MtnDon's Entry, 2017 (5th Annual) BLF Old Lumens Contest, Handmade Category

Thanks. I have a wide variety of abrasives that I use. I like the acrylic clear coat. (Minwax Polycrylic) Dries quickly, even more so in the low humidity of our desert. Makes a smooth finish that responds wellto the 280, 320 and 400 grits Iā€™ll use between the final coats. Padauk though, has some rather large pores. Very obvious in the end grain and a little less so when cut with grain, but visible on most surfaces on this. Not objectionable on most things Iā€™ve madewith it.

Starting to look pretty slick - I wish I had used wood again this time.

Good update, woodā€™s looking great :+1:

Itā€™s raining cats ā€˜nā€™ dogs. Too wet to be outside and do what I am supposed to be doing. :slight_smile:

A little more work on this light. I have to come up with a name for it, something catchy? :laughing:

I soldered the switch wires.

Switch mounted to the top of the dowel insert with a dab of instant grab Loctite construction adhesive

The upper section of the dowel rod was filed and sanded to reduce the diamter a little. Youā€™ll see why next.

The copper pipe cap with the switch boot slips over the dowel top and switch. Being conductive copper there is a need to insulate the soldered switch wires from that copper cap. I achieved that with self fusing silicone tape. The dowel diameter needed reducing to allow a couple of tape layers and still let the copper cap fit over. Hereā€™s the wrapped switch.

I checked the switch operation and that the wires/connections were electrically isolated. All good!

Hereā€™s what the switch looks like with the dowel rod inserted into the body of the light, but without the copper cap and the switch boot. That will go on later as it is a tight fit over the silicone tape. Iā€™d rather install it and leave it at the end.

Hereā€™s a shot of the underside with the switch wires looped in the access bay.

What am I up to now, with the cheap Chinese copy of a Dremel cutting wheel?

Yes, cutting a narrow slot! But for what? ā€¦an action shotā€¦

After cutting the perimeter slots, a 7/8ā€ forstner bit cleans out most of the cavity. (The drill press light is much more yellow than the general shop lighting.)

After cleaning out the corners with a chisel, here is what we have.

With that recess cut it is time for a recess. :person_facepalming: Thatā€™s it for today. I put the project away in the cupboard with a Q8 for good company along with the someday-to-be-completed SRK-clone camping lantern.

A little more wore work tonight. Using a Dremel cutting burr I made some grooves and drilled some more holes to carry wires from here to there. When itā€™s all done hopefully it will be more pretty than it is now.

I drilled a total of 5 holes tonight. The three illuminated above only go part way through to the wire gallery that will be covered by the bolt on back slab. Two other holes go from that rectangular recess right through to the other side. Hereare the two exit points.

The two holes that pass right through are difficult to see in the shot. The start on the right side of the recess, about a1/4 inch from the lower right recess corner. They look like a black ink mark, but are blacker than the marker lines. From this side they diverge slightly to emerge slightly further apart than on this side. Drilling through wood close together often results in the holes bending towards each other. I shimmed the block to intentionally try to keep some distance bewteen the holes on the far side. It worked.

Tomorrow I hope to review the wiring plan, then connect up some parts.

Thanks for looking.

Ooops. I take back what I said about tomorrow and wiring. I still need to drill / carve two more holes or access ports. :person_facepalming: Getting excited as I get close to completion.

Thats a good sign you getting excited. :slight_smile:
I to can C your getting to the pointy end. :stuck_out_tongue:

I had meant to drill this access port before I set the switch mount in place. :frowning: So I had to use the dremel with a couple of different cutting burrs. The tape was a guide for placement. This is to allow wiring the LED.

Light from a flashlight aimed in the intersecting holeā€¦

0.025ā€ (0.76 mm) thick copper sheet that has been around the shop for decades. The stock piece keeps getting smallerā€¦ Polished up. There are a couple pit marks but this wonā€™t be on a direct easy to see line of sight.

The emitter (XT-E) will be mounted to this copper plate.

More to come a little later today/tonight.

Iā€™m back sooner than I thought I would be. Now to some hitherto undisclosed details. There will be an integral charger, a TP4056 board. That is what the previously shown rectangular cutout in the side is for. However the USB socket is mounted remotelyā€¦

This is for the USB inlet port. The grooves adjacent to the left is where I was first going to place it. But I changed my mind.

