June 8th. 2014
I still have a couple ZY T08 lights so I thought I would do another 3up using XM-L2 leds on Noctigons. Here you can see that light is dismantled and I have three aluminum reflectors with locating rings and three Noctigons. You can also see a chunk of aluminum rod stock and some copper.
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I want to have the aluminum rod stock as part of the heat sink and I want it to fit tight, so I milled out a little of the head, so the aluminum would be press fit into it. I used an end mill bit in my drill press to do it.
Here is the center heat sink pressed into the head
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I used a hacksaw and files to remove the rim of the stock aluminum insert that held the led and driver. I want it to screw in tight and flush against the aluminum heat sink that I just pressed into the head.
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Since these lights have a tapered head, I want to fill around the aluminum center and I thought I would use some copper shot and some solder, to make it more permanent than the JB weld was, from the last build.
Once that is filled, I will put a copper discs over the top.
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I used a screen to sort out the fine pieces of shot from the bigger ones. All this copper shot is really just cut up wire, bought from am ebay seller.
I put in a little of the big stuff in the bottom and then I put some solder in on top. This time I elected to use a large socket and wrap some solder around it and then just dropped the wrap in. I think it was better than feeding the solder in after heating.
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My lovely assistant took a photo of this, since I was using two torches at once. I just heated the outside of the head and the center aluminum heat sink, till the solder melted and let it flow down into and over the copper shot.
Then I did another shallow layer of big stuff and repeated the process. Finally, I used the smaller shot for the top layer, hoping it would make a smoother surface for the placement of the copper discs on top.
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All ready to go and after placing the copper discs, I heated again and pressed them in while it cooled.
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Looks like it worked well. I didn't have any leakage from below, so the press fit must have been a good seal and the solder did not run out the bottom, as it normally does.
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That's it for now. I have to flow the leds on the Noctigons and then I will need to wait for drivers to come in. I expect to go for 4 amps per led.
06/11/2014
I decided to order some boards from Oshpark, so I could use them as slaves. The ones that mattaus made up at my request, so I will be waiting most of the month for that to happen. Looks like it will take a lot longer than I thought.
I did manage to get the leds reflowed and they are in place, with the reflectors and glass in, so all I really have left is the drivers and the tail cap springs.
The leds are XM-L2 T6 3B, reflowed onto Noctigons and the wires are 22ga Teflon coated. Only reason for them is the Teflon coating is much thinner than silicone coating and I didn't want any bigger hole for the wires.
That's it till the boards come n...
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06-21-14 Loooong time waiting for those Oshpark boards, but they came in today. Let's get this thing wrapped up.
These boards are ones that Mattaus designed. I wanted boards that just held the 7135 chips, so I could use one for each led and not use up perfectly good Qlite drivers. These are the 16mm boards and they each hold 12 chips, so 12x380mA per led.
Soldering these with a regular soldering gun is difficult, but not impossible. 36 chips, 3 boards.
PWM from the master driver. I took off the chips and used them on one of the other boards.
LED- wires soldered on.
PWM and Ground wire soldered on.
Can't show you the rest, because I didn't want to stop. I just used the original driver as a contact plate and used 18ga wires for + & -
Last thing is adding copper braid to the springs.
With 2 of the 20R batteries, I got a reading of a total of 11.65 amps, so that's not all that bad. It will be a very bright T08.
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Beam shots in Post #1...