My first homemade

Just got started with this stuff this week, bought a Lightwave 2000, looked nice, so I bought a Reactor 2, came in today (not that impressed), ordered an ARC aaa - should be in a few days. In the meantime, I put this thing together - keep in mind that my 10 Nichia white LEDs won't be here until Saturday, so tests were done on a cheap Radio Shack blue 3.6V LED. Anyway, the goal was to light a 3.6~3.7V LED with one NiMH 1.2V cell, using the simple one transistor converter. So far, so good - running for >3 hours, can't wait to try the 9,600mcd whites coming in! Attached are a few photos of my first attempt - don't laugh.

Nice...where can I find plans for this "simple one transistor converter"?

Who's laughing ? - Well Done !!!

Yes, I would like the cct of the 1 tranny converter as well.

Abe.

Very good for a first mod. I've been doing some mods for a while now and still haven't made anything with my own electronics. The blue RS LED's are terrible, but I used one myself for the first mod because it was readily available. Horrible rings and not that bright. You'll be very happy when you use good quality white LED's.

Welcome to CPF. You realize of course that having entered these forums you may never want to leave. This is a terribly addictive hobby.

Also, I live nearby in Orange City, and there are more members in the Orlando area.

Look at:
http://edusite10.tripod.com/led3/index.html for a few different schematics
or
the one I like: http://users.cableaz.com/~cappels/dproj/ledpage/leddrv.htm , cause it uses a simple center-tapped hand wound inductor.

Rob

Yes, it seems to be very addictive! My last year-long addiction was designing and building smart card programmers and related devices for reasons I won't go into... Hobby electronics has been a life long interest of mine, I'm still very much an amateur, but I enjoy tinkering. This forum fascinated me from the first time I saw it last week.
Orange City, huh? Pretty close to Ormond Beach where I am!
Rob