LED Handheld Spotlight

Hi All,
great forum you have here,

looking for info on LED handheld spot lights for my boat to help get to fishing spot

id like the light to be serviceable and around the 36-50 watts etc 12v
do lights like below have a changeable led
like link below

cheers
Brett

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Xhunter-42W-LED-Handheld-Spotlight-Aluminium-Hunting-Spot-Light-Car-Water-Resist/281807627645?\_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&\_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D40130%26meid%3D70cd49c8108348169f640ef35aad9230%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dag%26sd%3D252550056831

If actually 42W, I wouldn’t keep that on very long. The LEDs would cook. Doesn’t look like much heatsinking.

Something like that wouldn’t be very “serviceable” unless not glued together. Prob have to crack it open to do anything. Made the mistake of getting aux lights for my car. Yeah, glued shut.

For boating, go with a nice aspheric. That’s going to give you a focused beam that’s all throw and no spill. The very narrow hotspot works well for picking out floats, reflectors, and markers on the water without the spill blinding you and ruining your acclimated night vision. Not sure what the best option is at the moment; I’ll let others chime in on that… The Jax is supposed to be nice, but the UniqueFire 140x series of lights might be a good option still as well.

3500 lumens at 42W = 83Lm/W, not very efficient by LED standards, and Lightbringer is right, if truly 42W it’d melt down in short order. I’m 99% sure both lumen and wattage are vastly exaggerated, but I imagine it’d still be problematic at any wattage level to make it useful.

I see 12 fisheye/aspheric optics, so it’d be a little more complex and vastly more expensive to reflow 12 quality LEDs onto the PCB, a single emitter is a better choice all around.

You’d be much better off with a single emitter light with a proper heatsinking, otherwise the time, effort, money and emitters you put into this are going to be toast in short order anyway.

I have a couple different projects in the works for the exact same application. I’m waiting on optics for one and the other I misplaced my small fans (25mm) for the heatsinks.

What I did on one design was start with the small Black&Decker 4AA handheld spotlights, removed the internal battery carrier to make room for a small GPU heatsink stacked with a 25mm 12V fan mounted on the back of the original heatsink. I’ve run it for short bursts with a old XM-L on a simple DC/DC converter and the reflector works well. If I can find the fans I’m going to replace the
XM-L with either an XHP50.2 or XHP35 after I see which one has the most useable beam. The XHP50.2 or even a XP-L HI would be easier to incorporate due to the voltage, all you’d need is a simple DC/DC CC Buck style converter, they’re dirt cheap.

For reference an old incan style Q-Beam is around 1200-1500lm IIRC. Also keep in mind, if you’re using your starting battery or one connected to your alternator you’ll need a driver that can withstand the possible voltage spikes.

I’m going to get some build threads together eventually lol.

Cree T6 LED Spotlight

This is more of what I’d want to start with, think it’s from the same AU based seller. If you could find a way to get the heat out you could overdrive the XM-L, or replace it with a XHP50.2, XHP35 or perhaps a XP-L HI.

Word of warning, for Nav use that B&D handheld was practically useless in factory form, it came with an XP-E and was a laser-beam that wasn’t very good for anything but long range stationary spotting. With the XM-L it’s just about right, hopefully an XHP50.2 performs similarly, if not I can always swap in a HI emitter. Just saying you need a little spread to see where you’re going and what you’re doing IMO, super bright and super narrow can be counterproductive in this application.

Lightbringer: yep i was dreaming to think they were 42watts

keltex78: yes my stick markers are around 200m apart and about 2 inch round (no reflector) so hard to pick up

Texlite: its one good reason to have it serviceable because everything needs modding

the reflector looks better on that link you posted remember id run it on 12volt boat battery for about 20 minutes about

I like the thought of building up something but prefer to modd an existing design to save time and get it done

cheers

I Googled the light and found it on a few sites. Only one 1 star rating and no others. 42 watts on 12 LED’s very easy to do. Bleeding out the heat possible it says it’s Aluminum. Working for very long?

Looking around this morning I came across a post by Mitko Here, looks to be very close to the one I linked for you and Mitko mentions stuffing an XHP35 in it. Might ask him about the host itself and how well it’s holding up to the heat.

ETA: Since this is so relevant to both our interests I’ll PM Mitko and ask him if he’ll join us here and share a little about his build.

Also, I just now saw where that light was cordless, DOH! I totally missed that last night, I’ll blame it on the lateness of the hour lol. When I saw the design I just assumed it was 12V because all the other similar lights were, should’ve opened the description and read, apologies.

Texlite: Cool thanks for the input

I found the 12 volts version here

12 volts 10 watt handheld

Also the 25watts version looks like the same reflector and frame

12 volts 25 watt handheld

Nice find! I hate to say it since we’re on BLF, but those might work in delivered form, the 25W especially if it’s anywhere near the true rating. By the looks of it, the 10W has an XM-L and the 25W has an MT-G2. If the MT-G2 is the 6V version then a swap to an XHP50 or XHP70 would be very straightforward without even needing a driver swap.

I’m curious about the heat management of the host, it looks all plastic to me but I could be wrong, maybe Mitko will chime in as it looks like the same light. Hopefully he has a cheaper source for the host as well.

Just saw in the description where it says the 25W “draws less than 1 amp”, so NOT 25W. My guess would be they’re driving the MT-G2 at around 10W, the XM-L probably half that.

Texlite I think the main thing is with these lamps is for me at these prices is to service them

I also found this unit i can see the screws in the front which might be a way in

Hunter 25W CREE LED Handheld Spot

This looks like it has an MTG2 led.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/12v-LED-25W-Handheld-Spotlight-Light-150mm-Hunting-Fishing-Camping/152076863305?\_trksid=p2060778.c100290.m3507&\_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160727114228%26meid%3D230afed2056643c78983aecfcddea72c%26pid%3D100290%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D152076863305

I came across that style while searching for the other style we were discussing, looks to be a better design as far as heat management, I could not find that host anywhere for cheap though. I did find the other style, same as the one in Mitko’s mod, fairly cheap, like $25. If you’re interested I’ll see if I can dig up the link.

As far a serviceability and modding, some of the descriptions say that it’s “field serviceable”, including the switch. I think the parts unscrew, looks like 3 parts, reflector assembly, “heatsink” portion, and handle/mount. I’m prettty sure that long tab on top of the “heatsink” portion is a locking tab that locks into the notches to keep the parts from unscrewing.

I like the style you linked, were into start over that’s probably the host I would go with.

just a update the seller has said it doesn’t have the screws to pull apart

12 volts 10 watt handheld

Hmm, it has to come apart somehow, they got the emitter in there lol, and Mitko got an XHP35 in his, so it comes apart somehow. I’m pretty sure it unscrews in 3 sections, like described in my previous post, just a guess though.

The other you linked has a better design anyway, found them on eBay and Amazon for $35-$40 shipped each. I think those would be a better host anyway. Throw one of the XHP-xx in there with the appropriate driver and call it a day.

I got coupla Sq Finned heatsinks from old AMD board\Chip. (Fit over the AMD chip).

I’ reckon one of those would make a good H\S mounted on rear of lamp behind the driver?.

It’s a good 2in Square. Fins an inch long and a fan mounted in\on the back.
Plastic welded on rear behind the driver. Fan in front or back of.
Maybe it’ll draw the heat? From the 10A one anyway.