Something I've been working on

Wow. What a build. You have sorta done an RBD (usually have no idea on what he’s doing) on me but loving it anyway. :+1:

Looks very interesting!

Looks very cool! I can see you’ve put a lot of work into it already. Looking forward to your next update.

I too would be interested in seeing if anyone has done real life tests/experiments. Whilst I understand your theory isn’t walking around with light in hand somewhere between passive and active cooling? General assumption says the tips of the fins are coolest and that’s why shallow fins are more efficient (size, weight / heat emittance ratio). So any tests should be performed on a long finned item. That way the results should be more pronounced (greater difference between good and bad).

I’m not about to change the head at this stage.

Thanks for the comments :slight_smile:

EDIT - added some pics for clarity

Love the machining. With the threads, are you disengaging the half nuts at the end of the pass?

I was using an odd set up for threading. I had an external threading tool mounted internally on the back side with the lathe in reverse. The carbide bit is designed to cut in that direction. If that doesn’t make sense basically I had it rigged so I was threading out of the head instead of into it.

Because I was having issue I tried to cut under power using the thread dial, engaging/disengaging at #1 only. I tried under power leaving the half nut engaged and reversing the lathe. Also I tried turning the chuck by hand with the half nut engaged and reversing.

All three ways seemed similarly as inaccurate. So that’s why I think it might be in the drive train. Though I when I look into it I will check if there is any slop in the half nut.

Out of curiosity I deleted every second fin from the pic

It sounds like you have covered all the bases. Is the toolpost locked?

I think that looks great!

I googled air cooling fin spacing and found lots of technical info, too technical for me right now. However, there were a couple of examples of how cooling was increased by keeping the overall heat sink dimensions (L x W x H) the same but reducing the fin count in half by increasing the spacing. One example went from a heat sink that failed to one that worked by cutting the count like that. Plus the heat sink cost less as there was less material used.

Lol, I’ve been caught out by that before but not this time :student:

Interesting. I might change it yet.

It’s looking very interesting!

I have a few little projects going on (not all are light related) and I’m having a hard time getting anything done so I decided just to try and concentrate on one and get it finished. So tonight I worked on wiring up the leds and driver.

Testing… testing… YAY! It worked first time! I think this is the second time in a row I have managed to light up a build on the first attempt :partying_face: :innocent: :laughing: :crown:

Now’s probably a good time to give some spec’s. Quad xhp-35 HI E2 3C. Led4power’s LD-2M driver set to 4s (cells), 9 amps out (if you couldn’t workout the pic above :wink: ), powered by 4 sony cells pulled from Makita packs.

That’s the head finished. Need to work on the tube now….

pinkpanda, I noticed that my recent package from you included a LD-M2 in it. Do you remember what specs you had on that one? If not, I could read the documentation from led4power and figure it out. But, I figured that if you could tell me, that would save me the effort. :smiley:

Anytime you put a light together and there is light on the first attempt is a job well done. Time for a beer. :slight_smile:

Oh, a beer would be really … really nice right now but I’m trying to look after my health…. maybe tomorrow :laughing:

DavidEF - Doh! I’m really sorry, I meant to add some resistors that go with that driver. If you can wait for it I’ll send them. When I ordered the drivers from Neven I asked for a few resistors to change the parameters as I please because I didn’t have a specific build in mind when I bought them. The stock driver is 6amp. I have resistors to change to 5, 7, 8 , 9, 10, 12 amps. Additionally I have moonlight resistors. You don’t ‘have to’ change this but the more cells you use the brighter moonlight is going to be. If you can’t wait then I can give you the values of each.

Being a public holiday (to pay homage to our service men and women :beer: ) I got a little more done today but came to a halt with the switch. I sifted through all my bits and pieces and scratched my head lots.

I tried to remove the board from the plastic tail but it felt as though I might snap it so I left it in there and worked on it.

pinkpanda, No big deal. If you have the parts and want to ship them to me, that will be fine. If not, I’ll use the driver ‘As-Is’ when I’m ready to put it into something. I don’t have an immediate use for it, so time is not an issue either. Thanks!

No worries. I’ll try get to the post tomorrow.

Thanks for the update. What sort of switch were you after?

nice light! For the threading issue you can try a few things. One, keep the 1/2 nuts engaged and either reverse the motor (if you can) or reverse the chuck by hand. That will see if it’s an “engaging at the right place” issue. Second, check the leadscrew to make sure it has no play back and forth - that gave me fits until I figured it out. Third, lock the compound and try threading straight in with the cross slide - there may be play in your compound nut which is causing the double tracking.

let us know how you get on!

I was thinking of using a button I had left over from this build but I don’t think it will fit the colour scheme too well - silver head, black body, yellow tail and copper switch…. :question:

Thanks Matt. I’ll definitely be checking play in the lead screw. What type of machine do you have?