Cree 7UP in SF M6

Hi guys,
I haven't posted a mod in this forum for quite some time. This is a SF M6 hosting 7 of the XR-E's driven in series at 350 mA by one of Wayne's Shark Converters.





I measured 7000 lux at one meter so it looks like 1k per LED which is not bad considering the drive current and size of optic. What really throws is the spill!

A beam comparison against the Mag 3 shooter mod that is driving three of the XR-E's at about 630 mA each is below. (3 shooter top image and 7Up bottom image):



I put these images and info in a locked stickie thread in the McGizmo forum so I hope it's OK to place it here in the mod forum for discussion.

I would like to replace the anemic 15 watt headlamp in my electric scooter with one of these 7UP clusters and have a high/low switch drive the cluster at 350 mA low and 700 mA on high.

The heatsink is 2" in OD and there was some room left in the M6 head. If I had the time and energy, I would mill 6 flats on the reflectors and turn down the MCPCB's so that this cluster might fit in a Mag head..... Nah.......

It would be interesting to see such a cluster driven at full power.

Muwah muwah Don. That's some serious lumens there. Great job! :twothumbs


If you put one of those on your scooter, the Hawaiian wil think it's a MAC truck got lost in Lahaina.

The beam shots were exposed at the same manual setting as all of the rest of the XR-E comparison beam shots I have taken have been and this has been to show the spot portion of the beam. To the naked eye, the large spill from the Mag 3 shooter illuminates the whole back yard but the tighter spill from the 7UP is like a flood beam itself.

For an idea of scale, the tree is 33' from the lights and the small bananna tree to the left of the pine tree is about 6' tall. The rock portion of the back wall is about 8' tall, behind the bananna tree.

That is a pretty amazing and wonderful amount of light from the seven . What is the voltage reading with all 7 at that drive level? With the Shark i believe Wayne says to stay below 22 or 22.5volts as I recall.

I`m convinced already, so when might the reflectors become available to the eager lowly patient and loyal CPF memebers.
Hmmm ......Don`t know if I qualify for any of those? So ME TOO!



Ken

It is a great time to be alive. Men are like gods, shooting light from their fingertips

.... I want one
I'd imagine 700mA would be possible with the Maxflex driver when it becomes available.

Great work Don Now if only we had some XR-E reflectors

One question. How did you align all the Cree's ? By Eyeball?

This would be a great mod with one of George's new Maxflex's with 5 levels of brightness.

Hmm I have an M6 sitting here :naughty:


Mac

Hmm... looks an awful lot like this!

Hmm... In a number of XR-E beamshots, I've been seeing the presence of dark doughnut rings around the hotspots. I hope the new reflectors will get rid of this little distraction or it'll become akin to the issues of the Lux V doughnut hole.

LOL

Don - that is an very nice looking piece!!

Don, nice!

Seems to me I remember another M6 mod you did: SureFire M6 with 3X Luxeon III's back in December of 2003.

Do you still have the old mod?

js said:

Don, nice!

Seems to me I remember another M6 mod you did: SureFire M6 with 3X Luxeon III's back in December of 2003.

Do you still have the old mod?

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That sold in Don's auction a while ago.

Mac

Don,

Awesome job! I love the concept of multiple brightness levels on the light as well. I'd love to see what approach you come up.

MSax

Don, was just teasing ya a bit up above... hope that came through.

In all seriousness, very nice looking build! And one heck of a SCARY light to mount on a scooter.
(Do it! Do it!)

Very nice, Don, does it have a strobe feature to repel the tourists? :laughing:

Nice work, that 7up, please see my EM order for a Mountain Dew 12-Pack in Ti :devil:


EM

Thanks guys,

The current Shark does have a V-out ceiling somewhere around 22 -24 volts. I spoke with Wayne about this and he said this can be raised with a component(s) change. This particular string of LED's required 22 V when the bench supply was set at 350 mA current limit. As it turns out, the particular Shark I used has a Vout ceiling somewhat below this. When I first fire up the light, there is about 290 mA going to the string but as they heat up and Vf drops, the current climbs to the 350mA and then the converter switches into constant current mode. I have had some Shark drivers for a while but no time to play with them. New part and new learning curve. I do have another host in mind and on it, I want to install a pot as well for volume control. The beam from this array would be very useful in variable flux output, IMHO.

The McR-17XR was intentionally sized to have the same OD as the MCPCB's I am using. It also has a centering "cup" on the bottom side to aid in installing and bonding it directly to the LED/MCPCB. I epoxied the module down into a turned shelf in the M6 head and then had the fun of putting epoxy down and around the LED's for bonding the reflectors in. I used Arctic Ceramic slow cure epoxy that I put in a disposable syringe. I turned a shallow conter bore for the center MCPCB to insure it was centered and then the ring of MCPCB's were just placed by eye and oriented to all make contact with their neighbors. If you take 7 coins of the same diameter, You can see on a table how easy this is to do. If I had younger hands, better eyes and better access, I could have done a better job of getting the reflectors beter in column than I did. :shrug:

I didn't order a large qty of the McR-17XR for the first go round as there was no design in the works that used them. They are all but gone now to some various small OEM's you guys are familiar with as well as the shoppe. The shoppe will be selling these when Wayne and Cindy return. I also have a new and larger order for them in process. More are coming....

Milky,
No problem. I see you put together a 7UP in M6 already!

Don so the reflectors are not held in place by the lens? Do they make contact with the lens?

Thanks Mac

Mac,
There is a slight gap between the window and the reflectors. I wanted to put in a good fillet of epoxy on the top of the sink once installed in the head which I could not have done had I already mounted the reflectors. Otherwise, the reflectors could have been mounted and bonded to complete the assembly without any referencing or support beyond.These reflectors have an exterior O-ring groove and I believe you could band the cluster together with a single O-ring around the girth. This would enhance keeping the individual Z axis parallel with eachother. If I get around to my scooter headlamp. the cluster can be mounted behind the stock and curved window and no need of exterior support of the optics. The "unitized" reflector cluster could be used as a jig for allignment of the individual LED's while they were still floating on their uncured epoxy boding surface of the sink, if that makes sense.

This one is a holy terror :devil:
The future is indeed bright

Don ... make a light like this and I will kiss you feet.

Maybe. :nana:

bk

+1 :lolsign:

Kiessling said:

Don ... make a light like this and I will kiss you feet.


bk

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