I’ve considered it but don’t care to run a pair of 18350 cells driving something that powerful. Would be cool for about 10 minutes though 
Seems like the copper is quite effective transferring heat away from the source, but then you need to connect the copper to something that will radiate the heat away — “emissivity” is the measure of getting rid of heat. How come we don’t see more flashlights with fins used as radiators? Like this: http://cdn.instructables.com/FLZ/GK8M/GHYNW7EC/FLZGK8MGHYNW7EC.LARGE.jpg
(from the last comment on this page: http://www.instructables.com/id/Improved-high-power-LED-bike-head-light-with-integ/ )
Finned metal like this this: http://pimg.tradeindia.com/00499549/b/2/Round-Heatsink.jpg
(from http://www.qualitekengineers.com/round-heatsink-499549.html )
just for example.
Thread one side for the battery tube, put the copper inside it, thread the other side for the emitter …
It’s not a new idea; here’s a discussion (with much back and forth) of why it’s workable:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/118364-29-truth-copper-heatsinks-aluminum-ones
“…. the best design is to have a copper baseplate on the bottom of your aluminum heatsink to transfer the heat away from your CPU quickly. Then the aluminum transfers the heat a little more slowly from the copper to itself. Then, finally, the aluminum releases the heat to the air more quickly than the copper, thus forming the optimum heatsink system….”
The trick is copper around the heat source to transfer heat away from the nearly point source, and connect that to a much larger surface out at the edge (made of something easier to machine than copper!) so the heat gets spread out where air and radiation carry it away.
“emissivity” is the measure of getting rid of energy by radiation. That’s an important distinction, because I haven’t seen a discussion here explaining how much that can contribute to cooling a light. We both posted in the Copper? C8 pills for $4.30 thread, I was going to point you to my post #68 there for more info on volumetric heat capacity. It is my current position that in a light like this, having as much copper shoved in there as possible is your best bet at keeping the light from burning your hand for a little bit longer. Wasting space (creating negative space) on fins seems like it would hurt more than it helped.
Hello, I was curious how many amps are being drawn at the tail? I have one of Richard’s S3 @ 5.8A and was wondering the difference between the two.
The copper heatsink is impressive.
I wonder if something like the Overready Cryo Bezel could be fitted externally to help with thermal management ?
Johnny, would it be difficult or expensive for the machine shop to put appropriately sized threads on the pill?
How long does it stay at 1700 lumens?
+1000. LOL. Have lots of friends that are LEO's and responders...nobody can do a "jaw-drop" better! :)
Nice build Johnny. Been talking to Richard about doing the same thing....for work of course :)
60 second step down. At start it’s 1900 then drops as it quickly heats. After 60 seconds it steps down from Turbo to High.
I have no clue but it’s a pretty good idea. If I had access to that I’d make the whole pill from the copper and leave out the brass pill completely. As it is though, when soldered to the pill like mine is it gets hot within 30 seconds and barely touchable at 60.
This looks like a really fun light.
Mountain Electronics also sells the copper spacers. I got a triple 219b S6 with 5.8A driver and copper spacer from them and I’m happy with it. The copper really adds a lot of heft to it.
did you solder the triple pcb to the copper spacer?
i am going to build similar but havent decide what is best solder or just add thermal paste.
Be sure and wear your steel toed boots! :bigsmile:
Steve