Finished my "Triclops" 2D Mag

Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

here's my new baby!


Lumileds Lux III stars, Reflectors and PTS D from Modamag






the money shot. the ceiling is 9ft high


built with Modamag PTS-D, 3 Lux III SYOK, Maglite 2 D, 2 X 10,000 Mah Ni-Mh D cells, Fatman Converter (700 mA)

Runtime: 2 hours before it starts to blink.
I feel like Luke Skywalker

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/broke.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/broke.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/broke.gif

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Turbo_E,

Nice light, I have one similar, you will find it very useful.

Could you please resize your pics to 800 pixels or less in width please?

thanks

~John

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

whoops

Pics shrunk.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

So they are all in series (fatman?) Next time 3xNiMH C 5000mah should give you about the same runtime in the same form factor with less heat (circuit heat) and less cost (again, circuit), and run at 1000ma not 700! That is my what my light is (2d, 1" pvc pipe, 3C's). You do have to remove the anodizing off of the tail cap, and cut and bend the tail spring a bit. Helps if you have strong vise grips/benchvise and hands.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

yes they are in series. so by running C's instead of D's, i can run up to 1 amp for the same runtime? I also have a 4 D mag that ran pretty hot on 4 D's. will 5 C's make it workable? It kept shutting off after 30 min even turned down to 650 mA.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

In series thats around 11 or so volts that the circuit has to boost from your batteries that are 2.4volts!! That's a lot of boost and a ton of current draw from those batteries, a lot of current being drawn just to boost the voltage. No wonder those huge 10ah batts only last 2 hrs!!

Yes, if you use 3 C NiMH that are decent quality (capacity and can deliver the current) you can run 3 T**K (k vf is very important) Direct drive all parallell off of the batteries, no circuit required. That is what the Barbolight does, and it works very well. Look it up. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Not sure what your 4d mag setup is, but if your'e talkign about adding more batteries to your fatman 2d mag it would increase runtime because you'd have more input voltage so less current draw, but if you want 2d form factor, runtime might be less than the D's with the half capcity of C's.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

well as is when i run my 4D mag with 4 D's it overheats in 1/2 an hour and shuts down will 5 C's run cooler?

If so I'm gonna order some 5000 mAh C's

my Lux III's are SY0K bins

thanks for the input "Chef" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Sy0k's will work. its the last letter the voltage forward that is critical. K is just right for the voltages of NiMH x3 setup. They will pull close to 3 amps total (1amp each lux). They may pull less at first, but luxeons Vf will drop a little with the first few cycles and then settle down, so it will end up pulling more after the luxeon's "settle in". If you are in a pinch you could use alkalines with reduced output (the alkalines voltage drop would be a lot and probably only deliver 1amp max for all 3 luxeons).

What configuration is your 4D mag?? Is it the same fatman type setup as your 2D? it could be the circuit is overheating (do you have it attached to any thing to heatsink it?) Running more voltage through it with extra batteries would mean it would have less work to do and would run cooler.

Do you have the fatman in your 2D heatsinked to anything? I'm surprised it doesn't overheat. Perhaps your 10ah D's aren't supplying the full amount of current and your luxeons aren't being driven at 700ma.. Did you measure them? What is the current draw at the tail cap? I would assume that it would be extremely high to boost voltage that much. Not all NiMH can supply huge amounts of current. Some are better than others at it. You have to consider this and not just capacity.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

The auto shutoff is due to the fatman overheating. If you pot, I think you would see a much longer runtime.

Isaac is definitely right. Since it's a boost circuit you want your Vin to be close to the Vf as possible. For Tri-Star that would mean 6x (dimmable) or 7x (nondimmable) cells when I did mine with 3xTW0Js. I highly recommend 6xAA for the Mag2D form factor.

Just remember to pot the fatman with some epoxy/ RTV
It greatly reduce the board heat

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

According to george, the fatman has a maximum supply current of 2.5A, and he advises that one try to keep it around 2A.

I made a simple spreadsheet to calulate these things for me.

