3 X Cree MCE Dive light !UPDATE!

Hey all, im new to the forum so bear with me.

I am planning on building a Cannister light for diving,
Now I have some components but not all so the following is the plan please let me know if u see any flaws in the design or and helpful ideas, especially idas on optics or drivers

Cree MC-E X 3 mounted on MR11 pcb in PARALLEL
LI-PO 14.8 V 4000mah Battery
MaxFlex Driver (not sure about this, open to suggestions)
Cutter 6deg MR11 triple optic

should be killa but i dont know,
looking for advice especialy on driver

Cheers in advance,
Bradley

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

3 x MC-E in 4P and 14.8V li-ion pack.

This sounds ideal for a hipFlex. You get the efficiency of a buck and for this LED/Battery configuration it is up around 95% and a driver that was designed specifically for P7 or MC-E in 4P mode.

cheers,
george.

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

Do you have a link to the Cutter MR11 optic? Only seen it for XR-E, not the MC-E.

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

3 x MC-E in a 35mm diameter housing ?. I think you'll end up with a floody video light instead of a useful dive light. I'm currently building a single MC-E light in MR11 format and I'm struggling to get a useful beam. The only Cutter MR11 optic for Cree I know of is for the XR-E.

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

steve6690 said:

3 x MC-E in a 35mm diameter housing ?. I think you'll end up with a floody video light instead of a useful dive light. I'm currently building a single MC-E light in MR11 format and I'm struggling to get a useful beam. The only Cutter MR11 optic for Cree I know of is for the XR-E.

Click to expand...

I agree. I have built many dive lights now and find that the multi die LEDs dont work to well unless you have a large reflector/optic. and 3 in a MR11 is just going to be a flood. I just did a P7 in a MR11 that turned out OK but its no thrower and thats what you really want for a dive light.

IMHO you are better off using aspherics and XR-E LEDs. Although you will not get more than 3 in a MR11 and even then its a push. Go MR16 and you will get 4 in. This will then out preform a salvo 21w HID.

Dont get caught up in the more light is better thing. Its not, especially for diving unless its for video. More focused light is better. Search some of my threads and check out some of my creations.

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

I have seen some modded maglites as dive lights. Maybe they can offer enough space for reflectors that focuses the beam tight enough.

I'm currently working on a triple P7/MC-E Maglite. Still not far enough to test a triple setup but I hope it's done next month

http://daoriginal.da.funpic.de/data/Dsink/IMG_5068.JPG
http://daoriginal.da.funpic.de/data/Dsink/IMG_5069.JPG
http://daoriginal.da.funpic.de/data/Dsink/IMG_5072.JPG

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

OK, So i definately agree about the HipFlex, i had acctually decided on that one but accidently wrote Maxflex,

You guys are right i miss read something, the optic i was thinking of was for XR-E,
So now i am thinking 3 X Carlco 20mm Lenses (cant seem to veiw info on cutter site though) ond either mount on MR16 or just on parralell star pcb's

Whats everyones thoughts on this UPDATE?

Lastly what would people recommend,
3 X MC-E
or
4 X XR-E

???????????

You stated you have some of the components already. What do you have exactly ? I had some xr-e WG R2's arrive today. They are going into a prototype canister light (MR11 format). I'll be using 4 r2's with a Ledil Cute4 spot optic. For the battery I'm using a 3s2p li-ion home-built pack to give 11.1v, and a Blue shark will be driving the led's at c.1A. My other prototype is the same battery/driver but feeding a MC-E 'M' bin WG with a Ledil EVA-D optic.
If you plan to go with MR16 format, I built a canister light last year using 7 x xr-e and it's definitely a match for a 21w hid. If I was building another MR16 light though, I make a "Packhorse special" with the dx aspherics because it's cheaper and just as good.
IMHO (I'm no expert though) unless you only dive in very clear tropical waters, you don't need spill in a dive light. To me, this tips the balance in favour of optics rather than reflectors. My 7 x Cree primary dive light uses Fraen reflectors but it will at some stage be converted to optics if I can find suitable ones that are 17mm diameter maximum.

Re: 3 X Cree MCE Dive light

frozenwarp said:

Lastly what would people recommend,
3 X MC-E
or
4 X XR-E
???????????

Click to expand...

Definitely 4x XR-E.
I am also building a dive light, and I got it into my head that bigger/more LEDs was better. Packhorse pointed out some things to me and now I think that packing in more MC-E or P7 emitters into a head is not the best idea.

I am now building a 4 emitter XR-E (R2 WG bin emitters) light, using aspheric lenses and 1400mAh drivers. This will be a very, very bright light.

Just a note on focus, Packhorse focuses his lights so that the square beams line up. I personally will be ofsetting each of my dies approx 22.5 degrees off from each other, so that they evenly space out to what will be a roughly circular hotspot. Personally I find a non-circular hot spot to be disconcerting.

But re emitters, I've tried P7s. Don't waste your time/money, they are useless for a dive light unless you are buliding a flood video light. Underwater lights need to be focussed, and I found out the hard way that you just can't focus an MC-E without a gigantic reflector which you will never fit more than one of in a dive light head.

Mounting aspheric lenses can be a challenge. These lenses are outstanding:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13903
And I mount them by buying these items:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1920

The collimating prism is taken out of the white plastic housing, and then i dremmel the edge down about 5mm. This should leave about 1mm of the raised rim. They are cheap so you can afford to buy a few 5 packs and try a couple to get it right. It's not hard, the plastic is very easy to work with a dremmel cutting wheel.

Once cut, a drop of epoxy around the rim will hold the lens in place. I place the housing on the LED before mounting the lens, to reduce the chance of dislodging the lens once its been epoxied to the rim. I've found this process to be exceptionally easy, and yields very good results. I've managed to focus my LEDs to well that the image projected makes the LED's current wires clearly visible. This is perhaps a little *too* focussed, as you don't want a clear magnified picture of a LED die projected onto whatever you're looking at.

Good luck!