I’m trying to find suitable hosts, spacers and drivers for a flashlight with a 20mm Noctigon MCPCB with serial/individual connected LEDs. The plan is a setup of e.g. 1x LH351D, 1x XP-E2 and 1x Seoul Viosys Z5 CUN66A1B, i.e. all with 3535 footprint. All 3 LEDs will be selected individually one at a time with a tap on the switch.
There are certain constraints and obstacles I am struggeling with. The UV LED must not be driven over 1.2A according to its specs. Has anyone some experience how far the Viosys Z5 can be overdriven? The Convoy S2+ is too small for 20mm boards and it needs a lot of work with spacers and tube adaptions to fit both the driver and the 10507 carclo lens into it.
Are there any recommendations for an ideal host that fit 20mm and a carclo lens without too much work? Are there multiple drivers I could choose from and that are well-tried?
I don’t know what driver would work, but I thought the S2+ worked with the 20mm noctigon and carclo 10507 when used with a spacer. I think it’s a common mod. You can get the spacer from mtnelectronics or kiriba ru.
Also if you haven’t already considered this, some TIR materials don’t pass UV light. Djozz would know.
Thank you! It takes quite some efforts to reduce the 20mm board to make it fit into the S2+. I thought maybe there are better hosts out there that fit both a 20mm board and a 10507 carclo lens. I didn’t consider yet that some TIR lenses won’t let UV radiation pass through. What lenses would be appropriate? Actually, I planned to attach a ZWB2 bandpass filter to block the visual spectrum of the light. Another plan is to build a triple Nichia UV or triple Viosys UV with 10507 lens and parallel board.
the 20mm triple will fit the S2, either with a spacer, a few coins or file down the rim on the S2 pill and use whatever you have to make up for the distance. However, the quads won’t fit a S2+, the optics are just too big and would need significant effort.
We have a few multi-channel drivers around, some specifically made for RGBW lights, so the channels are operated separately from each other. Here’s a thread Texas_Ace started to work on a 4-channel driver for a RGBA Light Saber. ToyKeeper was going to write firmware for it. I don’t know how close any of that is to completion. tterev3 was selling his MELD-X drivers here, but deprecated the thread because of lack of interest. You should still be able to get some help from him if you PM him. The driver boards and even some interesting multi-emitter PCBs he made are available on OSH Park, but you’d have to get the firmware-flashed MCU from him. DRJones also made a RGBW driver, I thought. I don’t know how to contact him now, and I can’t find a link, except this old thread strangely asking for something very similar to what you’re looking for. Hmmm…
EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to say, the tterev3 MELD-X driver already has support for UV as well.
If you need/want a specific size/shape/configuration of driver PCB, one of the driver board designers around here might be willing to help. The board design is the easy part, if you know exactly what you want. Firmware is a bit different. There are a few firmware gurus on BLF, but they tend to just make firmware that they want for themselves. I don’t know of anyone getting a firmware written by Tom E or ToyKeeper, etc, for a one-off or custom build.
Apologies for my misleading initial post. Actually, it‘s not the 20mm MCPCB that causes trouble but the special 20mm independent driver that is hard to fit into the S2+ host. So, eventually that means to host must be drilled out to make the driver fit.
You could use a Emisar D4 like I did for my RGBW project . It’s a quad though but perhaps you find a purpose for the 4th LED. Driver diameter is about 22 mm.
But you may still have the problem with the UV blocked by the optics.
If you want to be adventurous, drill out the front of the optic that the UV emitter would be under, leaving a cone shaped hole, exposing the LED. Spray the back side of that part of the optic with Rust-Oleum Mirror Effect Paint turning it into almost a “standard reflector” just for the UV light. Put another XP-E2 in the 4th optic for more light output?
Thank you for your great suggestions Flashy Mike & DavidEF!
I‘ll think about it. Has anyone of you an idea how far the Seoul Viosys Z5 UV LED can be overdriven? Is 1.5A still below the threshold of harmful current? Those UV LEDs are quite sensitive for higher currents. I‘m afraid I can‘t go lower than this. Or is there an even better UV LED with 3535 footprint?
I haven’t done a lot of UV LED research, but have you checked djozz’s tests? He has tested several and that is the only information I’ve seen regarding overdriving UV LEDs.
I PM-ed the post with the test of the Seoul Viosys led. It can certainly be overdriven.
One possibility for a 17mm driver (fits the S2+) for 3 leds is the old-school RGBW driver that was originally sold by intl-outdoor.com, but now is available at kaidomain . It has 4 individual channels but if you only have 3 leds you can connect two channels to the same led and have two output levels for that led.
Be prepared for some adventurous rebuilding the driver to find the wanted output currents for the different leds, and the current limit for the transistors may not be higher than 1.5 or 2A. But replacing a transistor for a small FET can get you direct drive and thus higher current for one or more of the channels. For information how to rebuild this driver see this thread, post 1, 11 and 14 .
H17F driver can run 3 independent channels, each channel can have its own max current set and offer multiple levels of brightness per channel, can also do cool disco modes, however its a real heavy mod that involves cutting traces, adding P & N channel mosfets, adding/removing AMCs and soldering tiny wires, if you up for the challenge… ill lay out all the details needed to DIY.
