hmmwv's P60 replacement

hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Ok, I have to ask. I saw the P60 LED replacement over on the Surefire forum. How did it turn out? Are you going to make them to sell? How bright is it compared to the Baton? Did you use a resistor or ???

Inquiring minds want to know.

Brock

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

The model shown there uses a resistor - it turns out i could have omitted it entirely and still been "in the norm" for LED currents (around 50 mA)
The LEDs in the photo are running 20mA, and skew the camera's color balance and exposure controlls since they were shining right into the lens.

That's a RED assembly - at 20 mA, it outshines the stylus, and infinity by quite a bit, with a much broader beam width. It's on the bench now, so I may rip the resistor out and see how it runs at 50 mA - my hunch is it will be very bright.

I just got some white LEDs - 4.5V, and the pwm chopper chip to drive them. It's a bit more complex than a resistor, but for efficiency and battery life, it's great.

It also has near constant light output levels as the batteries go to zero - so if you are using it to drain dl123s before tossing them, the pwm chopper would be the ideal driver. I don't want to do another 3led resistor design, so the chopper is on the drawing board.

As for selling these - raw materials are not that expensive, but getting reflectors and the time to assemble it all is a whole nother story. Start saving your burnt out P60 lamps. (or p90, p61, etc - all the same mechanical parts)

I have an alternate idea thats LED based but not ready for prime time yet - I need to chat with telephony first about it and bounce some concepts off him, then prototype it.

My ideal surefire led drop-in would be just that - a drop in substitute for the xenon/halogen lamps, LED based, preferably color corrected to either cool white or warm white (NOT PURPLE WHITE), and have a substantial light output while draining the batteries dead dead.

Got any other feature requests before I build it?

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

To give you an idea how bright the P60 LED (red) versus a stylus (red) is - I set the two lamps on top of a power supply and aimed them at a wall 36" away - here's a photo (you can barely make out the shadows of the flashlights even though a room light was on when the photo was taken)
www.hmmwv.net/ledcomp.jpg

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

To give you an idea of the size of the chopper/pwm battery drain circuit (this provides a constant output voltage of 3.3V + even as the battery drops below 0.8 V) - here's a photo. The LED at the top of the photo is a red stylus. The part has 10 leads on it.
www.hmmwv.net/chop.jpg

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Hmmwv, if we were on Gilligans island you would truly be the professor. ...Now, if you could just point out Mary-Anne and Ginger.

<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by KenB on 01-26-2001 at 09:07 PM</font>

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Hmmwv, what type of soldering iron would you use on something this small? Where would you get such a soldering tool. And what type of solder (gauge?) would you work with?

Sorry about all the questions, but being from the old school of soldering, (many kits from Heathkit and the like...), my curiosity just got the best of me.
Regards,
Ed

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KenB:
...Now, if you could just point out Mary-Anne and Ginger. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ummmmm Gee little buddy KenB, they'd be the one's in dresses.... If your still having trouble grasping this, then raise your hand and I'll type s l o w e r<g>.



<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">This message has been edited by K Horn on 01-26-2001 at 11:10 PM</font>

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

As for the parts availability - 18004newark - www.newark.com -they sell in qty 1-1000 and dont charge a massive penalty for qty 1.

The chopper selection is a difficult one - most are designed for draining a 1.6V AA alkaline down to 0.8V over the period of a month running a pager. Some pagers are 3.3V, some are 5V, some have transmitters built in so need higher current, etc - motorola's 2-way unit uses 2ea. AAA nimh cells in series instead. Combine those potential parts with the desire to run white, blue, red LEDs, and you have a large decision tree.

Brock and I want to drain dl123s in LED converted 6Ps and 9Ps - so the input voltage will be 6 or 9 V instead of 1.6 or 2.4 - this is way outside the maximum input for the choppers. The next idea is a PWM regulator ic from maxim that would give us a nice stable 4.5V from 6-9V in, with 95%+ efficiency (resistor would be 50-70% efficient) - and the light output would remain constant until the cells were near dead. At that point, the pwms can throttle back the drive current to extend the life even longer (like HDS does). But they'll need DL123 lithiums.

