CNCman's entry to the 8th annual BLF/O-L contest [ Handmade - FINISHED - ]

I know what you’re up to here - I can see straight through it! lol

Nice start CNCman. I can clearly see what your doing.

Great to see you’ve started up, CNCman! Lookin’ good so far. That reflector looks huge.

Cool idea ! :+1:

Thanks guys :smiley:
It’s fun to be competing with you all. :beer:

This looks like a fun build in progress. i never knew it was possible to do all the things that you can do bending plastic—you’re like a sheet metal guy bending steel, except it’s sheet plastic. i’m going to school on this one :student:

Here is the electrical connection in the battery tube.
I had cut off a strip from a sheet of copper with snips and straightened it in a vice.
After filing one side square, I used calipers to layout a line to file the second side too. 1 hour filing this side.

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Rolling, bending, flattening in a vice, repeat several times and it is roughed in.

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Fitting it up, but not glued in place.

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Just doing one end for now until tail cap is roughed in.
Kinda strange not working to a drawing, just doing it as it needs it. Any suggestions are welcome :wink:

Very nicely done! Bravo!

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Trial and error mostly, learn as you go and scrap a few parts along the way. LOL
One thing to know is after heating it and you are molding it to something, the plastic will cool quickly, if you keep trying to bend it too much, it creates stress cracks or will crack after it cools. Also it has to be held in place at its plastic state ( Hot ) until it cools enough to keep the shape desired, good gloves are needed. The battery tube is one of the easier parts, the Head is where the fun begins, doing a cone. Also I learned on the battery tube, you loose .1 length per 1.0 length rolling. I calculated a .800 inside diameter X Pie 3.14 to get 2.5 inches length to cut for the roll. It finished .25 short. So I had to do it again with a 2.75 and it rolled good. I did not foresee that much shrinkage. :beer:

I, too, have never acrylic formed like that. Pretty cool! I can’t wait to see the end result.

Nice. :beer:

This looks so good! Why not run Aux LED’s through the “skeleton” too?

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I could not find any lighted switches in stock, but that is a good idea :+1:

After getting the length of the battery tube decided, it was time to finish up.




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Here it is assembled but not glued. Next it will be necessary to modify the driver and tail cap switch.

This is looking really good !

Excellent concept, great work. I love it!

Next to make is the tail cap. But the tail cap switch spring is too weak so it will get replaced with a Beryllium/copper spring purchased in a group buy from BlueSwordM. Also replacing the driver spring so the pressure is equal at both ends and spring bypasses too. These mods need to be done prior to molding the tail cap so it can be dimension correctly in relation to the battery tube and eventually the head pieces.
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I prefer to add or remove springs from drivers with the components side up so the risk of some pieces falling off is lower.

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Finished with spring and 20ga wire replacements. More work needs to be done to the driver later.

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Next up is the tail cap switch, the spring is very soft with braided bypass. New spring and 20ga bypass and a connecting spring will get added.


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Stripped and prepped.

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Solder the bypass first.


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Next solder the connecting spring.

This spring is cone shaped to allow room for the battery negative end to pass by.

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Next episode will be molding the tail cap and its parts.

P60 dropin spring?

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It was straight or cylindrical until i stretched it on one end and compressed the other end. I had purchased a variety of springs from Aliexpress last year. Only had one like this and i’m trying to find another substitute for the head end. :beer:

Oh yeah, a P60 is not conical. They are straight, 21mm x 13mm long. I measured one.