Dental Headlamp, Part Deux. A request.

I suppose I need to give some background information in order to qualify the content of this post. I am currently a 3rd year dental student. When I started my first year as a dental student I made a post here inquiring about headlamps for dental work. A search turns up several people who have come here inquiring about the same thing. At the time I let it go and got by with standard dental lighting.

Fast forward two years and I am working with patients in the hot, moist, dark environment of the human mouth and sometimes the overhead leads don't seem to cut it. I am also on the verge of purchasing a set of loupes. Any of you familiar with hunting optics or similar things know that a key part of optics is their ability to "gather" light. Loupes give you magnification but can darken the image. A loupe mounted, compact led light would be great. They are becoming quite popular.

When I first inquired at CPF regarding dental headlamps there were several of them on the market but they were incandescent across the board. I thought an LED would be great. I was at a dental convention today and every vendor or distributor selling loupes had an LED headlamp proudly displayed at their booths. If any of you could have seen them you would have just smiled and shook your head. Marginal fit and finish. Little or NO heat sinking. Course threads. Nothing special at all. Some had reflectors. Some had optics. The cheapest light from one of the larger manufacturers was $545 (!!) and I think that may have included a student discount. The nicer version had an external pot to allow adjustment and it had a "3 watt instead of a 1 watt led" and it was right around $950 (!!!!!!). I did see a cheaper one today that was being offered at two different booths. One place had it for $169 and one for $297. It appears to be the Nuwai of dental lights. This one had a plastic housing. Who knows if there was any metal in it all for heat sinking? It was just a luxeon in an IMS17 (probably) in a plastic bezel attached to a 3 X AAA battery holder. No regulation circuitry or anything.

I drew a picture of the $545 light. I don't have any cool rendering software so I just used Paint. The light is just a crude LED mount/heatsink that in threaded into the bezel with what looks like an IMS17. There are no electronics in the head. It is just wired though holes in the back of the heatsink to the battery pack on the belt.


Now as I look at these I just shake my head. I have boasted many times to the guys in my carpool that there were a bunch of people here at CPF that could put together a light that would destroy anything on the market for significantly less. I've decided that it's time to put something like this together. I have a small following of people that are aware of my flashlight hobby who have said that if I get a prototype working for a reasonable price they'd love to have one too.

Often color matching is cited as a problem with LED dental lighting. I think it's a valid concern but I have a simple solution. I just won't use my headlight for shade matching. I think this is not even a concern for big manufacturers. I started talking about binning with one sales rep and his eyes glazed over. I don't think they even try to put certain bins in their lights.

So anyway, I have had my mind filled with questions for about a week now. I have had sleepless nights tossing and turning thinking about readily available bezels, reflector sizes, and the beam patterns they produce with the big three LEDs. I have labored over battery options, drivers, weight and dimensions concerns, and design. I will be purchasing my loupes tomorrow and I am committing myself to build a better light for a reasonable price. Now I do think that a quality light realistically priced would be a great business venture I just want to do it for me and maybe a few friends. The joke is that anything in the dental world is a thousand bucks. I think a nice light with a reasonable price would be shocking first of all and secondly extremely popular.

My musings on this idea have been somewhat compiled into another Paint file that I used to add features to the light I already drew.


My goals are: (in no particular order)

1. Well-collimated light. I want as little spill as possible at a working distance of around 20 inches to keep light out of the patient's eyes.
2. Compact design. I'd like to keep it as small as possible but if a little bigger size results in significantly more features then it will be bigger.
3. Regulated: If possible I would like to have the electronics in the belt mounted power supply to reduce the weight on the loupe but I know it would be easier to have it in the head.
4. Dimmable: via a pot mounted on the battery pack, maybe?
5. Lightweight
6. Good Power source – Belt-mounted. I'd like to use 18650 or similar for good runtime but I'll use whatever solution I find and can implement fairly easily. Ni-mh isn't out of the question if battery holders are that much easier to find.
7. Bright but not too bright. I don't want it so bright that the teeth shine back or that I see spots when I look away. This will be a function not only of drive current but also what LED I use which is dependent on what beam pattern I can get from various LED/Reflector(or optic) combos.

I an not a newbie here are CPF but I'm not much of a modder either and haven't had the cash flow to experiment with many of the components that are popular here. I really want to make this happen but I don't have a lot of money to throw at it and I need some expertise to draw on. So here I am.

My first questions deal with reflector LED combinations. If I can't find a good combo then it won't matter if I've found the perfect battery holder. I first thought of using an Aleph head as a host since they are somewhat available and have a well known process for building light engines. It seems the Aleph 19 head is the most available and the easiest to put an led in. Will any iteration of the A19 give a good tight beam? I've seen lots of beamshots but none up close. If anyone owns one does it bother the eyes if they shine it in their mouth from 20-24 inches? Are there any optics that would fit in an A19 head? What is the length and diameter of the A19 (I couldn't find this in the McGizmo forum)? If there was an acceptable led/reflector combo instead of screwing it on a flashlight body I could just screw an adapter onto it to attach to my loupes.

