MtnDon's hand-made entry; 9th BLF OL challenge

Next, it was time to determine where the driver mount would go. My final choice needed some filing to the copper cap that was soldered to the ring mount.

This is where that will be mounted.

I could solder the cap in place but I figured that carried a certain risk. The heat for that soldering could cause all the other soldered joints to fall apart. So holes were drilled. The holes in the ring mount cap were tapped 2-56.

The screwed in place driver mount with the assembly positioned against the wood block for a trial fit….

Marked for cutting out…

Test fitted to the notched front…

And with that I stopped work for the day. Next work session I will duplicate these steps in the “real” wood block.

Thanks for looking in.

I realized I had a “brain fart” and didn’t recognize it until just the other day. :person_facepalming:

The problem I did not foresee was the manner I had fashioned the woodblock and expected it to fit with the copper assembly I have fashioned. The design has the switch mounted on the top and protruding upwards. The driver mount was supposed to nestle into the front of the block . That is a fitment problem. I thought this over and came up with a few solutions. Some of the solutions create another issue as the first is resolved,

I have hit upon a method I believe will be satisfactory. I do need to fashion new woodblock parts though. Plus drill another hole through the finned area of the heatsink to accept a small diameter screw. That brings some head-scratching moments as well.

Anyhow, no more info or photos on this today. I just thought I’d mention the setback. Sometimes planning in ones head misses out on some important detail.

Looks fun so far, and great pics!

I don’t know if it’d be worth the expense to you, but you might consider some end mills for boring a hole in copper or weird objects like that sink. Would necessitate good work holding in a vise and assuming the chuck doesn’t have appreciable runout, everything is pretty well squared up, etc. I picked up this chinese carbide set and I’ll be darned they are excellent for everything I’ve been able to use them for while abusing my drill press. :slight_smile: Quite sharp and well ground, true end cutting/plunge face, and have breezed through lots of different hardwoods, a few plastics and a little linen phenolic…some very light (and careful) use on 6061 as well, still sharp. This made it easy to “plane” a little chunk of sycamore I had for a project. But for boring that copper I think it would do well if you can keep things solidly held.

I’ll link to these because that’s what I bought but there are a few sellers of the same mills….and lots of other mills that are not that great, which includes just about all of the chinese HSS versions, most of which are not true end cutting mills and so would be unsuitable for plunging/drilling like this. You can get these on aliexpress a bit cheaper (or used to be able to) but then you risk not getting what you thought the photos showed…so. They may have some individual sizes on amazon as well (definitely do on ali).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TWTZRQZ/

The more machinist-worthy cheaper import mills are considerably more expensive usually, individually. Anyway, just a thought.

Those look like a good idea. I would have to get a good solid vice with an system to clamp to the table. The spindle and chuck are very good and I have the table pretty well squared up. I should look at those more closely. Thanks for the input.

I have started on the task using the tools I have on Hand. I also have another finned heatsink if I mess up or want to try again with better tools.

Some kid would probably pay you $30 for those heatsinks!! :slight_smile:

I’m going to have to go snoop around and see if there is a preferred drill geometry for copper. I’ve only drilled tubing a few times…sure can be grabby but not as bad/disastrous as lead.

Well, I took a step backwards. The monobloc cell carrier and switch mount design was a problem as I previously explained. So, now there will be a two piece block. A small piece for the switch mounting and a larger piece for the cell. I also changed the cell that will be used. I will explain as I go along.

First, the switch mount change. I made switched from softwood (pine) to a hard maple hardwood. I cut and routed two pieces with slightly different total thickness to see what would work best.

The change to a two piece block means a different method must be used to hold all the pieces together. That begins with the need to drill a hole in the copper heatsink plate, for a machine screw. The spacing of the fins required removing a part of a couple of fins.

Here’s where the hole is positioned. A 2-56 machine screw is to be used. This is the smallest size screw I like to work with. The head of even the smallest style screw head is too large to fit between fins. I did not want the screw head to protrude above the upper surface of the heatsink.

I used a Dremel tool and a steel cutter bit. The heatsink was securely clamped in the bench vice. I hand held the Dremel tool, quite firmly and with both elbows braced and supported on the bench. With a certain amount of trepidation I removed copper a fraction of a millimeter at a time. Mostly it went pretty good, though the recess ended up larger than intended due to a slip or two.

