Ground up sst-90 build (now with a fun update!)

I need a project from time to time to keep busy. An sst-90 light seemed to hit the spot. The light was done all on manual machines and has roughly 60hours of machining time. I didn't get the current across the led, but the voltage across it measured right around 3.7v.

Now for some photos:




The front bezzel


The body



The pill. It is a dx sst-90 star mounted to it with artic silver between it and the alum. Inside are 3 dx 20330 drivers with a .5ohm resistor added and wired in parallel.



The body/handle. The grip is sur-grip fabric heat shrink tube. I had to stick the whole thing in an oven att 350F for it to shrink evenly.



The back contact



The Jutco switch holder



The back cap





Assembly

















Beam shots:

3d maglight


old 3w k2 light


dx sst-50 light sku:36031


This sst-90 light. Hard to tell from this pic, but the spot is brighter and tighter then the sst-50 and it has a lot more and much more neutral spill


And my last build. 6x ssc p7 light




UPDATE:
So after a bit of use, the light became intermittent and eventually stopped powering on all together. Took it apart to find this:

hmm

x2


Lets take a closer look




Now Im wondering if the chip fried itself and the inductor or the inductor fried the chip. The 3rd driver which was facing the other way is just fine. I think Im gonna try running 4 20330 drivers unmodded (they do an even 2.4amp unmodded each) and not have anything touch this time...

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Thats awesome! is that aluminum or stainless? Did you grease the threads with thermal grease, or at least provide a lip at the bottom for the light engine portion to bottom out on? That heatsink look slike you should be able to run the SST-90 full power for a while. Since you put the fabric grip on, I assume youre not doing any surface finish on it?

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

That is one beautiful light
I can see why it took 60 hours to make, you are very skilled.
But a light like that should really be regulated (in my opinion).

Edit: Just found out that it is regulated, sorry for the false assumption (the pictures must have distracted me!)

Well done

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

It is regulated. OP used "3 dx 20330 drivers" in parallel which will deliver 7.5 to 8 amp.

Nice job!

My guess based on using 20330 in the past: It'll probably draw about 4-4.5 Amp with fresh battery & 5-5.5Amp when battery run down near end, the only thing looks questionable is the 18650s used. Not sure what brand & if pulling 4-5A is safe or not. I would go with AW IMR (short run time) or Panasonic 2900 cells. (AW 2900 the same, it's Panasonic 2900 re-branded)

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Very, very nice!! This one gets bookmarked.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

I just had my first "how do you do" with a Sherline mini-lathe. I love threads like this, someone has an idea and just BUILDS it. Thanks for the great pics.

I was wondering how you got the fabric so even, and you even answered that before the end of the post, great attention to detail on all accounts.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Very nice build

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

CKOD said:

Thats awesome! is that aluminum or stainless? Did you grease the threads with thermal grease, or at least provide a lip at the bottom for the light engine portion to bottom out on? That heatsink look slike you should be able to run the SST-90 full power for a while. Since you put the fabric grip on, I assume youre not doing any surface finish on it?

Click to expand...

There is a lip for it to bottom out on. I put the grease on every thread because I have had bad luck with close tolerance alum on alum threads galling up together and getting permanently stuck. Anything that needs to flow power has a solid grease free connection somewhere. I decided against surface finishing because i didnt want to screw around with cleaning all the threads afterwards.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

ma_sha1 said:

It is regulated. OP used "3 dx 20330 drivers" in parallel which will deliver 7.5 to 8 amp.

Nice job!

My guess based on using 20330 in the past: It'll probably draw about 4-4.5 Amp with fresh battery & 5-5.5Amp when battery run down near end, the only thing looks questionable is the 18650s used. Not sure what brand & if pulling 4-5A is safe or not. I would go with AW IMR (short run time) or Panasonic 2900 cells. (AW 2900 the same, it's Panasonic 2900 re-branded)

Click to expand...

They are 3x in parallel so thats under 2amp max per battery. These are the dx trustfire 2500's. They have a high current cut off as I found out; they shut off if I try to run the light with only one of the 3 parallel stacks.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

amazing work, well done, what reflector did you use?

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Very nice ! Nice spot also.
What reflector did you use?
It is not light weight I think?

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

I used the dx sst-90 reflector. The light with with batteries is 3.24lb

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Electrical fires are fun things (see update)

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

Can't u make the batteries run in series, so that you could use a buck driver like the one of Der wichtels? Or a taskled driver, if it only needs to get up to 6600mA. That way you can get rid of the cheap drivers and use a proper one instead . Very, VERY nice project btw! Good luck.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

if i could make something like this id use the very best drivers i could find.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

So whats a quality 9A single mode driver thats under 1" diam and tall?

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

4gordeev said:

Now Im wondering if the chip fried itself and the inductor or the inductor fried the chip. The 3rd driver which was facing the other way is just fine. I think Im gonna try running 4 20330 drivers unmodded (they do an even 2.4amp unmodded each) and not have anything touch this time...

Click to expand...

Techjunkie & I have paralelled the DX driver several times, no issues. You can have them palallel & face each other, but you can't have them "touching" each other.

IMHO, this is not due to Quality, this is due to inappropriate touching

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

So whats a quality 9A single mode driver thats under 1" diam and tall?

im not certain but you might start here,

http://www.taskled.com/products.html

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ly-looking-for-driver-(updated-kennan-driver-)

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

ma_sha1 said:

Techjunkie & I have paralelled the DX driver several times, no issues. You can have them palallel & face each other, but you can't have them "touching" each other.

IMHO, this is not due to Quality, this is due to inappropriate touching

Click to expand...

thats what assumed. Must of happened when I pushed them into the pill.... What is the hot part, the chip or the inductor? Anyways I plan on doing the replacements in a way that can never touch.

Re: Ground up sst-90 build

4gordeev said:

thats what assumed. Must of happened when I pushed them into the pill.... What is the hot part, the chip or the inductor? Anyways I plan on doing the replacements in a way that can never touch.

Click to expand...

Whenever I stack the DX 20330, I wrap the inductor coils in an added layer of electrical tape to avoid exactly this from happening. (I usually also stack on an additional .82 Ohm SMD sense resistor on each to bump up the output of each to the advertised 2.8A).

Very nice build. I wish I could construct something as elegant as this to hold 6 18650 batteries. I have 6 sitting in my drawer, along with the perfect driver for them, all mocking me.