After raiding cost plus and taking all of their small square candle lanterns, and a couple of the larger ones, and building these (link to my luxeon room lighting project), I had one of the small lanterns left over.
I took a quick look at the empty space below the lanterns, and saw that it would be perfect for one of those enclosed AA battery boxes with a switch.
Thus, the portable luxeon lantern is born:
The battery box is quite unnoticed in the space underneath the lantern
Inside, is a 1W HD (Q2J), on a piece of 1/16" Al bar as a heat sink. This is just glued to the floor of the lantern. Up in the corner is the switch for the battery box. Unfortunately, the switch is on the opposite side of the box as the cover, so I could either add another switch; attach the lid to the lantern, and remove the rest of the box to change batteries; or simply have the switch be inside. I chose the last one due to its simplicity, and to not have the weight of the batteries be hanging off the lid latch.
It runs off 3 AA batteries, with 2.8 ohms of resistance, for 280mA. We're not looking for eye-blinding brightness, but rather sufficient light with good runtimes.
Here it is lighting up the bathroom. Easily enough light, even for non-dark adapted eyes.
These would actually make a pretty nice little product.
Cost - cheap!
Luxeon - $4
Heat sink - $0.10 in Al
Lantern - $6
Switch box w/ resistor - $2
Total: $12.10 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I took a quick look at the empty space below the lanterns, and saw that it would be perfect for one of those enclosed AA battery boxes with a switch.
Thus, the portable luxeon lantern is born:
The battery box is quite unnoticed in the space underneath the lantern
Inside, is a 1W HD (Q2J), on a piece of 1/16" Al bar as a heat sink. This is just glued to the floor of the lantern. Up in the corner is the switch for the battery box. Unfortunately, the switch is on the opposite side of the box as the cover, so I could either add another switch; attach the lid to the lantern, and remove the rest of the box to change batteries; or simply have the switch be inside. I chose the last one due to its simplicity, and to not have the weight of the batteries be hanging off the lid latch.
It runs off 3 AA batteries, with 2.8 ohms of resistance, for 280mA. We're not looking for eye-blinding brightness, but rather sufficient light with good runtimes.
Here it is lighting up the bathroom. Easily enough light, even for non-dark adapted eyes.
These would actually make a pretty nice little product.
Cost - cheap!
Luxeon - $4
Heat sink - $0.10 in Al
Lantern - $6
Switch box w/ resistor - $2
Total: $12.10 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
