Lighting up the NW of England!

I just posted on here using my login which I have had for a while and then realised that I have never actually posted before! So thought I would say hi.

I'm from the north west of england, into tinkering with all sorts of things including torches and rifles (and therefore gun lamps) and have just finished my latest torch which is just a hand-held standard torch. I wanted something as bright as it was possible to make something and yet still have it portable...and knowing that a short battery life is fine.

I came up with 3 x XML U2, 2 with 35mm orange peel reflectors and 1 with a lens for throw (I couldn't resist having the throw that my gun lamps have on one of the emitters! ) running from a buck driver and 4 x 18650 cells and a standard clicky switch. All this as cheap as possible and as bright as possible, short battery life is fine, heatsinking is important, looks are not!

and came up with this:





anyway, HI!

Welcome to the forum. Great first post, but you must give us more details of that fantastic steam punk type light!!

Very unique looking light, and solid copper too. Please update with details, and of course, beamshots!

What is the diameter of the reflectors?

I meant to put this thread in the "New Member Intro" section, I wonder if the mods decided it was better here or I just made a mistake?! Anyway...
Yeah it's an interesting look isn't it?! I quite like it to be honest but I never intended to make it look nice, I just wanted it to be functional and simple to make without a lathe!

The tubing is all standard plumbing copper. 3 x 22mm dia. tubes for the batteries, switch and driver with 3 end caps at each end. The head is then 3 x 35mm pipe end caps with the LEDs stuck to the inside. A combination of thermal glue, metal epoxy, small bolts and grub screws are used to hold it all together. The 2 orange peel reflectors are 35mm dia. and are connected to a short piece of 35mm copper pipe to secure them in the end caps.

The major weakness is the lens in the third emitter, which is why I originally posted on here (another thread) asking for some help. What is in there now are 2 x 28mm aspherics mounted back to back in a short section of 28mm copper pipe. The advantage of this is that it keeps the focal length right down and so gathers as much of the light as possible; and the assembly is as short as possible. The massive drawback being that's a lot of glass to get through and the first lens will inevitably reflect light away and it also does not focus as tightly as I would like. In fact, it's not much better than the reflectors! So, ideally, a 35mm lens with a short focal length would be what I would replace it with....but I can't find one! The best I have found so far is a 33mm acrylic which I ordered last night.
Oh and I also have some 35mm x 1.2mm glass lenses on order to protect the reflectors.

Unlike all my other lights, this one does not really have a specific purpose! I just wanted it to be as bright as possible just for the sake of seeing what I can make!

What other info were you wanting?

Gnarly torch man! I really like the triple tube body; do the tail caps come off individually or as one piece? Its sure not going to roll off on you!

Perhaps Ahorton's aspherics would fit your requirements.

The tail caps are glued together with metal epoxy, spring and contacts in 2 of them for the batteries and are then held onto the main tubes with 3 grubs tapped through both walls.
The 3 caps at the other end are exactly the same but they are held to the tubes with thermal paste, 6 grubs and loctite....and are then connected to the 35mm end cap 'pills' with thermal glue and small bolts.
The 3 main 35mm caps are also glued together and also small bolts.
The idea of all this being simple and easy to construct but also excellent heatsinking. It seems to work the heat gets nicely down all the way to the tail cap.
Oh and there are some (probably pointless!) vanes cut into the back of the 35mm caps.

I have had a look at ahorton's lenses, I think there was a 27mm but that's the best I could find. It would be nice to get something larger.....but I may be asking too much!

Oh and it's not light! Obviously! it is made of copper and has 4 x 18650 cells in there afterall ;-)

Nice work !!!