The hard maple switch mount plate was next. One of the strips I cut and routed was ripped to a narrower size; the same width as the heatsink. The front end rounded to fit the curve at the front end.

The next picture shows the switch test fitted and then the driver mount fitted/screwed into its place.

The driver was test fitted as well.

More coming in a few minutes

On to cutting, drilling the hard maple cell holder portion. This did not go well the first time. Pictured below is the first block drilled

The cutting down to a smaller width was started….

The bored hole was slightly skewed towards on side. I was concerned about this as drills sometimes do drift in wood. The clearances were tiny, critical. The failed block is pictured to the left. A new maple block has holes drilled and is pictured to the right. This second attempt will be done in two sections, both shorter and should have less cnce of drill bit drift.
I hope.

An additional change is the size of the cell. My original plan was to use 18650 flat or button top cells as I have lots of them. However, I also wanted to use that heatsink which is 20mm wide. That does not leave much extra to work with for an 18650 cell along with some copper tube that the tail cap/plug assembly will be built with. I did not want to use 14500 cells. That is too easy. The cells lower capacity than I wanted. Therefore I bought a 16650 vapcell from illumn.com

I used a section of 17mm OD x 1mm wall copper tube as an alignment tool for the two small block. Then made several small cuts with lots of measuring and careful saw adjustments to slice the maple blocks narrower and shorter.

All the pieces so far, test fitted…

The bored holes are of two sizes. The longer through hole is 17mm. Each block also has a 3/4” deep 19mm hole drilled from one end. The section to the rear of the light will be fitted with a yet to be made removable, bayonet locked, tailplug to provide access for cell changing.

The hole for the 2-56 machine screw was drilled through the switch mount maple strip and into the cell holder block immediately below. (So sorry about he lack of contrast between the work vice surface and the maple blocks.)

The pilot hole in the cell holder block was bored out to accept a press fit threaded spacer sleeve. That was glued in place with thin CA glue. The aluminum spacer surface was roughed with a file corner.

The last image for today has the heat sink, switch plate and cell block secured with a hex head machine screw. A 16650 cell is slipped inside as a fitment test. I am happier today than I was a few days ago.

Happy enough that we are going camping for a couple of days for our 44th anniversary, even though we have rainy weather. We do have a small trailer instead of a tent though.

Next will be the making of the tailplug assembly and setting the overall cell mount length. Then the mounting of the mcpcb and optic. Wiring it all up and testing and hoping it functions.

Then the body shell! I think I can see the end.

Looking great Don!

That diagonal heatsink looks cool :sunglasses: I’m already liking this build better than last year’s entry :+1:

When I saw the heatsink on aliexpress I just had to buy and use it in a project!

Looking good. Can’t wait to see more

More…. before I get to making the tailplug assembly I need to do some work on the main inside wood blocks that will carry the 16650 cell and connect the frint end to the tail.

The two blocks will not remain snugged up against each other. Howerver, I need to cut a groove in the bottom of each block and this will be more easily done with them temporarily paired together. I used the top switch plate and a length of 17mm tube to hold them aligned.

I made several passes over the router bit, with the bit raised a little each pass. I’m not about to try and photogrph the work while I am doing it, so the next images illustrate what I did.

Here’s a close up of the groove, or slot, I cut

I did some light sanding to size the pieces, clamped together, on the belt sander

The front block needs a notch cutout to clear the driver mount

A hand saw was used…

… and a chisel…

I test fitted the driver, heatsink and front block. The driver spring can be just barely seen in the shadow with the + end of the cell visible against the driver spring.

Some of the available copper tubing is ever so slightly over size. With the sides of the maple block so thin in places I decided it was best to sand the wood block a little to reduce the tight fit… (this is the tail end of the rear block where the tailplug assembly will be fitted.)

I also sanded down the OD of the 19mm copper tube.

Here is the view of the bottom of the grooved blocks. Beside that is a hard maple spline I cut from the larger stock I used for all these wood parts.

A nice snug, but not too tight fit…

The spline was trimmed. The entire bottom will be trimmed with the spline in place to make a smooth bottom.

…more coming…

PS: The maple is quite this=n in the area right beside the bored hole. As a result there was some tearing of the wood when I cut the notch. I filed and sanded those edges a little to remove the rough edges. These wood parts will all be hidden inside the laminated wood body shell.

I then switched from wood work to metal work; the tail plug assembly.

