 1W LS and 5mm LEDs. AND they fit Surefires and Arcs.

Last I heard, they were a no go due to liability.

Wait, I'm still not satisfied with SF's explanation of why we aren't getting LiIon 123s. Other companies are building LiIon lights.

See, for example, this LiIon headlamp.

I"m not sure it's practical right now to embed the necessary circuits in a regular cell body. You can't use a LiIon cell just like a regular battery. You have to have some protection circuitry. If memory serves it has to protect against shorts, which will cause the battery to catch fire if not caught. It has to stop the cell from discharging below a certain point, it has to protect the cell from charging if below a certain temp and it has to have a fuse that opens completely and forever if the temperature of the cell raises over a certain point. But all that can be built into the flashlight you're saying. Yes, but whats to keep you from putting these same cells into a light without the circuitry? If you were to rip apart a liion cell pack and put them into a regular flashlight. If you run them all the way down, thats it they are dead and you've just blown $50 in batteries. The controller circuits are required.

Now, a more viable potential would be a 3C sized or 2AA sized shrink wrapped pack of batteries with the circuitry inside the shrink wrap or something like that.

But just plain LiIon cells are not likely to show up as a 123 replacement in the immediate future, where would you attach the controller chips? I'm sure that they could be embedded into the top of the cell somehow. But that would be expensive and AFAIK nobody is doing that yet.

A friend sent me the following link, for an Lithium Ion battery pack with built in charge regulation and discharge protection. The price looks right as well.

http://www.balsapr.com/catalog/battNCharge/lithView.asp?ProductId=S459758

-Jon

Originally posted by Jonathan:
A friend sent me the following link, for an Lithium Ion battery pack with built in charge regulation and discharge protection. The price looks right as well.

http://www.balsapr.com/catalog/battNCharge/lithView.asp?ProductId=S459758

-Jon

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Agreed. That is a good price. It probably would be easy enough to reconfigure the cells side by side. This looks like just the thing for those that want to drive 5W luxeons at high power and still get long runtimes. 2+hours driven to absolute maximum spec current.

omg that battery + a tweaked madmax or badboy + a 5w = shudder
the humanity... my poor poor eyes would never be the same again

While looking for something else (always seem to find interesting stuff that way..), I came across this site.

Some pretty high power lithium ion rechargables there. The 'small' one they have data on is rated at 13Ah!!

Shame they only seem to do bulk orders, I'd like to try some of those..

Graham