Convert 18v Porter Cable work light to LED???

Hey gang,

I recently bought a 1/4" impact driver kit that came with a drill and flashlight (all share the same 18V 1.1 Ah battery pack).

I'm wondering what I could do to boost the output of the worklight without seriously degrading the burn time...does anyone know if there are relatively "drop in" incandescent or LED upgrades for worklights like these? Any info is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Sean,

This question has come up many times in the past. A search on CPF for "worklight LED upgrade" and similar queries should answer most of your questions.

^Gurthang said:

A search on CPF for "worklight LED upgrade" and similar queries should answer most of your questions.

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I just did half a dozen searches with variations of "worklight LED upgrade" (searched entire messages and just thread titles) but kept getting the same message back,

The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search:

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I have a 14.4V Panasonic worklight with a 3.0 Ah battery that I was wanting to find an LED for as well...

Milwaukee makes a led conversion lamp for the 18V work lights but it's like $30

seanwilliams78 and jackbombay :welcome:

LED flashlight bulbs are polarity sensitive. They won't work if the battery is wired the wrong way. So no guarantees LED bulbs would work at all.

I have suggested the following bulb in a few of the previous threads and the have favourable replies.

superbrightleds PR2-1WHP-30V
100 lumens $11 is a Cree 1W for tool lights. Won't work at 6V or less. Cree XP series LED. My eyesight is not good enough to tell if it is a XP-C or XP-E.

LEDninja said:

superbrightleds PR2-1WHP-30V
100 lumens $11 is a Cree 1W for tool lights.

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That is pretty nice, but my panasonic work light has 3 Ah batteries so I would like to have a more light than runtime, super bright leds also has a 3 watt led for flashlights, but it is only good for up to 9 volts and my batteries are 14.4. the 1 watt LED is good to 30 volts so that would be fine though, and is still pretty bright at 100 lumens.

but considering how much light comes out of a torch with 1 or 2 18650s I'd like to get more out of my battery pack that has 5 18650s inside.

jackbombay said:

That is pretty nice, but my panasonic work light has 3 Ah batteries so I would like to have a more light than runtime, super bright leds also has a 3 watt led for flashlights, but it is only good for up to 9 volts and my batteries are 14.4. the 1 watt LED is good to 30 volts so that would be fine though, and is still pretty bright at 100 lumens.

but considering how much light comes out of a torch with 1 or 2 18650s I'd like to get more out of my battery pack that has 5 18650s inside.

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Try searching 'work light' and 'tool light' in addition to 'worklight'. Also '18V' and '24V'. 'dewalt' and any other power tool brand names you can think of.

'1 watt' is probably the best LED bulb you will get. They already run quite hot. The 3 watt PR bulbs get awful hot awful fast - I don't recommend them unless you have a heat-sinked metal bulb holder.
For higher brightness look at incan hotwires. The sticky only lists bulbs up to 9V though.

Just remember LEDs do not like heat. Modifying your light means you have to consider how to add a heatsink to get the heat away from the LED to the outside air. Note how your 2*18650 lights have the LED attached to a pill that is attached to the metal flashlight body to get rid of the heat.
Take a look at post #30 of this thread to see how much heat sinking sinounion put into their LED upgrade for the Dewalt tool light.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?211813-dewalt-18v-led-conversion
That upgrade is all flood and sinounion have disappeared off ebay in the past few weeks.

Hey,

Just signed up...only reason I registered was to post here

I have the same 18v Porter Cable flashlight and using the dewalt 18v bulbs end up heating up so hot it melts the little lock ring that holds the bulb in the socket

My solution

I bought one of these in the 7-26VDC range (you MUST ensure you get the right voltage!!!, because the 1-7VDC one can be use quite effectively as the LED replacement in a 2-3-4 cell C or D Maglite too!)

https://www.superbrightleds.com/sea...P 1 Watt Flashlight Bulb PR2-1WHP-30V 726VDC/

Mine with the dewalt replacement would run maybe 10 min before it got too hot and shut down (by melting the lock ring enough to unseat it from the socket)...with the 1 Watt bulb it doesn't even get warm, and is MUCH brighter than the incandescent bulb, even on my 3 cell Maglite too!

I got the .5 Watt version for my 4 C cell Maglites for super long battery life!

This will probably be my last post...figured I didn't need an intro