A piece of scrap sheet copper was silver soldered to one end of a 17mm OD x 1mm wall copper tube. This will be used for making the “plug”.

After trimming the sheet copper off with snips and filing a hole was drilled and tapped in the tube side. A brass 8-32 machine screw was threaded into the tapped hole and then silver soldered in place. This screw will be cut off and used for making a lug that will be a part of the bayonet mechanism of the plug.

A piece of 19mm x 1mm copper tube will be used to make the outer sleeve of the bayonet tailplug assembly. I started the slot with two saw cuts…

Then some small files were used to enlage and shape the slot…

More saw cuts and more file work to bring the slot at a 90 degree angle to the first slot…

When the pieces are all assembled with a cell in place the spring pressure will push the plug back. The notch will lock the plug in place, preventing accidental turning.

A short length of the 19mm tube with the filed slot was cut off. The initial sanding was done with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. This piece was next polished with finer grits; 320 and 600.

Here it is with the still long and uncut plug piece fitted.

…more fine sanding on the plug piece and the two parts separated…

… and coupled…

The plug cut to length…

The plug and the bayonet sleeve…. The lug was filed down to the same level at the OD of the 19mm sleeve…

I reduced the OD of a dowel to fit inside the tailplug, by sanding of course.

The dowel will be cut shorter and fitted with a finger grip later.

The front portion of the rear block was cut off at the point where the bore hole changed from 17mm to 19mm. I only require the 19mm piece to hold the tail plug assembly. The front and rear blocks will later be glued to the bottom spline.

Here is the above trial fitting with the tailplug removed.

Here’s a close up shot of the tail end with the block moved out of place…

I soldered a spring to the tail plug.

That is all for now. Thanks for looking. More to come another day.

Wowsers, Don! Coming along nicely.

After seeing all of your hard work, I feel kinda ashamed on my build. :frowning:

This build is really special, so much handwork.
I admire your skills, you should open a school of flashlights one day…



Great progress, happy to see you are no longer halted
That is a very cunning trick, I wonder if placing a o-ring on the inner part can make it waterproof (obviously not for a wooden light)

Amazing, Don :wink: :open_mouth:

More….

I previously test mounted the switch. The test proved the concept was good but I did not like the feel of it. On careful inspection I found the problem to be that the switch boot did not protrude enough above the surface of the heat sink top. I found a boot that was higher. It also required a larger hole as it was greater in diameter.

I drilled out the original hole from 21/64” to 25/64”, 1/64” at a time. Past experience with re-boring holes in copper has been that jumping too big an amount greatly increases the chances of the drill bit grabbing or hogging and causing problems. Slow and easy was successful.

The increased height of the boot necessitated coming up with a thicker spacer (nubbin?) inside the boot to transfer the press motion to the momentary switch button. I cut up a different boot and sliced off a piece of it to be a spacer. The spacer is the black blob in the next picture.

I also had to drill the recess in the maple strip a millimeter or so deeper. The boot then fits snugly into the recess and retains the switc during assembly.

The pieces fit together…

I trial fitted the driver mount, or pill…

The pill was removed and the driver fitted. I soldered two short pieces of copper wire to the side of the pill. The driver was inserted and the wires bent over as tabs. The wire tabs were then soldered to the negative ring on the driver. That holds the driver in place as well as completing that part of the circuit. If I need to remove the driver at some point I find it easier to remove the wire tabs than to de-solder a blob as is used on the Convoy S2 driver and pill.

I did another trial assembly. I believe in testing fit and function frequently. I find that makes for simpler troubleshooting than forging ahead with several steps before testing. The switch operation was checked using a multimeter.

I used a temporary jumper and simply touched the switch leads from the driver together instead of wiring the switch. The test LED, an old XM-l lit and the driver ramped up and down.

That is all for now. Next I’ll mount the quad mcpcb with the Optisolis led’s to the front copper strip and complete the wiring of the components. I also need to glue the two cell carrier blocks to the bottome maple spline. In the photo the pieces are just sitting there, pushed together.

You may note that I cut a couple of slots lengthwise in the maple for the wires.

After that the bottom of the inside unit will be trimmed and I will begin on the body shell.

Once again, thanks for taking time to look at what I am doing.

I suppose an o-ring could be fitted somehow to seal the interface of the inner plug to the outer sleeve. Without using a lathe it would may be difficult to source tubing to make a ‘groove’ to retain the o-ring. Maybe not insurmountable but it would require more thought.