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. 
Anytime you put a light together and there is light on the first attempt is a job well done. Time for a beer. 
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 
) 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?
I took the suggestions mentioned above and cut every second fin (also I liked the look of the of the edited pic I did). I still haven’t worked on the switch :person_facepalming:
looks great PP!
looking good pp
I was playing around today powering the head with a bench supply. I noticed this thing get hot really fast. Even with active cooling. It inspired me to take notes. I faced the light into the body tube so it didn’t irritate me.
Starting at room temp 24.9C I turned on turbo. The driver hit thermal overload (a few quick flashes then off) at 1:45 Temp gun read 41.1C I was interrupted by family so it sat for 30s to 1 minute under the fan and when I got back to it the head didn’t feel overly hot (warm yes but not burning). So I turned on max again to hit overload this time reaching 42.0C Leaving it off I measured 35.6C after 30s and 31.7C after 1 minute. I repeated this without the fan on, just sitting on the bench. Starting temp was 23.6C thermal off went at 1:18 and reached 42.3C Thirteen minutes later the temp got down to 35.3C (that took 30s with fan!).
I didn’t realize active cooling could make 13 mins difference 
I tried to make a graph so it’s easy to see at a glance but I just got frustrated with it.
Active cooling
0 - 24.9
1:45 - 42
2:15 - 35.6
2:45 - 31.7
Bench cooling
0 - 23.6
1:18 - 42.3
2:18 - 42.3
3:18 - 42.3
4:18 - 41.8
5:18 - 41.2
6:18 - 40.5
7:18 - 39.8
8:18 - 39.1
9:18 - 38.3
10:18 - 37.7
11:18 - 37.3
12:18 - 36.7
13:18 - 36.2
14:18 - 35.3
I also sanded back the legs on the optic in the hope of better focus. I discovered that the optic didn’t like the heat much either…
Note the one at bottom left in the next pic.
Ouch! Do you have another optic, or are you still planning to use that one?
Looking good pp. It would of been interesting to see before and after comparison of the heat difference with the different fins but its a bit late for that. What is the temp probe thingy your using?
I’ve got an old Atlas 618. Not a big lathe but surprisingly capable for its size. Still mostly tinkering with it but I do make occasional non-tool things with it too
This bugs me, sorry, but ~43C is a bit warm, not hot right? 50C hot, 55+ too hot to handle
What is the temp the driver shuts down? for it must be much warmer thereand this reads like an issue getting the heat to those beauty fins.
Hence why I asked what temp device pp is using as reflective type measuring devices dont like nice shiny aluminium.
Doh! :person_facepalming: You’re absolutely right. I forgot IR guns are unreliable on shiny stuff. The gun is a left over from when I used to play with brushless r/c cars. I hardly ever use it now. For the record the temp gun stayed where you see it in the pic for the duration of the test but I guess that’s irrelevant now. DOH! I don’t feel so bad about not doing the before test.
That was well picked up Miller. Before I had the temp gun I used to go by the 3 second rule for the brushless motors. It’s about as accurate as it sounds. If something (e.g. brushless motor) became too hot to hold at the 3 second mark then the temp was guessed to be about 50C. That’s how I remember it anyway, I might be wrong.
Oh well. It will probably perform differently with batteries anyway.