For soldering - when I was 25 I owned a top of the line weller temp. controlled station - you know - the one with the fancy readout of the temperature, etc. - I had a production line under my command and there was a 16 year old "kid" who introduced this "old fart" to the metcal www.metcal.com - once I learned how to solder with a metcal, I came home and tossed out the weller and bought a metcal. Metcal tips go down to 1/128" and can do amazing things - it uses RF energy at 13.56 MHz to heat the joint - not AC 60 Hz like most irons. It's the ultimate soldering iron, even though it's just an ugly black box. Under a microscope, you can use a metcal to solder .005" connections, and do 2-3 per second in production work. You can also pop in another tip and solder PL-259 connectors onto coax better than a soldering-gun.

I have plenty of Ideas on how to run the electronics part - I need to chat with telephony about what LEDs to use for the 6P conversion and then bring it together. I could easily fit 40-50 SMT leds inside a P60 lamp, producing a serious amount of light, but 50 LEDs at 30 mA each is 1.5A total - right back to the xenon bulbs that come with the flashlight!

As for Ginger - she's living in alaska right now - I need to figure how to get her to move to california- even a maxabeam won't overcome that hurdle...

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Ted, I don't know what the street price is, but I found their SP-200 series on various websites for around 300 and change. This one website, Wassco had them on sale until the middle of Feb for 269 US.
http://www.wassco.com/sp200soldering.html

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Ed

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Because the metcals have been used for years in the manufacturing businesses in silicon valley, they are frequently found in surplus locations like halted or at the foothill ham flea market - often an individual buys a pallet of stuff from a now defunct dot com and sells it off a piece at a time at the hamswap. I've bought 3 metcals that way - $20 ea.

Now if you're wondering why you want 3??? well - it's because often you use 2 irons simultaneously - like making a tweezer out of two pencils - since most SMT parts have two edges on them, you put one iron on each edge, heat up the part, and then lift it off the board and relocate it. This technique also prevents thermal gradients from going through the part and creating stress.

On the metcal site - they have a bunch of how-to's on soldering really tiny stuff - like when your leads are so small you can't get the tip between them, you just intentionally solder-bridge them all together, then lay a strip of solder wick on top and remove the excess, leaving each lead with just enough solder to hold on (for 192 pin parts and up) - it's a great place to learn about SMT rework.

The 3rd metcal is used for either my metcal tweezers or my metcal desoldering tool - which by the way is the ultimate desolderer -

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

SMT?

Doug

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Sorry - too many TLAs - SMT is surface mount technology - basically anything you can stick to the board without drilling holes in it first.

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

that Metcal soldering iron sounds absolutely great! I went right to the sight soon as I got back from the bathroom..but they seem to sell them everywhere but in the US, and their phone rings and rings until disconnected..
where can I get one and how much should I pay???? (hurry) thanks!

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

I found another chopper tonight (buck/boost converter to be more technical) - I'm going to call the mfgr tomorrow and get the skinny on it - looks like it might be more acceptable.

Keep in mind there are 2 potential goals here -

A -- use a 1.5V (or 1.2 nimh or 1.7 limno2) and boost it up to run the LED (3.3 or 4.5 V)

B -- use run down DL123s (6 or 9 V) and drain them good and dead to operate some LEDs at 3.3 or 4.5 V with constant light output.

CMG infinity did a pretty decent job on A - so I'm looking more at B right now, mainly because I agree with Brock that this would be a great way to "finish off" those 123's that are too dim for the 6P.

Give me another week to research whats out there and I'll post an update on what can be done.

As for soldering tiny stuff - I felt the same way - "I'll never get that soldered, especially after 3 cups of coffee" - with the right chemicals, it's not soo hard. You can, as you mentioned, stick the part to a normal board and then wire from there. The tips and tricks on metcal's page are pretty helpful. Always remember - flux is your best friend.

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

HMMWV;
I almost ordered a PS200 Metcal the other day -- but have trained myself to 'sleep on it' before making purchases. I sure would like to buy 2 of em for $40 rather than 1 for $280 -- got any extras? serious.

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

Hello Ted, try E-bay. Enter metcal...you will see ten different choices...from replacement tips to complete "stations". I think I saw what you are looking for at $48 (current bid). Hope this helps.

Re: hmmwv\'s P60 replacement

KenB,
Thanks alot for the tip. By the time I got there yesterday, it was up to $150 already..maybe I'm better off dealing with them directly?