Custom Light Finally Done

I have been working on this off and on since January (its amazing how life gets in the way). I picked these up last night and heading to the anodizer today to get them done.

Inside will be Seoul P4 U2 LEDs (3x) with a bflex but I have some other things that I am going to play with inside. I have a couple of really fun ideas but itl take some time.

Also neeed to come up with a better looking hard ware solution but thats easy to fix.

Several local riders want me to build some lights so my wife built a website for me to display everything ( www.engineeringluminescence.com ).

Tell me what you think.

Wow 125 view and nothing?

I didnt mean for the post to be spam, its mostly for people who cant or dont know how to build their lights.

I have built two lights with the help of you guys and wanted to share how far you guys have driven me.:twothumbs

I had to pay a machinist to do the housing but I think over all itl make a much better light than a mag.

Will post pics when I get it back from the anodizers.

Looks good, seems to have much better throw than my modded Tripleshot. You may get more replies in the Custom's BST forum, though.

I have only made bike lights so I figured i would put it here.

The beam shots are from my second light using regular P4 leds.

I havent had a chance to try teh U2s out yet but I cant wait to see what kind of difference there is.

Well, my Cateye Triple is pushing three of them at 700mA, into fairly crappy optics and through frosted window...and it lights up the entire road in front of me. The stock unit with lux III was about as bright as my Nite Rider Sol. Can't wait to do a side-by-side with a TriNewt now!

crackerkorean said:

Wow 125 view and nothing?

I didnt mean for the post to be spam, its mostly for people who cant or dont know how to build their lights.

I have built two lights with the help of you guys and wanted to share how far you guys have driven me.:twothumbs

I had to pay a machinist to do the housing but I think over all itl make a much better light than a mag.

Will post pics when I get it back from the anodizers.

Click to expand...

I'm new, but will provide feedback as requested. The housing and base look like they have a lot of machining time on them, Personally I would like to see a bit more of the machining going into creating heat fins to increase surface area and cooling capability. Of course you have to design it so if someone falls on the light they don't get cut up, maybe drilled holes so airflow would help cooling? I like the look of cooling holes/ribs/fins and think that form follows function and it would seem to be more efficient that way. I 'm impressed by the output and run time.

I didnt do the machining , I do not have the funds for my own machines.....yet.

The machinist didnt have a long enough grooving tool to get as deep as I wanted. The tool came a couple of days too late.

There are several places that I can remove extra alu to hopefully make it a bit lighter.

I thought about the holes but that would take away from the surface area and when you are moving I really dont think it would help that much.

I cant wait to get them back and start putting them together.

Got the housings back from the anodizers.
They look great. This is just a dry fit. I am epoxing P4s as i type this.

Haven't checked the bike threads lately so I just spotted this...

Wow, great anodizing job! What's the weight of the light? Also, did you decide on this design based on any info about cooling, etc? Or, did you base this on another light? Would like to see more pics after you fit the LED's. [Edit... whoops, just noticed that your driver will be a bflex... sweet.] Do you have any thought about adding a remote control switch?

I think after everything is said and done 7oz but there is actually more material that I wanted to remove but the machinist didnt have the proper tool. Came a day late.

Just basic heat dissapation principals. My second DIY light was a finned mag head so kinda modeled after that but better.

I really like the bflex for triple setups so thats what im using. I got 4 housings done and one of them is going to have a quad setup and anoher something else just dont know what.

Thanks

Nice. Good looking light. I have a bflex in my 3 x P4 light as well but I have it set to 5 levels. I tried 3 but realized that I wanted just a tad more light so I normally run it on level 4 with some use on level 5 on the sketchy sections.

How do you plan on powering the light? Are you building 18650 packs or do you have another idea in mind?

I just use the 14.8v li-ion packs from batteryspace.
I did order one of the Li-Po but the packs are not he 8oz as advertised they are actually 16.

I usually ride mine on high all the time. IT slows the faster guys down since they cannot see well when im behind them LOL

Wow, nice light. Where did you get your anodizing done?

snarfer said:

Wow, nice light. Where did you get your anodizing done?

Click to expand...

Also how much did it cost for the anodizing?

What runtimes are you getting on high and low?


Unf unf unff.......UUNNNFFFFFFF......:thumbsup:

I just used a local anodizer and I am very impressed with the work they did. My wife and her friends wants a pink one so if I can get a large enough order together I might do it again. It was 100 for the 4 that I got done.

Run times are in the 5 hour range on high. Never rode that long so I'm not 100% on that but the math works. I am not sure what my other settings will be but at 50% it should run about 10 hours.

That anodizing looks VERY swish - do you know if it's HA111 or color anodized?

Well done.

Cheers
Dom

That's just reg color ano but could do hard ano in any of the colors offered. If a color was done it would just turn out really dark shade of what ever color.

Super looking light! Great job!

Thanks for the good word guys.

I got one built last night and tested it. I have to do a side by side to see the diff between the P4 and the P4U2's.

This one for some reason is acting a little screwy. I dont know if its the board or the button but if i knock the light while off itl turn on. But wont change modes while on. I tried a different button but problem is still there. Hopefully the other two that I am building wont do that.

Without further adieu, let me know what you think. I gotta come up with something for the battery but I have an idea.

Hi CK
What sort of switch are you using? It should be a NO momentary if you didn't know.
If it's not that ,may be a loose power/solder connection which caught me out once.

How is the board isolated from the housing -though i suppose if it's ano'ed inside it shouldn't short.

Nice connectors -are they the locking type from BS?

Cheers
Dom