The Best and Worst columns represent fresh and nearly-dead cells, respecively. All current values are in mA.

NiMH


The preferred power source. I think they might even make it all the way to 900mV at full power.

Alkaline


I doubt that alkalines will really be up to the challenge of running the load for long - especially after the initial voltage slump. If cell resistance doesn't kill it early at full power, then driver shutdown likely will.

Lithium


Lithiums ought do the trick well enough, although they're not cheap.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Modamag, by potting you mean put a big glob of rtv on the rear and stick it to the Mag body?

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Turbo_E, YES! RTV btw fatman rear & mag inner body. That'll improve your thermal conductivity (compared to air) by ~10x.

iddi, with 6x alkaline mine got significantly hot after 30 mins while the NiMh ran relatively cool until the battery totally ran out of juice. Definitely DO NOT USE Alkaline.

see test results

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

~werd~! off to buy some red goop! thanks guys.

you all have been an enormous help!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

what does it mean when the light starts strobing IE: slowly blinking on and off?

Dead cells?
Overheating?

using nimh. cheap batteries?

I just noticed something...

looking at other mag mods. a lot of people have shopped out the centre post of the mag bulb holder, I kept mine intact so i could convert back to its original state if needed.

could this be a cause for my overheating issue, as i cant shove the fatman down as far as id like. potting/sinking the back is almost impossible

EDIT2 weird. i jammed the fatman down the tube then used a small screwdriver to stuff some standard silicone thermal paste between the back fo the fatman and the chasis. the light has been running at full brightness for 3 hours now on 2 D's /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif...

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

well after 5 hours its about as bright as a 1 watt so i guess I'll call it a night.

i guess the thermal paste settled in so everything is finally stable /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

3 hrs on 2 d's. thats some might batteries. Whats the current draw? 5 hours.. hmm. don't draw those NiMH down too low or you could damage them...

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

well i ran some energizer 2200 MaH and it ran about 25 minutes then started strobing. energizer = poop.

I cant understand why my 4 D runs so much hotter, when it should run cooler. I should just get another 2 D mag. 5 hours is more than ehnough runtime for anyone in their right mind.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Nice, Turbo. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I've got a very similar light, but the host is blue and the LuxIII stars are each TV0J-binned, and wired in series, driven at 700mA by a fatman regulator. It runs off 6AA NiMH (or 6AA whatever for that matter). /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif Haven't used it much so far, but it's a great performer! The beam color is a little on the warm side, which sometimes seems to give it a little extra punch outdoors.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Well... just wanted to congratulate you on a great job!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

4d in the same setup should run cooler for the circuit, hotter for the luxeons. Unless your 2d setup is taxing the batteires so much that it can't supply the needed power, and thus is underpowering your luxeons, so that means the luxeons would make less heat because they are being starved for power!

We need someone to do the math on the circuit for amperage consumption to boost 2.5v up to ~11v at 700ma needed for this setup to tell us what the amp draw would be from the batteries. Then you could measure from the tail cap with a DMM and compare to see exactly what you're running at. Or measure the power going to the luxeons, but that would mean disconnecting some wires going to them to wire your DMM in series with them to see if 700ma is going through them.

Re: Finished my \"Triclops\" 2D Mag

Last night as I lay sleepless, I formed a cunning plan.
I realized that there was still much space in the head and when the light was on, the head showed 3 bright circles and but the back of the head's interior was dark.

so the wheels started turning and I thought:

I should stuff a bunch of white LED's in there! I figure if i grind off the "seats" of the led's I can cram a few more in the limited space. I will probably glue the leds together then solder the leads and then make an epoxy base coating to keep the LED's from shorting out.

I figure 12-15 LEDS can be stuffed in there. now the hard part. how can I power this setuo with only 2 D cells? should i make 3 groups of 4-5 LED (in series clusters) then wire the 3 clusters in parallel and direct drive them? or should they all be in parallel?

should i put a separate switch to activate the LED and lux independantly?