I've also considered some "ready-made" options like the Fenix heads available without bodies or even working out an adapter that would allow me to just attach a KL1 to the loupes. Are there any other obvious host bezels that would are easy to come by that lend themselves to a multitude of reflectors or optic solutions?

A lot of the optics in lights I've seen appear to be acrylic balls. They produce a very tight circle of light with no spill. Does anyone have any experience with the acrylic balls available at the Shoppe and do you know of any heads that will hold them?

As you can see my thoughts are all over the place on this. I just need to nail down a host that will lend itself to the beam pattern I need as a jumping off point and then I think I may be able to get things going.

This isn't something that I can devote all my time to but I want to establish my ideas here so I can stop back every few days to get new information or post updates. I'd like to try and work out something in the next month or two. I don't need anything that looks real slick, I just want something that functions well. I can refine things later if it goes that far.

If you want to see the manufacturer versions to get an idea of what I'm talking about you can visit www.surgitel.com, www.orascoptic.com, or www.designsforvision.com.

I've never posted anything this long so if anyone has actually read this far, thank you and I'd love to hear any input you have.

From what I read, you could use a good bicycle light in lieu of these "dental" lights and be better of. The problem is, the best ones are not cheaper than your specialized lights .

Not so difficult to do...

PM sent

Not really a Dental Headlamp, not really expensive but really bright

Parts:
Old Minimag-head, IMS20 reflector, Lip-stick housing from my wife:lolsign:, cheap switch, AL-tube as batt.-housing, string from old headlamp, few resistors and LuxIII-Led, copper end cap from a water tube as heatsink. Runs with one RCR123 LiIon about 45minutes at 800mA
Assembling together = handgrenade Headlamp:lolsign:



Best regards

____
Tom

Nice setup for a dentist, Long_John!

I hope, his patients are flashaholics too.

Superb build quality, Long John! In the context, perhaps "jaw-dropping" is the correct term to apply...

I like the tie-wrap. :lolsign:

You have some simple design requirements, and I look forward to following this thread.

Like most people, the seemingly simple design of the $500 lights makes it seem that you could do much, much better for much, much less. The reality is that there are often other considerations that added engineering costs.

Here are some examples....

As a dental tool, the light needs to be disinfected frequently. How it gets disinfected depends on local laws, I would assume. So that would impact the choice of materials for the body, headstap, etc.

The light needs to be bright enough for you to see, yet not blind the patient.

It has to run cool enough that you don't have a hot spot on your forehead. A heatsink simply transfers heat, it does not make it disapear.

It has to look professional enough that your patients don't lose confidence in you. I like LongJohn's creation, but I'd change dentists if mine used it, and I'm a dedicated flashaholic!

Solutions...

Put the regulator circuit down in the battery pack, so any heat it generates is dissipated there.

Use an optic to keep side spill to a minimum.

If you hack something together, make a shroud from plastic or something to make it look professional.

Consider using cheap fiber optics as light guides to emit the light directly in line with your line of vision as opposed to putting a 19 mm diameter light in the "third eye" position. It can be done cheaply,

Good luck!

Daniel

Why does it need disinfecting? It doesn't go in the patient's mouth. It goes on the dentist's head. I don't think dentists disinfect their heads.

Very good suggestions Daniel:thumbsup:

But this sadden me a little:

gadget_lover said:

I like LongJohn's creation, but I'd change dentists if mine used it, and I'm a dedicated flashaholic!

Click to expand...

:lolsign:.........

Best regards

_____
Tom

Wouldn't you need an LED out of this product line: http://www.lumileds.com/products/line.cfm?lineId=15

My dentist's office has disposable plastic covers over everything that is normally touched during procedures. The hygienist explained the need for disinfecting. Things splash ( a lot ) in dentist offices and get all over things. Diseases can be pread from patient to patient that way. Since there is blood and other bodily fluids involved, some very serious diseases can be spread.

Evidently there are rules, regulations or standards covering this now.

A dentist is likely to have to touch the head lamp occasionally, so it should be disinfected frequently, maybe even between patients.

As for Tom's neat headlamp.... If my doctor is cobbling together tools, I worry about what other things he scrimps on. Well, not MY particular doctor, since he's a card-carrying flashaholic and gadget freak too. But any OTHER doctor would make me worry.


Daniel

DM51 said:

Why does it need disinfecting? It doesn't go in the patient's mouth. It goes on the dentist's head. I don't think dentists disinfect their heads.

Click to expand...

