FLASKLITE - Nickel's Handbuild Copper Zoomie

I like these aggressively adventurous mods. Easy is for pansies. This contest is a great idea and the mods should be difficult. I plan on using all the time available and hope it works by the end. :beer:

edit going by salvage yard tomorrow and will check for copper rod.

The tortoise is checking back in. I am amazed at the ingenuity of the handbuilds presented thus far, not to mention the fine workmanship. Well done!

The zoomie function of a flashlight has made for more thinking and less doing. I hope I have a grip on it. Lots of parts to make.

Added a few pics. One shows my rethinking of the pill. I’ve incorporated a 3/4” pipe “pill extender”. The extender serves as the inner tube of the zoomie, and will serve as the fixed part anchored to the flasklite body. As a byproduct, the extender should give some heatsinking too.

I shouldn’t worry about the pace too much, I haven’t even started other than to wire a test circuit. Looking forward to more pics’n’progress :slight_smile:

This is coming along nicely. You have a wonderful assortment of different tools there you are using.

Wow. Looks like a real challenge. Best of luck on the build. Looks like it will be a very interesting light.

More incremental steps and pics posted.

You could say that I have a new-found respect for ALL the modders out there. I hope I haven’t bit off more than I can chew on this project.

Got to hammering the copper skin, and I have to say that the depth of relief is not quite what I had hoped for. Maybe with oxidation, and highlighting with some steel wool will help out?

Made a switch tower on top of one of the tubes, because there is no real room to recess. Thought about between the tubes, but it did not feel right. Pics show a Judco switch fastened to the tube inside the 1/2” tower, and a cobbled together faceplate with a small Fastech boot. Need to get some small brass screws, on next trip to the hobby store.

That switch housing looks terrific.

Thanks MRsDNF. The process feels like solving a jigsaw puzzle, you keep flipping parts around till it fits.

Funny how when you read some things and a smile appears on your face. Do we blame OL for this.?

We could blame OL, but I think I’ll thank him for the explosion of creative ideas that have been unleashed in the contest.

It’s going to be close on the deadline……I think I can, I think I can. A few more pics added.

One thing I noticed in testing is that the color mixing isn’t so hot in the flood mode. I know it’s not going to happen on spot mode. That’s probably why you don’t see the Intl Outdoor driver trying to do it? Or, maybe there is no call for it?

I’m going to try some yellow, orange, cyan, purple etc. for some beam shots if possible. The cyan comes out perfect, as is. Ordered a fenix AD03 diffuser ($3 free shipping at the fenix store) and see if that helps with the other colors. Backup plan is using a WF501B lens with some d-c-fix film. This will be more of an experiment, as opposed to something permanently attached to the flashlight.

Theres plenty off time left. 5 whole days. :slight_smile:

If, you achieve square die focus with the aspheric, it should show a defined separation of colors.

Hope you get it done, it's a very interesting approach and design. I'm looking forward to the finished light.

This thing looks very cool! :slight_smile:
Good luck with the soldering! Working with good heat conductors has it’s downsides I guess.

Great build nickelflipper! Mine was referred to as Steampunk, but this right here is an awesome example of Steampunk.
Nice work! :beer:

The light reminds me of something from a post-apocalyptic movie or something.
Very creative and cool!
:beer:

What you see is what you get. It works, the beam-shots are up. Not really finished. Full account in post #2. Thanks everybody.

The stress of this past week was intense not knowing if it would be finished in time or if it would work and knowing there’s no time left to fix it. I certainly appreciate your efforts on this build and am glad you went for it. Bravo!

Very creative Kent. Also I think you are the only one to use colors in the whole competition.