LED_ASAP
Enlightened
I hope this time I can hold the "smallest mod" title a little longer
First of all, pay another visit to the nearby university biology department and sweet talk with a nice grad student---This time in addition to a 0.5mL Eppendolf tube
also ask for a plastic cap for a 1dr-sized glass vial. You will need to cut a spacer out of the cap.
Next, bore/file the end of Solitaire tube until the opening is the same ID as the switch (ie, OD if the Eppendolf tube)
I used the standard Luxeon Star driving circuit powered by
ZXSC300 and cramed the whole thing into the section cut out from the Eppendolf tube.
A small disk with diameter of the battery tube was cut from a tin can. LS-emitter (Q2H from Lambda) was glued and soldered on one side and the circuitry unit was glued on the other. When finished, the metal disk will sit on the rim of the battery tube, function both as a negative contact and a heat-sink.
The arrow points to the metal disk.
Now put the lense and the plastic spacer and the head on
And you are all set---Note that now the ON action is to tighten the head, and the OFF position is to loosen the head---opposite to the original MagLite.
A little beam shot between Solitaire LS Mod (left), Solitaire 5mm Nicha Mod (right) and Photon I (the dim blue spot on the top)
I couldn't find suitable optics to produce a good focused beam. I tried to cut out a section from the NX05 lense and polish up the surface. It did produce a focused beam, but only about half the light was actually reflected (by eyeballing the beam brightness with the original NX05) so I just opt for a flood light. If anybody can send me a better lense, I'd be glad to try it on.
The current draw is barely 200mA (due to the thin wires used, you just can't push more current through, even if you totally ground the feedback pin. Although later I thought if I'd put less turns on the inductor, I might be able to push the current a little higher) so the LS is only driven at about 70-80mA. But the high quality LS (Thank you Lambda!) produced a lot more light than a 5mm Nicha overdriven at 70mA. For a flashlight as small as Solitaire driven on a single AAA, the light output is really more than enough to get you around the camp or read in the tent---and I am more than happy for the expected 2+ hours battery life.
First of all, pay another visit to the nearby university biology department and sweet talk with a nice grad student---This time in addition to a 0.5mL Eppendolf tube
also ask for a plastic cap for a 1dr-sized glass vial. You will need to cut a spacer out of the cap.
Next, bore/file the end of Solitaire tube until the opening is the same ID as the switch (ie, OD if the Eppendolf tube)
I used the standard Luxeon Star driving circuit powered by
ZXSC300 and cramed the whole thing into the section cut out from the Eppendolf tube.
A small disk with diameter of the battery tube was cut from a tin can. LS-emitter (Q2H from Lambda) was glued and soldered on one side and the circuitry unit was glued on the other. When finished, the metal disk will sit on the rim of the battery tube, function both as a negative contact and a heat-sink.
The arrow points to the metal disk.
Now put the lense and the plastic spacer and the head on
And you are all set---Note that now the ON action is to tighten the head, and the OFF position is to loosen the head---opposite to the original MagLite.
A little beam shot between Solitaire LS Mod (left), Solitaire 5mm Nicha Mod (right) and Photon I (the dim blue spot on the top)
I couldn't find suitable optics to produce a good focused beam. I tried to cut out a section from the NX05 lense and polish up the surface. It did produce a focused beam, but only about half the light was actually reflected (by eyeballing the beam brightness with the original NX05) so I just opt for a flood light. If anybody can send me a better lense, I'd be glad to try it on.
The current draw is barely 200mA (due to the thin wires used, you just can't push more current through, even if you totally ground the feedback pin. Although later I thought if I'd put less turns on the inductor, I might be able to push the current a little higher) so the LS is only driven at about 70-80mA. But the high quality LS (Thank you Lambda!) produced a lot more light than a 5mm Nicha overdriven at 70mA. For a flashlight as small as Solitaire driven on a single AAA, the light output is really more than enough to get you around the camp or read in the tent---and I am more than happy for the expected 2+ hours battery life.