$5 PVC Hotwire! 50W 12V Osram (5x18650)

jasonck08

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So over the weekend I decided to get very creative and make a hotwire out of PVC pipe. Now your probably thinking, this is not a good idea because the PVC would melt at high temps. Well, I actually used the metal head of an old chinese maglite style light, so the PVC shouldn't heat up much at all.

The 12v bulb is overdriven to about 15v (when batteries are at 3.8v because the 18650's voltage sags under high current and resistance). I'm using Sony 18650's they are rated at 4.8Amps discharge, so I should be well under that.

It was a very simple project and costed me about $3.50 worth of PVC parts. And then an old flashlight was sacrificed. I used an Osram 12v 50W track light style bulb w/ reflector. Cost about $1.50 for the bulb / reflector. Bi-pin socket was like 50 cents. Then I already had the wire and the 18650's from a laptop battery pack. So total cost was about $5. :)

I can say with confidence it puts out more lumens than any other hotwire at this price / lumen ratio. About 2,000-2,500 bulb lumens when overdriven. :twothumbs

I'm going to paint it black, but I'll try and post pics soon. :cool:
 

jasonck08

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The wire sticks out of the tale cape and its for the - connection. I use it as a strap so I can hang the light up. The rest of the wire will be zip-tied to the pvc body.

pvclight.jpg


pvclight2.jpg


My garage with no lights on.

pvclight3.jpg


My garage with the flashlight on.

pvclight4.jpg


It seems to be a very floody light and spread the light very evenly. In the garage pic, you can't even tell its a flashlight thats on. There is no hot spot...

I'll paint it black and post more pics. :)
 

AMD64Blondie

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Wonder if you could post the parts you used to make it,so other people could try this quite interesting modded light.I,for one,would be quite interested.
 

jasonck08

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Very cool light as well mdocod! What is yours powered by? What type of bulb did you use? Is the end of your light made of rubber? Let us know how you build it. I'm interested I like the design.

Also, these batteries are maybe 2yr old Sony's. When I did the voltage reading, it was about 15.5v at the bulb under load. They read around 19v with no load.

I'll try to list some of the parts I used... All the PVC was purchased at The Home Depot.

-3/4" female threaded plug
-3/4" female adaptor
-3ft 3/4" PVC (cut down to ~1.5ft)
-3/4" to 1" threaded adapter
-1" to 1 1/4" threaded adapter

The other parts I used.

-~3ft 14AWG copper wire
-1xbi-pin socket
-1x6amp switch
-Osram 12v 50W tracklight bulb
-~14AWG copper sheeting (this was epoxied onto the 3/4" plug to make connection for the negative lead. A copper circle was epoxied on at the end of the 3/4" pipe that held the batteries. A + lead was soldered onto that connect and went straight to the + on the bi-pin socket.
-One maglite knock off was used. I cut the top ~2" of it off and epoxied it into the 1 1/4" PVC pipe so I could thread the aluminum head into it nicely. :)
 

mdocod

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It's been so long I can't recall all the pieces, the rubber end piece is some sort of plumbing part designed for applications where PVC welding isn't an option, or something like that. It used to be a "cap" that I cut a hole in. IIRC there was a reduction bushing with a threaded fitting on one side and a standard weld fitting on the other, various other caps and adapters and such. Like you, I just had a 14 gage piece of wire running on the outside to the head, used a pretty basic toggle switch.

I think it was 15AA NIMH cells and a Philips 12V 20W MR16, I didn't bother with a socket, just soldered wires to it at the time and that seemed to work ok for short bursts. I built a similar little canister for a 50W MR-16 to mount on the back bumper of my SUV as an auxiliary reverse light and/or utility light, it didn't work out too well though, as one time I left it on for about 20 minutes and it melted into a big pile of PVC goo. Live and Learn :)
 

allburger

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Where at home depot do you find the bi-pin sockets. I've been there numberous times looking. I worked at Menards for 4 years and I know that we did not have them.
 

jasonck08

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Where at home depot do you find the bi-pin sockets. I've been there numberous times looking. I worked at Menards for 4 years and I know that we did not have them.

I didn't get the bi-pin at Home depot. I said I purchased all the PVC there. You might try radio shack for the Bi-pin. I got mine from Taiwan... where I use to live. ;) Also, you can just solder / crimp wires into the bi-pin instead of using a socket.
 

vestureofblood

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Where at home depot do you find the bi-pin sockets. I've been there numberous times looking. I worked at Menards for 4 years and I know that we did not have them.

Where I live home depot no longer carries MR16 (bi-pin) lamp sockets. The only place I have found them is at our electrical supply store. It would not be cheap, but in a pinch I noticed at lowes there are whole lamp assemblies with the socket for like 9.99$ if I remember correctly.

Nice light by the way it is more attractive looking than I though it would be. I have never made a pvc light but I have used one of those bulbs, it was fairly bright but like you said no real hot spot. Great for indoors though.
 

mdocod

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you can get ceramic sockets online for about a dollar from various sources, problem is most places charge ~$5 to ship it , hehe.
 

VegasF6

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They have them at DX too. I got a couple along with another order to play around with in a mag.

Sku 13920 for round, 13917 for rectangular. (I never saw rectangular before, is that common?)

They have the nice heat proof wrapped leads and heat shield, seem as good a quality as the ones that came on my kiu socket.

Neat build by the way, there is at least one major builder here that started with plumbing parts, probably more :)
 

jasonck08

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I thought about doing a brass light, but it just got too expensive. Maybe I'll do a small LED (Q5) brass light in the future.

Yes DX does have them for about $1.50 or something. I ordered one with my last DX order because I needed 5 items in my cart to use the BOXING $2 off coupon.
 

M@elstrom

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you can get ceramic sockets online for about a dollar from various sources, problem is most places charge ~$5 to ship it , hehe.
I've seen these ceramic bi-pin holders in 3 packs at our local Bunnings hardware store... I'd try the local lighting/hardware stores before coughing up $5.00 for shipping a $1.00 part ;)
 

jasonck08

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Just made another light! This one looks even better and is twice as bright. I used an offbrand 50W 12V track light bulb. It is amazingly bright when overdriven to ~16v. I'd estimate about 4k lumens. It's definitly brighter than my 35W POB HID.

I picked up the bulb in Taiwan for 70 cents when I was there... Great value, I wish I had more because I don't know how long this one's going to last. It's overdriven hard.
 
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