Hi all,
Recently I was asked to bring a beautiful piece of flashaholic nostalgia into this century and make it a usable light.
The subject is a Rayovac Sportsman 7 D.
The thing I think I like most about it is that big round head. I wish more modern hosts were available with that classic looking curvature.
It also has a switch that enables both constant on and momentary function via the small button.
Since there is no real metal in this light to speak of that will be a good place to start.
Its owner requested it be a mule, so most of that chunk will remain in play.
An XHP-70 5000k for the front.
Mosfet driver for the tail.
The whole assembly is spring loaded into the head and does not make contact with the body in any traditional manner.
Since there is no contact with the body, and it would make little difference for heat sinking if there was ( the body is very thin metal) a run test is needed to determine max sustainable output.
The factory lens in this light was a pretty sad piece of plastic so a new one will be needed. I decided that museum glass would be appropriate for 2 reasons. One its the closest thing that can be had locally to double side AR coated glass. It has 95% light transmittance. And two, a "museum" is about the only place you will see one of these gems anymore
.
All set.
With that done its time for some assembly. This light threw me a tough curve ball. Its to be expected that you may get a tiny bit of a PWM noise from any of the common FET or 7135 drivers, but the crazy thing is what it sounded like in this light.
In this light that ultra thin body and even the switch acted like a phonograph needle and a 70 watt amplifier.:green: I really wish I would have recorded how loud it was. Anyway of course this will not do.
Typically this sound can be eliminated or reduced by insulating or the driver, but in this case even a full blown pot did little to help.
Fortunaly for this build I needed to drop a little current of the top any way to make the high mode sustainable. Even with that massive block of aluminum a trim was needed.
I took a pair of beefy 350 milliohm in parallel and added them to the circuit. This dropped the current to the needed 4 amp max and also reduced the whine by about 80%. I discover the resistor fix just by playing around with ideas. At first I just hooked up a large 10 watt ceramic 1 ohm in the circuit with the batteries and it got dead quite in every mode then. This dropped too much current though so I settled on the above mentioned pair. Low and high are now stealth, and even the medium mode is usable. Outside with the bugs one would probly not notice it.
Now then we just need a bit of insulation around the edges. This helps center, and fills in unwanted OME gaps.
And voila we are ready to go out and play.
This is a perfect light for indoor use. The mule fills the room with a soft even flow of gentle light. Even on high you get no blinding back flash.
Thanks for watching everyone!
Recently I was asked to bring a beautiful piece of flashaholic nostalgia into this century and make it a usable light.
The subject is a Rayovac Sportsman 7 D.
The thing I think I like most about it is that big round head. I wish more modern hosts were available with that classic looking curvature.
It also has a switch that enables both constant on and momentary function via the small button.
Since there is no real metal in this light to speak of that will be a good place to start.
Its owner requested it be a mule, so most of that chunk will remain in play.
An XHP-70 5000k for the front.
Mosfet driver for the tail.
The whole assembly is spring loaded into the head and does not make contact with the body in any traditional manner.
Since there is no contact with the body, and it would make little difference for heat sinking if there was ( the body is very thin metal) a run test is needed to determine max sustainable output.
The factory lens in this light was a pretty sad piece of plastic so a new one will be needed. I decided that museum glass would be appropriate for 2 reasons. One its the closest thing that can be had locally to double side AR coated glass. It has 95% light transmittance. And two, a "museum" is about the only place you will see one of these gems anymore
.All set.
With that done its time for some assembly. This light threw me a tough curve ball. Its to be expected that you may get a tiny bit of a PWM noise from any of the common FET or 7135 drivers, but the crazy thing is what it sounded like in this light.
In this light that ultra thin body and even the switch acted like a phonograph needle and a 70 watt amplifier.:green: I really wish I would have recorded how loud it was. Anyway of course this will not do.
Typically this sound can be eliminated or reduced by insulating or the driver, but in this case even a full blown pot did little to help.
Fortunaly for this build I needed to drop a little current of the top any way to make the high mode sustainable. Even with that massive block of aluminum a trim was needed.
I took a pair of beefy 350 milliohm in parallel and added them to the circuit. This dropped the current to the needed 4 amp max and also reduced the whine by about 80%. I discover the resistor fix just by playing around with ideas. At first I just hooked up a large 10 watt ceramic 1 ohm in the circuit with the batteries and it got dead quite in every mode then. This dropped too much current though so I settled on the above mentioned pair. Low and high are now stealth, and even the medium mode is usable. Outside with the bugs one would probly not notice it.
Now then we just need a bit of insulation around the edges. This helps center, and fills in unwanted OME gaps.
And voila we are ready to go out and play.
This is a perfect light for indoor use. The mule fills the room with a soft even flow of gentle light. Even on high you get no blinding back flash.
Thanks for watching everyone!
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