2 AAA Luxeon penlight

A casual shopping trip at WalMart turned out this Garrity pen light---stainless steel body double AAA light with a clicki.



Well, I am totally spoiled by the pure white Luxeon Star light and can't stand a yellowish incandescent beam any more /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif A quick measurement of the light body indicates there is 1.6cm available space for a potential LS mod. I wanted to use a HD plus a Solitaire reflector for a decent beam, which takes up 1cm---leaving me 10mm diameter and 6mm height to squeeze in a booster plus the heat-sinking elements /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Two nights later, I got something that could well be the brightest pen light to date /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif Here is the completed light:



If I just use a plain glass cover, it's flood beam with a decent hot spot.





The beam is slightly irregular because the reflector is distorted a little in the assembling process /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif But unless you shine it to a white wall, you probably won't see the artifact in real use.

Alternatively, add a 1/3 acryllic ball to make a tighter beam:





Now the beam shows the square image of the Luxeon die:



Compare it side by side with an Arc Grey kit with P1H:



If you wish, add a 1/2 acryllic ball to get an even sharper beam:





You will see a smaller and much brighter square:



Again, compare it to the Arc Grey:



It drives a Q4H HD at about 400mA The total light output, therefore, will be comparable to, if not more than, a typical BB/MM in MiniMag /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif The battery draw is 600mA, which means a little more than 1h run time on Ni-H's. When the battery voltage drops, it will drop into moon mode.

Heat is a big concern for a light so small while so powerful. The head section becomes significantly hot after a few minutes' use /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Holding the light by the head section should help the heat dissipation.

Dang. I like the square beam /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Very cool. Good mod too!!

great mod. Like howie, i like square beam too. Nice
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

very nice!

This thread just made my favorites list. You said 400 ma to the L/S, I may have to rent time on a race track to road test this one. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif I can do seventy in the desert with a cloud layer and the lights off on my truck with my Micro but I think this one will catch me a ticket. Have you got any light meter readings and do these get hot?
I kind of like that square beam myself as well. If you get your beam focused down much further you will start to see four lines running across the die in the center of your beam shots. Well I ended up with some lines anyway.

Nice pen! What kind of booster did you use?

[ QUOTE ]
AilSnail said:
Nice pen! What kind of booster did you use?

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The "GarriLux" has my favourate ZLT unit inside. It has the smallest form factor and best efficiency among all the IC's I've tried.

I don't have a light meter to give the actual numbers, but you can get an idea of the brightness by comparing it to the MicroIlluminator:



Take 1.5 level under exposure:


Take 2 level under exposure:

Since I haven't seen a micro illuminator either, it doesn't help much as to the brightness /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif nice pictures, still! Is that the ZLTCCR2 that mr. Al came up with?

I got several sized acrylic balls and one size half-ball (much bigger than yours) from the sandwich shoppe - I'd thought they would all be half-balls or whole balls. How do you get (make?) the small half-balls?

Darn good mod. That's just awesome. I think that's my favorite small highpowered luxeon mod so far. The size of a pen but brighter than a micro illuminator! 400ma! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif What bin code is that? If not an R2H you should do one!

I wonder how a Red HD with the 1/2" ball direct driven would fare? That would make an interesting compainion to this light. People would think you had dispersed the beam on a laser pointer!

I knew someone was going to mod this thing... I've stared at that penlight everytime I visit Wally World. Great work! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Dan

No heat?
I may be interested in the driver board with just the L/S if you could set me up with a really good low dome L/S. I would also be interested in the limitations of the circuit regarding amperage and voltage if I am to buy one.

WOW!

Brighter than a Micro-Illuminator,
cool square beam,
and a hand warmer too.

WOW!

Nice mod! Thanks for taking time to post actual measurements. It really helps others get a good idea if we can pull a mod off without wasting money just to look inside. I've been thinking about using a micropuck in one of the penlights.

Heat---of course! And lots of them /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Since it's based on the famous ZLT circuit, it has the standard limitation of Vin >=0.8V and <=3.4V. Amperage limit depends on the heat management and the capacity of the driving transistor. I would say 400mA is already close to the high end. If I were to make another one, I would like to step back a little so that it won't require my hand as additional heat-sink /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
AilSnail said:
Since I haven't seen a micro illuminator either, it doesn't help much as to the brightness /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif nice pictures, still! Is that the ZLTCCR2 that mr. Al came up with?

I got several sized acrylic balls and one size half-ball (much bigger than yours) from the sandwich shoppe - I'd thought they would all be half-balls or whole balls. How do you get (make?) the small half-balls?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, this light uses the standard (and cheap) AAA alkalines or Ni-H's, not the expensive CR2 lithium cells.

The acrylic balls were initially cut half-half, then I took one piece and sanded it down a little bit /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
IsaacHayes said:
Darn good mod. That's just awesome. I think that's my favorite small highpowered luxeon mod so far. The size of a pen but brighter than a micro illuminator! 400ma! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif What bin code is that? If not an R2H you should do one!

I wonder how a Red HD with the 1/2" ball direct driven would fare? That would make an interesting compainion to this light. People would think you had dispersed the beam on a laser pointer!

[/ QUOTE ]

The HD is "only" Q4H. I know I would like a R3H or even Lambda's S3J---but $20 a pop plus postage at Sandwich Shoppe is just out of my capacity /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

I don't have a red HD to play with, but I think a good Cyan LS plus that half acrylic ball will make someone wonder if I've got a 300mW green-blue laser in my hand /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Sounds like a green blue laser rod in the works if I were to guess. I'll have to go back through my emails now and see how that rod is coming along if this is the same.

Ok, I didn't guess that ZLTCCR2 was for CR2batts.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
My printer skips lines between the pages at this forum for some reason, and I haven't waded through those long threads completely. If any of the zetex circuits can compete with Madmax for single AA, I'll look further into it.

I once ran a Solitaire bulb in that light. WHITEST incandescent I have ever seen! Only lasted about 30 seconds, though.

Fantastic mod!
Many thanks for all the great pictures and information. Keep up the good work!