6th Annual BLF Handmade Entry (Finished!) - gchart

Giveaways and Contests
26

Nice progress. Is the battery going to be removable?

27

That’s pretty cool. You are certainly making some headway into the build.

28

Very nice!

29

Very cool idea. The build looks like its coming along nicely.

30

Thanks all!

Yup, battery will be removable. It may not be super easy, but reasonable enough.

31

:+1:

32

Rough cut of the housing, oak and part of a seasoning shaker:

33

That looks like it will be a nice looking lantern when you’re finished!

34

Thanks. I wish I had a band saw or scroll saw and perhaps a router, but alas… I’ll make do with my jig saw and some sanding.

35

Ok, I decided to go a different route for the end caps. I was trying to mostly use materials I already had sitting around (putting the B in BLF!), but that oak was hefty to work by hand.

So I picked up a piece of 1/4” poplar. I think I’m going with two stacked discs, one being smaller to fit into the plastic housing, large enough to pressure-fit in place. I’ll glue that to a slightly larger disc that will sit outside of the housing.

Here’s the rough cut with a jigsaw:

And getting to it’s final size & shape using my palm sander:

36

Those look nice. I don’t think I could get it that smooth with hand sanding. I’m not that patient. :person_facepalming:

37

Thanks David. I spent over an hour sanding those things. Tedious!

38

Looking good! :slight_smile: I always like lantern custom builds.

39

Making rounds by hand is tedious at best. But those look good

40

Ok, all poly’d up (6? spray coats each side with some sanding in between). Nice and snug, solid feeling.

Still waiting on my 4000K LEDs. They must be taking the slow boat from China. Once they get here, I’ll have everything to build the final light engine.

With this much time left in the contest, I feel like I should do something more to up my game. Thoughts or ideas? Something that doesn’t involve redesigning the PCBs, that is

41
  1. Add a nice lanyard hole
  2. Add a threaded insert for tri-pod
  3. Change to RGB+W emitters and a nice driver with color ramping/mixing OOPS, didn’t see the part about not changing the PCBs
  4. Go back to the oak (that one will take up plenty of your time :stuck_out_tongue: )

EDIT: I need to say, though, the Poplar looks really nice. My suggestion to go back to oak was just so you could use more time.

42

Good luck with the build ! :beer:

43

I love what you guys can do with something I seem to be only able to burn. Looking good with what you have done so far. :+1:

44

My 4000K LEDs have arrived and I just assembled the final circuit boards.

I also cut the copper pipe that will partially surround the battery. It’s been cut to length and a strip going the length of the battery has been cut. Now I want to cut a hole in the “back” of it so I can push the battery out from behind. Kinda a mess to explain, but pretty simple. I’ll snap a pic later.

Edit: here are the final circuit boards (differences from the prototype are the switch inclusion and the current regulating diode instead of a resistor)

45

Taking shape :+1: