Special EDy
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2015
- Messages
- 1
Hey everybody,
I'm new here, but I've lurked for about a year gleaning knowledge about batteries and LEDs for all my various projects. I started building the 100W LED flashlight for my mom. Her and my step-dad use to volunteer for border patrol once a month, basically they lay out in the desert at night with thermal or night-vision and radio in anything suspicious. My stepdad passed away from pancreatic cancer last summer but my mom still goes out and volunteers for border patrol every few months, and back in February she had a close call where some guy wandered past her about ten feet away. She called asking for some kind of tech solution other than her worst case scenario concealed handgun, and this was my solution.
I still need to tally up the total cost, but it's probably under $100 with the PVC housing being half of it.
Its a 100W cool white chip off of ebay, a copper heatsink recycled from a desktop, a 4S3P 18650 battery pack made from recycled laptop batteries and a 100W Boost converter. Its got thermal fuses and a proper 4S3P protection board for the LiPos. Run time is approximately 45 minutes to an hour, I haven't actually timed it yet. I need to fix the lens, it only narrows the beam from 180 degrees down to about 70. I think a 100mm lens in front of the 70mm lens may fix that, but for the moment it's still ridiculously bright. I also plan to add an Arduino with an OLED screen, which will be able to dim the LED as well as display battery life and GPS coordinates.
Best part is that I selected the Cool White over the Warm White LED because of the higher color spectrum, and just as I predicted it is invisible to my mom's night vision goggles. So she can keep the goggles on, light someone up so they see spots for hours, and be totally unaffected.
I'll post some videos soon, I just gotta edit the 7gb of film I took explaining it piece by piece and of assembly. For now here are some pictures.
Next to a 4D maglight with an incandescent bulb(cant find my LED 4D )
The 100W LED on the left, the two yellow lights on the left are the highbeams on my 97 Grand Voyager
The 4D Maglite shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
My minivan's highbeams shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
My 100W LED flashlight shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
Highbeams, Maglite and 100W led all shining down the driveway, exposure set to auto.
Let me know what you think, I'll get some more posted when I get the chance.
I'm new here, but I've lurked for about a year gleaning knowledge about batteries and LEDs for all my various projects. I started building the 100W LED flashlight for my mom. Her and my step-dad use to volunteer for border patrol once a month, basically they lay out in the desert at night with thermal or night-vision and radio in anything suspicious. My stepdad passed away from pancreatic cancer last summer but my mom still goes out and volunteers for border patrol every few months, and back in February she had a close call where some guy wandered past her about ten feet away. She called asking for some kind of tech solution other than her worst case scenario concealed handgun, and this was my solution.
I still need to tally up the total cost, but it's probably under $100 with the PVC housing being half of it.
Its a 100W cool white chip off of ebay, a copper heatsink recycled from a desktop, a 4S3P 18650 battery pack made from recycled laptop batteries and a 100W Boost converter. Its got thermal fuses and a proper 4S3P protection board for the LiPos. Run time is approximately 45 minutes to an hour, I haven't actually timed it yet. I need to fix the lens, it only narrows the beam from 180 degrees down to about 70. I think a 100mm lens in front of the 70mm lens may fix that, but for the moment it's still ridiculously bright. I also plan to add an Arduino with an OLED screen, which will be able to dim the LED as well as display battery life and GPS coordinates.
Best part is that I selected the Cool White over the Warm White LED because of the higher color spectrum, and just as I predicted it is invisible to my mom's night vision goggles. So she can keep the goggles on, light someone up so they see spots for hours, and be totally unaffected.
I'll post some videos soon, I just gotta edit the 7gb of film I took explaining it piece by piece and of assembly. For now here are some pictures.
Next to a 4D maglight with an incandescent bulb(cant find my LED 4D )
The 100W LED on the left, the two yellow lights on the left are the highbeams on my 97 Grand Voyager
The 4D Maglite shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
My minivan's highbeams shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
My 100W LED flashlight shining down the driveway, with white balance and exposure manually set to low on my camera.
Highbeams, Maglite and 100W led all shining down the driveway, exposure set to auto.
Let me know what you think, I'll get some more posted when I get the chance.