Techjunkie
Enlightened
Poor Man's regulated SST-50 thrower (Mag Rebel & domeless)
This build uses a Mag 3C that I had honed out to fit two 26650VT batteries and a bunch of spare parts that I had collected from many MC-E projects. After my SST-90 build, I wanted to avoid hand soldering leads directly to the SST-50 surface mount emitter and also wanted to avoid relying on thermal epoxy to mount and cool it. I find the star easier to work with and puts the emitter less at risk of damage from my bumbling hands. I also feel that thermal epoxy doesn't transfer heat as quickly as the solder connecting the emitter to the MCPCB or the thermal grease and screws mating the MCPCB to the heatsink. Two faster junctions is probably as good if not better than one slow one, anyway, I think.
I also wanted to avoid the cost of custom heatsinks and reflectors and wanted to use what I already had on hand for MC-Es. So... the only new part that I ordered was an SSR-50-W57-R21-GJ200 top bin emitter on star from Avnetexpress. Specs peg it at 1200-1500 lumen at max current.
I had a DX 17384 reflector with pill laying around, but I was eager to try out the deeper DX 18841 53x30mm MOP reflector that I had modded for my SST-90 project before deciding to keep the '90 as an aspheric. The deeper reflector outperformed the 53x25mm MOP P7 reflector (12229) on the '90 so I had high hopes for it on the '50. The deeper reflector does not thread to the pill, so I had to come up with some way to use these parts together.
I used my brake hone to widen the neck of the 3C so the heavy brass pill base would fit snugly inside it. After several cycles of hone and test-fit, I ended up removing just a little too much and had to fill the gap with an aluminum foil wrapper around pill. (Single layer, only once or twice around.)
I chose to use two single mode buck regulators (DX 20330) in parallel to drive the SST-50. They're cheap and can be run in parelle, but they're tall and wide. I pushed the coils aside and inverted them to minimize height. If you attempt this, wrap the coils in electrical tape first, because the shrink wrap will perforate when they're compressed and short the coil on the capacitors on the PCB. The height of them proved to be too much to allow the 30mm deep reflector to focus so I had to trim one ring off of the bottom of the pill.
I slipped with the dremel and made a mess of the reflector surface when trying to trim the base a bit more, but that was no matter because the hotspot was not nearly as impressive with the 50 as it was with the 90. In fact, the 30mm deep MOP reflector with the '50 looked exactly like the 17384 reflector looks with the MC-E. I was immeidately underwhelmed.
I also had a Mag Rebel LED SMO reflector with the cam cut off to play with. That one is 40mm deep, so I had to cut yet another brass ring off of the bottom of the pill, to allow me to recess the star in the Mag neck so the deep SMO reflector could foucs with the head screwed down far enough to cover the gasket.
Bingo! Awesome hotspot and a clamp meter test shows 5.0A hitting the emitter. Exteneded runs so far show heat in check and no color shift or melting of the plastic SMO reflector. I permanently affixed the focus. I'll have to get my hands on some glow powder to add the finishing touch around the emitter. For now, an LED isolator sticker pretties things up a bit.
Here's a collage of the build process and some white wall shots I took comparing the SST-50 with the 52x40mm deep SMO to an MC-E with typical 53x25mm and 40mm MOP reflectors. Both MC-Es are WC tint and driven to 3A. The SST-50 is 5700K and driven to 5A. Camera white balance was set to sunlight (5200K).
Stopped-down close-ups:
MCE 40mm Left, MCE 53mm Middle, SST-50 Right
This build uses a Mag 3C that I had honed out to fit two 26650VT batteries and a bunch of spare parts that I had collected from many MC-E projects. After my SST-90 build, I wanted to avoid hand soldering leads directly to the SST-50 surface mount emitter and also wanted to avoid relying on thermal epoxy to mount and cool it. I find the star easier to work with and puts the emitter less at risk of damage from my bumbling hands. I also feel that thermal epoxy doesn't transfer heat as quickly as the solder connecting the emitter to the MCPCB or the thermal grease and screws mating the MCPCB to the heatsink. Two faster junctions is probably as good if not better than one slow one, anyway, I think.
I also wanted to avoid the cost of custom heatsinks and reflectors and wanted to use what I already had on hand for MC-Es. So... the only new part that I ordered was an SSR-50-W57-R21-GJ200 top bin emitter on star from Avnetexpress. Specs peg it at 1200-1500 lumen at max current.
I had a DX 17384 reflector with pill laying around, but I was eager to try out the deeper DX 18841 53x30mm MOP reflector that I had modded for my SST-90 project before deciding to keep the '90 as an aspheric. The deeper reflector outperformed the 53x25mm MOP P7 reflector (12229) on the '90 so I had high hopes for it on the '50. The deeper reflector does not thread to the pill, so I had to come up with some way to use these parts together.
I used my brake hone to widen the neck of the 3C so the heavy brass pill base would fit snugly inside it. After several cycles of hone and test-fit, I ended up removing just a little too much and had to fill the gap with an aluminum foil wrapper around pill. (Single layer, only once or twice around.)
I chose to use two single mode buck regulators (DX 20330) in parallel to drive the SST-50. They're cheap and can be run in parelle, but they're tall and wide. I pushed the coils aside and inverted them to minimize height. If you attempt this, wrap the coils in electrical tape first, because the shrink wrap will perforate when they're compressed and short the coil on the capacitors on the PCB. The height of them proved to be too much to allow the 30mm deep reflector to focus so I had to trim one ring off of the bottom of the pill.
I slipped with the dremel and made a mess of the reflector surface when trying to trim the base a bit more, but that was no matter because the hotspot was not nearly as impressive with the 50 as it was with the 90. In fact, the 30mm deep MOP reflector with the '50 looked exactly like the 17384 reflector looks with the MC-E. I was immeidately underwhelmed.
I also had a Mag Rebel LED SMO reflector with the cam cut off to play with. That one is 40mm deep, so I had to cut yet another brass ring off of the bottom of the pill, to allow me to recess the star in the Mag neck so the deep SMO reflector could foucs with the head screwed down far enough to cover the gasket.
Bingo! Awesome hotspot and a clamp meter test shows 5.0A hitting the emitter. Exteneded runs so far show heat in check and no color shift or melting of the plastic SMO reflector. I permanently affixed the focus. I'll have to get my hands on some glow powder to add the finishing touch around the emitter. For now, an LED isolator sticker pretties things up a bit.
Here's a collage of the build process and some white wall shots I took comparing the SST-50 with the 52x40mm deep SMO to an MC-E with typical 53x25mm and 40mm MOP reflectors. Both MC-Es are WC tint and driven to 3A. The SST-50 is 5700K and driven to 5A. Camera white balance was set to sunlight (5200K).
Stopped-down close-ups:
MCE 40mm Left, MCE 53mm Middle, SST-50 Right
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