Narrow focused beam needed

mccheese

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I have some students that are working on a project where they need a fairly small, focused beam of light. The beam will need to be fairly focued with no spillover ( not too knowledgeable with the technical verbage ), and will need to be strong enough to activate a light sensor over the span of about 20 feet. The focus of the beam needs to be pretty small ( an inch diameter or possibly even less would be ideal ).

They were using a laser beam to do the job, but are no longer allowed to use that as an activator as it has been deemed unsafe for usage in this project by the administrators.

Budget is definietly a concern as they are not allowed to spend a lot of money.

Is there a type of flashlight that will achieve this? and also is it possible to shape the beam into a square or a semi-circle once they have the light source?

Help!
 

LilKevin715

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What you are looking for is a flashlight with a Aspherical lens. There are plenty of threads here on CPF to get you started on your research. What kind of budget are your students working on?
 

mccheese

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What you are looking for is a flashlight with a Aspherical lens. There are plenty of threads here on CPF to get you started on your research. What kind of budget are your students working on?

Not a very big budget. $30 would be the ideal range ( or less ).

Thanks for the starting point!
 

Thr3Evo

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The Sipik (sk68 I think) would probably do the job well, not pricey at all, square small(although not exactly as small as you stated but close) output (shape of the led is projected through an aspheric lens) with no spill when fully zoomed, small overall unit size and most of them take just one AA battery.

Keep in mind that most of these have modes, don't know if that bothers you, and also the really cheap ones (5 dollar range) with modes don't have memory so it will cycle through the outputs everytime the power is turned on/off. Either find one with no modes if you don't need them or one that has memory so that it will turn on in same mode it was left in.
 
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Cereal_Killer

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Are you wanting to buy something in a package (ie a flashlight) that can do what you ask or are you wanting to build it out of components? What level students? Is this a dedicated technology class or just standard, grade level science class?

How do they need to signal this device? Direct switch? Electrical signal?

a few questions assuming your wanting to build something here, something which is doable for $30

how long will it need to continuously be turned on? I ask this so we know what heat management issues they'll need to address.
What sort of power source is used? Batterie(s), is an AC/DC converter available (deemed safe) for them?

Do you have a power source that would work to save some cash?


I remember 7th grade tech. ed we used a laser exactly as you describe, I remember that project (well atleast the laser part- we also transmitted music threw that same laser in a different project) to this day.
As a former student and a current school age child having parent Thank you for what you do
 
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mccheese

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THANK YOU. Having the memory will be important for this project as once the light is turned on, they won't be allowed to cycle it through the modes. Does the Sipik have memory? We can spend a bit more than the $5. We want to save $$$ where we can, but definitely need function as well.
 

mccheese

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At this point, we are likley looking into simply an effective flashlight. The group is 7th graders. The light source will have to stay on for approximately 5-6 minutes and will be running off of battery power in all likelihood. They haven't considered using other sources at this point. They have thought about building out their own source though, so if you have some good directions to look for that, I would love to pursue that as well.

This area of the project is not my strong suit of technical expertise, but I'm loving learning about it as well as the kids!

Thanks!
 

mccheese

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Another one that I found was the EDI-T t11. This looked like it was able to deliver as well and was only about $12. Thoughts on this one also? Also, I have been looking for this one online and can only find it one or two places and its out of stock. Ideas of where to find it as well?
 
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AnAppleSnail

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Most of these flood to throw ("Zoomie") Aspheric lights are pretty similar. The ones that use 3xAAA are pretty much all the same, although you should be careful not to drop them. The Sipik SK68 is a clone of a nicer one, but it's a clone of reasonable quality.
 
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