Ok, I am wanting to build a few “M43 style” lights out of some SRK’s and an M6 using up my spare parts.
I have all the LED’s I need for at least 2 of them, maybe a 3rd. Ditto for the drivers and other components.
I also talked to someone that is willing to make the spacers for me. So this leaves me with needing to source the triple mcpcb’s.
I have used the Noctigon 3XP and sinkpad triple in the past and they work fine but are a bit pricy, it would be $20 that I don’t have for them.
I was looking at the KDLIGHT triple (from kaidomain) which is half the price and I can’t tell what the differences are. Some searching said that they won’t accept 15007 optics but others said they can with some drilling.
Anyone have them side by side so I can see if they will work?
Or anyone have some old, dirty triple mcpcb’s you don’t need laying around you want to sell? I don’t mind if I have to clean them up to make them work. My flashlight budget was cutoff awhile back and trying to stick to the agreement lol.
Kai triple star is much thinner and not all that good quality when compared to noctigon 3xp boards. Also the holes for the optic legs are wider to accommodate their optics and will not work all that good with Carclo optics. Carclo optics will sit loose and might crush leds because they rattle.
Thanks just what I needed to know. Looks like they are still lined up over the LED’s just a matter of keeping the optic centered in the holes. I might be able to 3D print some spacers to take care of that.
I will have the adjust the spacer height to compensate for the thinness though, looks like they are .75mm thinner.
KD has listed a new triple board for leds in series or individual, that may be worth looking into, it can be made parallel with some extra wiring. They differ from the parallel board in that they are thicker, 1.5mm instead of 1, but they still have the wide holes of their own optic.
Your right, I think the listing is just a copy/paste.
Too bad the parallel one is not also 1.5mm thick. I can’t think of any way to easily convert the series one to parallel using thick wire without a ton of different connections.
The wires do have to be overly thick, they are very short and carry just one-third of the current. For this I would use pieces of insulated solid copper wire bended into shape, the stuff that is inside transformers.
What about adding a small copper shim under the mcpcb to make up the .5mm?
Maybe a little bit of copper foil?
Or melt some old pre 82 I believe pennies before they switched to steel or whatever it is today. And make a thin sheet and cut it out if you have the tools for it
I agree, I have no issues running them in my planned ~13k+ lumen setup from a heat shedding perspective. My only issues is one of optic fitment. The ability to use carclo optics, I am afraid it could be hard to sand down the legs without breaking them off and keeping them centered could be hard as well.
The next biggest issue is height, If they were just 1.75mm thick I would use them for sure but I can’t think of any easy way to shim them.
I am not sure what I am going to do yet, I have a week until the spacers will be made, I can have them made a bit thicker to account for the thickness issue but still have the optic issues to deal with. Not sure if the optic issues are worth saving $10
For centering the legs, how about some heatshrink tubing?
Maybe that will already be enough to make it a tight fit.
/Edit: and for not breaking the legs while sanding, just use a piece of 1mm steel with correctly spaced holes, the legs will be gone way earlier than the sheet of steel.
