Some more heat testing was carried out after drilling the copper heat tubes out from 5.1mm to 6.35mm.
with an ambient temp of 11 degrees C and 21 watts of heat generated the head temp reached 51 degrees C. With the fan running of 8 volts temp dropped to 34 degrees C.
Raising the wattage to 43, two leds running at 5.5 amps, the temp of the head stabilised at 68.5 degrees C. With the fan switched on temp dropped to 43 degrees C.
Machining wise a lot of repeats have been happening. I’ll explain as we travel through this post.
New ends for the battery holders were machined up at three mm in thickness. I was not happy with the way they worked with the springs so they were remade five mm in thickness and new springs soldered to the opposite ends of the battery tubes.
A comparison with the new end against the OEM end.
The head was drawn up napkin style shown here with all the components going into the head.
And the head machined to what was drawn.
The battery tube was threaded on the head end.
Here are all the machined components sat on top of each other. The tailcap is missing as its not made yet.
The tailcap is shown here being machined from an old off cut.
And with the inside after machining had been finished.
A button was made up to solder onto the plate that will deliver the power to the driver. Its shown here with the threaded retainer.
The button here is shown soldered to the adaptor plate, an unused SkyRay king driver. This button was later removed and another soldered on a different thickness after the second lot of mods to the battery tubes.
The battery tube was then placed back into the lathe and parted of to length. This was a little nerve racking because if care is not taken a broken parting of tool will result along with a damaged work piece.
The end was then machined down to the correct diameter and threaded to suit the tailcap.
The battery tube with the head and tailcap assembled onto it.
The battery tube in the mill at the start of the machining. Some may not like what I planned for this but it is part of the naked them.
After breakfast I asked the sacked assistants if they would give me a helping hand. Do you think they would even raise an ear? No.
The flats being machined.
Yes, this part had to be re machined again as I did not realise at the time but the tube was rotating backwards and forwards when the 16mm grooves were being machined across the tube.
And finally the see through slots, larger than first planned , were machined.
And the see through tube after a little cleaning up with some wet and dry emery paper.
And the final part of this update is the tailcap with the machining nearly finished. The very end is threaded 1/4’’ Whitworth so it may be screwed to a plate and the light used as a lantern when camping.