24v Li-ion Ridgid work light mod

Hey all,
Heres my situation, I recently bought the 24v tool kit from Ridgid and am pleased with the drill and saw. The work light itself is nice but it just seems to be lacking. Bulb that's in it is just a standard incandescent (KPR 12V 0.7A) I think that this would be a great platform for a led mod due to having a decent power supply. I've taken the light completely apart and seems to be sufficient room in there, also has a metal reflector. Well this is going to be my first mod so let me hear your opinions and/or ideas, I'll try and get some pics up here soon.
Thanks

Heres the set

http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?image=septnov2007080pz1.jpg

And the light

http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=septnov2007081az5.jpg

http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=septnov2007083ev1.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=septnov2007090yp9.jpg

And the guts of it

http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=septnov2007096wg6.jpg

So let me hear what you think, seeing as I'm a noob with this stuff i might need some help.
Thanks!!

Any smaller pics for those of us on dial up??

I think your biggest problem will be using the 24volt efficiently.
Perhaps an Ostar LED or multiple 3.7Vf LEDs in series.

Otherwise if efficiency isnt an issue just use a voltage regulator to drop the voltage down. Then use a single P7 LED

ha sorry bout the huge pics
hmm efficiency would be nice but would also like it to be a beastly throwing torch. maybe different modes? again new to this.
heres some lower res pics

OK, had to do some quick checking before I led you down a path of something......

Easy....slap in a Seoul P4 or a Cree Q5 (get one from Erasmus or PhotonFanatic at the Marketplace) on a heatsink and use a 3021-D-I-1000 BuckPuck from Luxdrive you can get from www.theledlight.com (oh, get the 3021HEP so you can easily wire it up (includes dimmer I think too)) and you should be ready to go in a couple of hours.

Harder, 3,4,5 or more LED mod which would require you to make or buy multi LED heatsink and get optics too. Could still use BuckPuck above and have dim to big light available.

I currently have a M@g modded with on Seoul P4 being run with 9xAA Eneloops that is kinda fun to play with....surprises people when you start dimming the light with a knob on the side of the flashlight.

You don't have to get a BuckPuck with a dimmer, you can just get one ready for on/off duty and just slap it in the middle of your case and be done with it.

Bob E.

because it has that big reflector isn't it just crying out for a P7?

Meltdown said:

because it has that big reflector isn't it just crying out for a P7?

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same but is there enough room once all the bulb adjustment/plastic ribbing is removed. I think if running a SSC P7 at 12w some of that heatsink metal should come through the body. One SSC P4 at 3w should be fine with a pentiumII heatsink if you JB weld it to the plastic.

Thanks for the replies, um I used it a great deal tonight and was disappointed with it. I can honestly say that my 2d mag with the drop in LED out performs it(except for the donut hole effect). I've been thinking about a single LED but how would you go about focus ability, from what it seems its quite similar to a mag light's cam design. where the socket that holds the bulb itself is spring loaded and moves accordingly. Yet I'm not sure of how to do this if the heat sink were fixed to the plastic housing. Hmm its nice being able to go from spot to flood. For instance on a mag head there are 10 or so threads making it easy to focus with a fixed heat sink, whereas on this light there are only four threads on the head/reflector part and its plastic.
Not sure how to accomplish this??

br1thompenator said:

I recently bought the 24v tool kit from Ridgid ... Bulb that's in it is just a standard incandescent (KPR 12V 0.7A)

Click to expand...

24V or 12V?

The battery is a 24v 3.0Ah lithium ion,
The 12v is what was imprinted on the bulb

There might be a lot of resistance in the light if the 12v bulb is running without a problem.

The main problem might be to get a good heatsink in that light.

br1thompenator said:

The battery is a 24v 3.0Ah lithium ion,
The 12v is what was imprinted on the bulb

Click to expand...

That's what the photo shows, and that's really weird, respectively. Can you make some measurements of how many volts are making it to the bulb, and what current it's really drawing?

Ha so I managed to find my ancient tester, its an old analog sears tester. It is drawing 12v where the bulb plugs in and 24v at the battery. I opened it up and it seems that this is done through this chip thingy, labeled (PQ1CG303 SHARP 12H V3) and its got 5 prongs on it.

How interesting - a chopper regulator. It's presumably running a buck circuit (is that it in photo 5, post 4?) which you should be able to set to any voltage you like by changing the odd component, like one or maybe a couple of resistors. Or you could you could do all sorts of other things. A Cree MC-E will need 13.2 V or so at 700 mA with the dice in series. Decisions decisions.

yea its in photo 5 its the little black thing on the bottom left of the board. I've been thinking a great deal about this but I'll need a good heatsink and there's not really much room in the head. I guess i could retro fit one in there. Then i was thinking what if i made a mold of the inside and had it cast out of aluminum(my buddy goes to UMD and does that sorta stuff) or he might be able to do it in copper. But i figure that if he could do this it would work quite well... hmm anyone done anything like this?

Hi! New to CPF! I just came across this thread from a couple years ago and would like to add a comment or two. I just modded my 6 year old Milwaukee V28 flashlight this weekend from incandescent to LED. It was incandescent 28V .75A. (21Watts). I have an old battery that doesn't hold up anymore on the tools themselves, including the light so I decided to mod it to LED. With a "full charge" on an other wise useless battery, I would get 30 minutes or so with the reg. bulb. I bought a 32 LED handheld flashlight from harbor freight for $6 and thought this would be perfect for my project!

Just to get my 3 post in, I will continue..............