Nichia 183 Mule

Finally finished my first home-brew light, a Nichia Mule-type light.

It's running a Nichia 183 High-CRI emitter, SW45 tint bin. The emitter is direct drive at the moment, but will have a resistor installed soon enough. The light is made for an 18500 Li-ion cell.

The best part about this light is that I made use of a failed prototype :devil:

The o-ring shouldn't show once I have the resistor installed and can tighten the pill snug to the UCL lens.


This sucker was a huge PITA to solder. I'm thinking next time I solder the wires on before I glue down the LED.


Disassembled

Nice work, Travis! Do you have any comparison beamshots against the Nichia 083? :twothumbs

Nope, I don't have an 083 to compare it to.

I could maybe send it Don's way if he'd be interested in taking a couple shots.

I think I've read that you want to attach a LED to the heatsink before soldering, because the solder heat can damage the LED and the heatsink helps pull it away. It also makes it more difficult to solder. :nana:

Nice looking light.

The heat wasn't so much the issue as the excess epoxy that got on the contacts...

Woo-hoo! Nice first light from scratch, Travis!

How much current are you shooting for when you add the resistor?

OceanView said:

Woo-hoo! Nice first light from scratch, Travis!

How much current are you shooting for when you add the resistor?

Click to expand...

Should be about 600-700mA