Vegeta
Newly Enlightened
If you have ever been frustrated trying to balance a skinny light in "candle mode" while camping inside a tent on uneven campgrounds, you can relate to one of the reasons why I made this light. It may not be the prettiest mod out there but it's functional and it even has another feature everyone seems to want in a 5W LS mod: different brightness levels. It's powered by the ZLT circuit with the inductor modified so that the magnet wire is coiled around the ferrite bead 48 times instead of a few turns through the hole in the middle. I added a DIP switch which basically adds different lengths of #32 AWG wire in parallel to the original Rsense wire when closed. With the 2 little switches on the DIP switch, I can get 4 different brightness levels. I know it's crude but it's cheap and easy to add. I prefer having a few discrete levels of brightness over what you can get with a trim pot because the current draw at each level is known. This allows me to come up with a better estimate of my remaining battery life for each power level while the light is in use. The NX-05 optics is sandwiched between the lens and the textured reflector of a Garrity 2AA stainless steel flashlight I nearly threw away when I found out the insides of the head was made of plastic. I pulled off the stainless steel collar from the head and trimmed about 1/8th inch of plastic from the base of the head. This results in the NX-05 optics being lifted slightly above the 5W LS so that the "black hole" in the beam goes away. You can see all the dings and scratches but that's the best I could do when I try to cut aluminum with cheap $2 scissors meant for paper and I have to bend the things into shape with pliers.
At first I was thinking of making it into a headlamp but I don't like things strapped around my head. Since it looked so much like a small digital camera, I decided to wear it like one. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif . I sealed up the circuit by epoxying a small strip of aluminum over the back side and painting over the seams with silver paint. I ended up sticking Velcro tape on the sides and bottom. I also stuck parallel strips of Velcro tape around an adjustable backpacking strap so that the two sticky sides are stuck to each other. This saved me the trouble of having to stitch them onto the strap. The Velcro tape also allows for quick removal of the strap from the light as well as adjusting how far down the light will aim when in use. There's even a picture of an attractive model posing with the light! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Of course no one is happy until they see beam shots. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif The following beam shots are from 7ft. On the left, for comparison, is the beam from a Q3K, 1W star driven at 350mA and also using the NX-05 optics. There is very little visual difference between the two highest settings even when you see it in person. I only did a runtime test for the 320mA setting and got 3 hours and 15 minutes before the weakest 2000mAh NiMH cell dropped to 0.9V with the light still running.
At first I was thinking of making it into a headlamp but I don't like things strapped around my head. Since it looked so much like a small digital camera, I decided to wear it like one. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif . I sealed up the circuit by epoxying a small strip of aluminum over the back side and painting over the seams with silver paint. I ended up sticking Velcro tape on the sides and bottom. I also stuck parallel strips of Velcro tape around an adjustable backpacking strap so that the two sticky sides are stuck to each other. This saved me the trouble of having to stitch them onto the strap. The Velcro tape also allows for quick removal of the strap from the light as well as adjusting how far down the light will aim when in use. There's even a picture of an attractive model posing with the light! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Of course no one is happy until they see beam shots. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif The following beam shots are from 7ft. On the left, for comparison, is the beam from a Q3K, 1W star driven at 350mA and also using the NX-05 optics. There is very little visual difference between the two highest settings even when you see it in person. I only did a runtime test for the 320mA setting and got 3 hours and 15 minutes before the weakest 2000mAh NiMH cell dropped to 0.9V with the light still running.
