FS: Copper Pill for Courui

Buy / Sell Want to Sell
41

Comfy, this light has a lot of surface area to dissipate heat. The head is huge. The body is fat. The thin pill is not as bad as it seems since it has such a large diameter as well. The surface area of the pill at it's circumference isn't too shabby. So, I am not surprised that you have not noticed "a lot" of sag due to heat. Though, I guess my question is what do you consider a lot? >10%, >20% >30%? When I designed the Bomber, one of my goals was to minimize sag due to heat. I was very happy when it turned out to be <10% after running for 5 minutes at about 80 watts.

A couple of things that you wrote bother me. First, I'm all about the laws of physics. I'm not sure why you think otherwise. There is nothing about using copper heat sinks that have greater mass, thermal conductivity and surface area than the ones they replace that defy the laws of physics. I wrote a fairly detailed post about this some time ago. I'll try to find it and link it. Second, you are right in that sometimes what we do isn't necessary. Most engineering is the science of designing things that work good enough for their purpose plus some safety factor. However, I liken what we do here to hotrodding. Striving to get that extra few percent of output at the margin is freakin cool. For that matter, putting 7 emitters into a flashlight isn't necessary. Most modding that's done here isn't necessary, yet you seem to have a distaste for my particular type of unnecessary.

Anyway, "Good Enough" is relative to each person here. 7 amps through a XM-L2 on the stock pill may work ok for some. Start putting more current to the emitter on that pill and diminishing returns start happening at some point. More amps will not yield more light. Just look at the aluminum star vs Sinkpad copper star graphs. Same goes for pills. Amp for amp, you get more light with copper. You get more light with more area of the pill in contact with the outside of the light too.

42

I like how it looks. I like the extra weight. I like that little extra it gives to my hot rods, whether it’s a long term gain or not.

I Like Copper in a light. I can’t speak for anyone else. But I’m willing to pay for the copper just because I like it.

Fair enough?

And my Cree Trifecta build and studies show that it gives results. I don’t know if it gives equal results across the board. I do know that it makes a difference in the lights I’ve chosen to use it on.

Silver works well too. And you know what? If I had the money, I’d make a big ol honkin GOLD pill just cause! :stuck_out_tongue:

43

Fine... more really is better. Got it.

44

If you feel so strongly about it, how about contradicting something I've written with some facts instead of sarcasm?

45

Different strokes for different folks and all that. No harm no foul.

Could be that Comfy is onto something, as for me, I like the copper so I’ll stay with that…whether or not it’s completely necessary.

Do you know that almost all SuperCar’s get driven very little? The more a car costs, the less miles they usually get on their odometer. Amazing, isn’t it? I’m not talking about $50-100K cars. I’m talking about doubling and quadrupling that. And more. The SuperCars. Top end Ferrari’s and Lambo’s. Super extremely nice cars, and they only get out of the garage on occasion. Why is that? Because it’s what the guy/gal that owns it WANTS.

In many cases, want far outweighs need. Not to be comfyused with necessity or propriety. And of course, it’s all within the rights of the individual. The problems arise when the individual wants to say his way is better than any other way. That does, of course, only apply to the individual, as each and every one of us has our own way of looking at things and our own definition of what is best.

My Dad likes to say “This chocolate pie is the best ever!” and amends with “Until the next one.” His way of showing appreciation for the one that’s in front of him. :wink: At 85 yrs old, I reckon he get’s to call it like he see’s it.

That said, Buck, about that Courui pill…. :slight_smile:

46

Opinions vary and manners vary. Is it bad manners to post negative or contrary opinions in someone else’s thread? I really don’t know. Opinions are a analogous to the anus; everyone has one and nobody wants to hear someone else’s. I am working hard to refrain from sharing sharing my opinion when it isn’t positive. (Limited success so far but I’m working on it) I don’t fully understand what the discord is about but it bugs me.

Rarely have I found a group either social professional or any other grouping that I have felt so welcome in or whose members I have respected as much as the individuals in this forum. For those reasons the relationships I develop here, although digital, they are very meaningful for me. So it bothers me to see such discord between my friends. Someone cast an olive branch and let’s get back to pushing the limits of lumen launching technology.

47

+1

Completely agreed.

48

Absolutely! Please bury the tomahawk! :wink:

49

Seems like this describes a new way to build a very bright high powered flashlight — from the core outward.

> a completely new center section …. copper core pressed into the finned and anodized outer layer.

Cut a standard thread on the emitter end to attach a head, any head — adding adapter rings as needed
Cut a standard thread on the driver end to attach battery tubes — any battery tube, with adapter rings.

The flashlight is the core piece — an ideal, finned, copper-cored heatsink, standard, able to host any desired emitter and driver.
The head and battery tube become user-choice add-ons.

50

Hank, Now THAT would be realllllly cool!! Tons of different options.

51

I think the body tube from the 12t6 would mate to this… and it already has a tailswitch (if you were to want it).

52

From years of playing around with this stuff, I see two trains of thought on heat sinks. I have always favored mass, just because, as far as I am concerned, there is no real heat transfer from metal to ambient air. At least not the kind of transfer necessary for 20, 30, 40 watts or more. Mass gives a cushion of time, but still it is a relatively short time and then mass actually detracts, because once you get it heated up, it becomes a negative instead of a positive.

The other way I see, is thinner walls and a bunch of fins. Take the heat sink here and open it up so that it is hollow and the walls are, let's say, 1/8" thick. Then add a bunch of thin copper exterior fins and transfer to air increases. Of course, it's still basically stagnant air, unless you are holding the light out in a 40 mph wind storm, or out the car window, so it still will get to a point where the heat building up is much more than the heat being dissipated.

To me, it's nit picking anyhow. The batteries are always going to sag and from the time you turn it on, it's getting weaker and weaker by the minute and for all those wanting that blessed 10% more, it's just not really worth the cost, nor is it noticeable. It's just something we always want to do, with just about everything, but it's not logical or necessary, just fun. Bright is bright, very bright is very bright and too hot to hold is too hot to hold, no matter what you call it. Besides that, the led can take much more heat than your bare hand can and you will always want to turn it off, or lower the output, before the led is fried. Well, for most of us anyhow.

I love the look and feel of copper. I wish more lights were made out of copper, just to look at them, but it's a visual sensation, not a real world need for it, in a flashlight. I also love just seeing what some of you guys with lathes and end mills, like Bucket here, can do. It's great just to see it.

53

For us here in Texas we don’t enough cold nights to really help out all that much. But I have seen that a 40º night with a stiff breeze will actually rob the heat from a hot rodded light such that it won’t even warm up your hands. So depending on where one lives, the copper heat sink might actually serve the purpose.

As you say though, the cells can’t keep up so it’s a moot point in the end.

It IS fun though, trying! :slight_smile:

54

On single cell lights I agree with the above but not on multi cell lights. I'm building a light at the moment with a novel cooling which should give a few of you a good laugh. The reason is for this is to try and get a reasonable runtime on a hot rod with lots of cells.

55

Move to Minnesota.

Here in NY, we rarely get below 0F/-18C but can see ~10to20F/-12to-7C often enough to enjoy(?) in Winter. And in the suburbs it's more about occasional spotting, ~15-30 seconds at a time, anyway, but overall I favor a high sink capacity over huge fins for pocket-ability. If it gets too unwieldy to carry, you likely won't have it with you when you need it anyway.