6th Annual Scratch Made Light Contest - Flashy Mike's machined project

Will have a look at that, thanks!

Looking great! :+1:

Driver design is finished and sent to the fab. Two channels with 1x7135 and 6x7135. Has pads for my programming adapter, of course.
Will post new renders soon.

Oh, the light shields its own power switch when closed! Clever.

What I have ordered so far:

- SST-20 3000K high CRI LEDs on MCPCB

- o-rings in different sizes

- nylon screws

- circular neodyme magnets 20x2 mm

  • 5mm RGB-LED for status display

All from China, I hope everything arrives in time …

Looking good FM. :beer:

As promised more renders, also from the inside this time. I really love doing this renders, but I’m also afraid how the real 3d prints will compare to them. Perhaps there should be a category for virtual lights only … :wink:

The lighthouse:

Bottom of the lighthouse with o-ring and cut outs for wires:

The electronic compartment in the lower housing:

The bottom plate with neodyme magnets:

Reflector with retraction system (hard to see in this renders but the reflector is slightly conical shaped):

Lantern closed (LED is RGB) …

and open:

Very nice renders! I agree, it’s gonna be very hard for you to compete with that. We need a new category. :stuck_out_tongue:

Looks amazing. You have certainly put a lot of thought into this. :+1:

Yeah, designing this light was much more work than expected but I learned a lot about 3d design in the last weeks. Anyway, now I can take a short break until the ordered components arrive. I’ll double check all dimensions with the components before I start printing, don’t want to waste time and filament.

If this design works out well, I’d be happy to buy one or two!

Viel Erfolg damit!
(Kind off “best luck with that one!”)

Nice project Flashy Mike. Sweet renders. :+1:

Honestly, his renders are good enough, even if he didn’t want to mass produce these himself, he could coordinate with a manufacturer like Sofirn and have them made. :wink:

Reflector will point the light down and to the sides. If it’s only slightly conical-mostly down. It will hit the body and what’s next? If you don’t paint it white the light will be absorbed and lost. If you do paint it white, it will be reflected. Which may or may not cause glare.

Its absolutely possible that this project won’t work as expected finally. Wouldn’t be the first of my ideas. You’ll never know if you don’t try.

The concept might be new to flashlights but not to lighting in general: its simply a portable uplight which I like most for house lighting. I’m using orange pearl Convoy S2+ reflectors which are not famous for throw, so a lot of the light leaves this reflectors already diffuse. I guess a printed conical reflector isn’t even required. 3d printed top surfaces are not even at all due to the nature of this technique.

Of course there is a light loss but I’m less concerned about the light hitting the body after reflection than about the light passing the reflector at the side. To address this point I’ve positioned the light modules as near as possible to the center of the body.

Regarding the glare: you won’t see the reflector bottom when the light is standing on the table since your eyes are above. But you might see into the reflectors of the light modules in the housing which I like to avoid. In my prototype below with the Q8 I solved this problem with a tube which holds the printed reflector and shields the Q8 reflector. For the contest entry I consider to position the light modules a bit deeper into the housing. Then I would loose some of the spill of course. I have to find the best compromise.

To test this concept you could make a simple experiment, hold a piece of white paper over a tail standing light in a proper distance.

Here the prototype images, I will take another picture with the light in operation when its dark. The reflector is printed of white filament without any coating. I’m using this prototype regularly as a working light on my workbench.

Prototype in operation:

Looks really good, though it’s quite a bit different optically. Both because the shims block light going sideways and because light that goes down towards the light hits reflector and has a chance of escaping up (though has a good chance of eventually hitting the shim as well).

If you’re not concerned about losses from the light hitting the body, I expect your light to work well. :+1:

Last weekend I wrote a new firmware for this light (from the scratch, as required :smiley: ) and I’ m pretty satisfied with the outcome. It also includes the gimmick I announced in my first post, which hasn’t been realized in BLF before, AFAIK.

And I got some of the components but I’m still waiting for more parts I ordered in China. I should start with the printing within the next days since it will probably last several days for all components, even if everything works out well in the first attempt (what I don’t expect).

Btw. there is another board on the way, any idea what it is supposed to do?

Uhh… nope! :person_facepalming: