unnerv
Enlightened
I have a few Lux 3 SYOL's laying around that I have not touched because I have TWAK's too. The TWAK's were emitters and the SYOL's stars, so being lazy, I have been using the emitters more. I finally found a project that seemed perfect for the higher Vf stars. I have been working on my latest project for about 2 weeks now and finally have it done.
Drum roll please....
Introducing the TACMag...a 4AA cell 6 volt "D" sized mag pumping out the lux. What is so special about the TACMag? Everyone has a DD 3 watt these days, right? It's all about the machine work on this one. The only part that didn't get machined or modded was the head. Having one of UFOkillerz HID mags with the body from Silverlegacy, I really liked the tailcap switch. The trick was how to duplicate it. I looked high and low for a decent clicky switch to use in the tailcap. After weeks of searching, it dawned on me. We use the kroll switch for just about everything here, all I got to do is find a way to stick it in. I was going to epoxy everything in, but then figured if the switch every got flakey, I would want it replacable, so I machined a kroll-holder for the tail, then threaded the inside of the tail to hold it. Four hours later and much trial and error on the fitting, the tailcap was done.
Next I needed a way to sink all the heat that the poor lux3 was going to put out, so I made a heatsink. I then bored a cavity in the bottom, to run wires through, connect my ground and hold the delrin plug that I had machined to hold the hot wire and hot battery contact. The ground was held in place, by tapping a hole in the sink and then using a screw to hold the wire down.
Once all this was fit together, I set it aside until I could finish up the body work. My plan for really good thermal transfer was now to bore out the body of the mag to .002 of an inch smaller than the heatsink. Since now the heatsink was slightly larger than the body, I froze the heatsink to cause it to contract slightly and heated the body so it would cause thermal contraction/expansion and just fit together. Once temperature stabilzed, they would contract/expand until the sink was locked into place.
Next I machined a battery holder from, delrin, brass, and some springs that I jacked from a 4AA battery holder. While this seemed like it would be an easy project, because of trial and error (more error...) it took the better part of the day. I took extra care to make sure that every thing down to the rivets were countersinked so I wouldn't short on anything, as there was not going to be much room in there and the spring from the kroll is not terribly long.
Finally I cut the body to lenght. To get the knurling in the center, I decided to cut both ends off and rethread for the head and tailcap. It was a lot more work, but it makes the light look more balanced. I cut two extra oring slots just below the head, for decoration. Once everything was ready, I epoxied the led and soldered the leads. The dry time on arctic alumina was killing me so, I cut the reflector, lubed up all the orings and threads with nyogel and dropped in a UCL lens from Flashlightlens.com. The seals are so good on the light that when I screw on the head, it blows the button seal off the tail switch from air pressure /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
All done finally...here are a couple of pics of the finished light.
Size comparison between the TACMag and a Surefire L4
and finally the beamshot
From left to right: L4, McModule V2T, TACMag, and just for fun the UFOKillerz WA 10W HID.
While it does not put out as much overall light, the brightness in the pic look fairly accurate to the real thing. The TACMag's tight hotspot is almost as bight as a the HID. When 1st powering up it draws 1.8A and settles in around 1.5A at 5.2 volts for 7.8watts /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
After all is said and done, the project took me close to 22 hours of shoptime, but the end result I think was worth it.
Wow, this post took almost as long to write as it did to make the light /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif Thanks all for looking.
Drum roll please....
Introducing the TACMag...a 4AA cell 6 volt "D" sized mag pumping out the lux. What is so special about the TACMag? Everyone has a DD 3 watt these days, right? It's all about the machine work on this one. The only part that didn't get machined or modded was the head. Having one of UFOkillerz HID mags with the body from Silverlegacy, I really liked the tailcap switch. The trick was how to duplicate it. I looked high and low for a decent clicky switch to use in the tailcap. After weeks of searching, it dawned on me. We use the kroll switch for just about everything here, all I got to do is find a way to stick it in. I was going to epoxy everything in, but then figured if the switch every got flakey, I would want it replacable, so I machined a kroll-holder for the tail, then threaded the inside of the tail to hold it. Four hours later and much trial and error on the fitting, the tailcap was done.
Next I needed a way to sink all the heat that the poor lux3 was going to put out, so I made a heatsink. I then bored a cavity in the bottom, to run wires through, connect my ground and hold the delrin plug that I had machined to hold the hot wire and hot battery contact. The ground was held in place, by tapping a hole in the sink and then using a screw to hold the wire down.
Once all this was fit together, I set it aside until I could finish up the body work. My plan for really good thermal transfer was now to bore out the body of the mag to .002 of an inch smaller than the heatsink. Since now the heatsink was slightly larger than the body, I froze the heatsink to cause it to contract slightly and heated the body so it would cause thermal contraction/expansion and just fit together. Once temperature stabilzed, they would contract/expand until the sink was locked into place.
Next I machined a battery holder from, delrin, brass, and some springs that I jacked from a 4AA battery holder. While this seemed like it would be an easy project, because of trial and error (more error...) it took the better part of the day. I took extra care to make sure that every thing down to the rivets were countersinked so I wouldn't short on anything, as there was not going to be much room in there and the spring from the kroll is not terribly long.
Finally I cut the body to lenght. To get the knurling in the center, I decided to cut both ends off and rethread for the head and tailcap. It was a lot more work, but it makes the light look more balanced. I cut two extra oring slots just below the head, for decoration. Once everything was ready, I epoxied the led and soldered the leads. The dry time on arctic alumina was killing me so, I cut the reflector, lubed up all the orings and threads with nyogel and dropped in a UCL lens from Flashlightlens.com. The seals are so good on the light that when I screw on the head, it blows the button seal off the tail switch from air pressure /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
All done finally...here are a couple of pics of the finished light.
Size comparison between the TACMag and a Surefire L4
and finally the beamshot
From left to right: L4, McModule V2T, TACMag, and just for fun the UFOKillerz WA 10W HID.
While it does not put out as much overall light, the brightness in the pic look fairly accurate to the real thing. The TACMag's tight hotspot is almost as bight as a the HID. When 1st powering up it draws 1.8A and settles in around 1.5A at 5.2 volts for 7.8watts /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
After all is said and done, the project took me close to 22 hours of shoptime, but the end result I think was worth it.
Wow, this post took almost as long to write as it did to make the light /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif Thanks all for looking.