The TP4056

Thanks for looking.

Looking good MD. Its good to see an item stashed years ago with the thought it will get used one day actually get used. :+1:

Getting there :+1:

More parts. One is store bought and was retrieved from my box of miscellaneous metal odds ā€˜nā€™ ends. Stuff that was intended for some other previous project or just ā€œcollectedā€ because it was cool. That one is about 1 x 1.5 inches and from 0.040ā€ (1 mm) copper sheet. I needed one a little larger so traced the store bought onto my 0.025ā€ copper.

I cut it out with av snips.

Then, clamped between wood blocks, I filed it to refine the shape and smooth the edges.

Store bought on the left, my handcrafted one on the right. Iā€™ll press that oops out.

Originally my plan was to use the larger one by itself. However, stacking the two is more attractive to my eye.

Holes drilled for mountingā€¦ #2 x 1/2ā€ brass screws.

Thatā€™s all for today. Hopefully Iā€™ll be back tomorrow with more progress. Thanks for looking.

Everyday is looking better :wink: Good work :+1:

EDIT:Forgot a picture and messed up the order on one of theothers. :person_facepalming:

Nice work Don. I dont know how you keep the thin material so flat.

I wired the USB port up to the power in terminals of the TP4056. Some kaptan tape was used to temporarily tape it in place. Then a brass escutcheon pin wasdriven in through one of the unused board connection points to secure the USB port board from pulling out of the block when unplugging a cord. Escutcheon pin = fancy name for a decorative nail. Thatā€™s it in the middle of the 5 holes along the one edge. The pin head will require a slight dimple in the wood cover plate.

After careful measuring the TP4056 was affixed to the copper plate using Arctic Alumina adhesive and some kaptan tape to ensure electrical isolation from the copper plate. Inside the charger board recess, lower left edge, you can see two small greyish looking circles. Those are fiber optics.

Here we have a test underway. The charger is charging. The red light from the LED on the TP4056 board is piped through the fiber optic so we can see a charge cycle is underway. A change of lighting has made the wood appear more red than it really is. The color of the padauk will change over time, as both light and air does cause a shift to darker shades.

Rather than wait for the Samsung cell to reach full charge I changed to a fully charged Panasonic cell. The blue LED light now illuminates to indicate a full charge has been reached. (The charger was previously tested and it does function properly. I was just in a hurry for the photo.)

The charger side, opposite side of where the fiber optics exit. The copper plates are affixed using brass screws. They do multiple duty as access cover for the TP 4056 board and a heat sink.

Thatā€™s it for now. Gotta get back to the shop. Thanks for looking.

One more image for tonight.

I have a few things to note.

The upper left side bore hole, the one with the penny visible in it, is where the 18650 cell is located. Plus end is inserted first. There is a spring at the bottom end, the + end and another spring soldered to the down side of the penny. The short walnut dowel rod fits into the upper end of that bore hole to hold the cell firmly between the + and the - contacts.

The cell is not meant to be removed for charging. The cell can be changed out if that is necessar, by removing the three Phillips head screws that secures the wood back plate, similar in concept to the LiPo that CRX used in his beautifully crafted entry for this years contest. Changing the cell is a bit more involved than with a conventional flashlight with a threaded tail cap but is still less hassle than my laptop or an iPhone.

As things sit right now some of those visible wires are not yet connected. The ends are just pushed into the various nooks and crannies to allow me to trial fit the cell with the connector plates. The walnut plug is long enough to fit the flat top Panasonic 18650B cell. The springs provide sufficient squish room to allow for a button top, maybe a protected cell. I have not tried one. The driver is equipped with LVP so I donā€™t really feel the need for a protected cell.My plan is to use the flat top as I have a few without homes.

Maybe I can get this done tomorrow. :slight_smile: I need to fit the driver and connect it to the MCPCB/emitter, mount the copper emitter plate, complete the wiring and see to a few other details.

Thanks for looking.

Itā€™s really coming together now Don :+1:

I see you went the smart route & didnā€™t braze any of the copperā€¦ā€¦ :person_facepalming:

:smiley:

Reviewing my original design notes, the first thing on the page is ā€œpractice brazingā€. I skipped, never got around to, that step, though I did get some Fuze-CleanFS. The acetylene bottle has been empty for months thoughā€¦ keep forgettingā€¦ :frowning: