Building a new LED mult-function flashlight

Hello CPF community!

As a new member and first time poster on this forum I cannot be more excited to learn from all of you. I arrived to CPF while doing research and over the last few weeks I've been lurking around and doing a little investigating regarding the development of a flashlight; today is the day that I made the move to join and start asking some questions to further expand my knowledge on the proper development of an LED flashlight. So.... Hi all, I'm going to get right into it.

Currently I am going down the road of developing a new flashlight that has definite size restrictions for a portion of the body (.375" x 1.1" x 4" the last 1" as shown can vary but the top plane cannot change). I've been experimenting with some reverse engineering of several off the shelf head lamps, torch lights and any cheap flashlight I can get my hands on over the past few months but now it's time to get serious and get some educated feedback.

My second 3D printed prototype was .5" thick reverse engineered from a Coast Headlamp available at Home Depot. Complete with light control lever.

The shape as shown is acceptable, the top will be enclosed, the hammer head houses the driver board (and extra wires that ran around the head strap).

All push button/functions would need to be on this hammer portion

My next curve-ball is reducing total thickness to .375" making AAA no longer viable so my battery source will be reduced to the use of AAAA or something USB rechargeable.

The light will have a price point of ~$35 so there will be internal limitations to how high-tech the light can be.

Criteria
-primary LED white
-secondary stationary and flashing red
-third function color LEDs for the disco function
-Body, polycarbonate (.375" x 1.1" x 4" restricted +1" of variable size and depth as shown)
-the body will be subject to constant vibration and minimal flex
-battery or usb rechargeable
-switching function located near hammer head end


Can anyone recommend a battery type, driver or led that might be suitable to correctly jump start this project?

Thank you in advance!

Ok, I'll bite.

It would help a great deal if you explained what the flashlight is to be used for.
With such unusual design parameters, I assume that this is to be a flashlight for an unusual and very specific task.

The intended use will dictate everything about the design of the light.
Does it need to be very bright and/or have a long runtime?
If so, you will need to use a high efficiency LED , and give some serious consideration to heatsinking.

If, on the other hand, you don't need it to be very bright, you could maybe use a 5mm LED powered by coin cells with no heatsink.


If you explain what the light is for, you might drum up a bit more interest and get some good advice. There are a lot of very knowledgable people on this forum.

Thank you for the biting jamesbeat, sorry for the seemingly abandoned post! I didn't think CPF put my first posts up due to my profile and I didn't look further into it until today. That said I've been working on version 2 and I think it will give you a better understanding of what the end goal is for this light.

The main function and intended use will be as a riding headlight to illuminate the ground in front of you for as far as possible from only ~3"-5" above the ground.

Secondary functions would be taillight and colorful board illumination for my new skateboard risers. The strict thickness is due to the riser being sandwiched between the skateboard trucks and deck and the insert needing to fit between the mounting hardware.

So again any help on driver, LED or battery is appreciated. I am in no way tied to the below configuration but here i what I have put together since my last post.

Although I've been away from CPF I have continued to tinker and have come up with a better working prototype; harvested from another home depot special of course. I was able to achieve the required 3/8" thick x 1" housing with the use of AAAA batteries set parallel 3x2. Again still very open to opinion but at least this v2 is a step in the right direction. My end goal would be a rechargeable battery pack.

Wanted to bump this post as I find my self back here again still searching for the answers. If anyone is looking for some freelance work let me know.

Thanks,