They're studies showing how the splatter (aerosol particles, actually) from dental tools pretty much gets everwhere around the room. :green:

One more thought: if you go the LED route, color rendition may be compromised, which I understand is important in proper diagnosis of certain conditions (my bro's a dentist).

Gadget_lover,

The solutions you listed are my exact thinking as well. I want to have the electronics mounted remotely. I would prefer as little spill as possible so an optic comes to mind. Do you know of any optics that are easily implemented into easily available heads? As far as disinfection goes I am not considering any type of fabric elastic strap. (sorry long john) The vast majority of lights I've seen are just like my drawing. They have a metal bezel with glass or plastic lenses and are wired to a remote battery pack. The light will be exposed to aerosols from high speed handpieces but will not come in any intimate contact with the mouth, saliva, or blood so it does not need to be autoclaved. A disinfecting spray and wipe down is sufficient.

As far as brightness goes I don't want or need a 110 lumen cree-powered forehead rocket. I am considering a cree or ssc only because they would provide sufficient light (i'm thinking maybe only 20-30 lumens in a tight beam shape) with small current requirement and little heat generated.

I guess I need to decide what host to use by eliminating the ones that won't work. I keep thinking about the Aleph 19 as a base to work from but I don't know the dimensions. It isn't ugly. It looks official. It would be sprayed and wiped down. If I used remote electronics it wouldn't even need the whole LE in it; just the piece that the LED is soldered to. I could then use the threads to screw in an adapter that would attach to my loupes. If it turns out to be too big or too heavy or incompatible with the optics I need for the proper beam shape then I can move on to a new idea. SO......does anyone have the dimensions of the A19 head or can you point me to where they can be found? Does anyone know the weight of a fully built A19 head?

I am interested in possibly using a fiber optic but I am not familiar with prices or sources or their implementation.

I have seen the new McR16 reflector at the shoppe. This would make for a very small head if there was a suitable host and if it gave a tight beam. Like I said before many lights appear to just use an IMS17. This still gives some spill that would be in the patient's eyes but that doesn't seem to stop dentists from using and liking these designs. There are some that use some type of optic to produce a very focused circular beam. This is more ideal IMO.

I am still interested in the acrylic balls. Do these give a very focused beam at 24 inches and are there any hosts that they fit in?

I did finally place my order for loupes today. I am buying from Designs for Vision. The sales rep gave me a number to call to request the little clip attachment their light uses to attach to the loupe. I would just need to bridge the gap from that clip attachment to the host.

If you are looking for optics, maybe this thread could help :

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/155504

Look at that:




Thats my headlamp, using a Seoul Z-LED P4 running at 650mA. Its all selfmade of aluminium. I use it in my dental office since two years. The Seoul Z-LED P4 is in fact an upgrade using a 3W Lumiled before. The loupe is from Zeiss,Germany.

I'm quite scared enough of my dentist as it is, without one of those! If he wore a thing like that, I'd be convinced he was a Borg and I was about to be assimilated. (jk)

Seriously, though, it looks a very smart and professional bit of work.

DocPeter,

That looks great. I tried the Zeiss loupes but sent them back. They are amazing optically but I didn't like the weight. I'm assuming that since your light is all homemade that you have a lathe? I wish I had one since it would make things easier in designing my light.

I am curious about which optic you have used and how it works with the Seoul P4. Do your patients have any problems with spill light in their eyes? A P4 at 650ma is putting out a lot more light than I was thinking I'd like. Do you find it hard to adjust your eyes to conditions outside the mouth when working with your light on? Also where did you get the components for your battery pack?

I purchased the Designs for Vision 3.5X Standard Field through-the-lens. They look like this except with a little different frame.

For me weight is ok. I use the loupe almost all the time, having magnification of 4x and 5x. Soon you won´t like to look into someone´s mouth without the magnification and the light(!). About the lathe: yes, I have one. But considering about a little series, I am planning to have the job done by a CNC machine. The lens I used is a Carclo 20mm, 6° Lens. For future I try to get it even smaller. I like the higher output of the P4 Led. It´s no trouble for patients, as the light is only on a small spot. No one complained. Just look into their mouth and not into their eyes;-). Light is not too bright for my eyes, changing sight between through and over the optics is no problem. But right now I´m planning to make a two step battery pack to increase running time by lower current. Also the bright light starts curing composit material, so I have to switch it off when making fillings. For current control I used a step up converter I got from a Led-shop in Germany, all installed in a small battery pack with two NiMH batteries.

I have settled on using the XR-E and optic. It seems this combination produces a very tight beam with little spill which is what I want. I have decided against using the A19 head. It has the appearance and quality I want but it is just little too big for hanging off the front of my loupes. I am looking at making the prototype with a mini-mag head as a host. No, it's not much smaller than the A19 but I can cut it down and it fits the cree optic. I think it may be fairly simple to work with now but I'm keeping my eyes out for a custom solution for a future revision.