6 Xm-l light bar build

raccoon city, I’m just curious… What’s with the car, the dunecat and the fanta-dog in every thread? LED Headlights and 18650 powered animals or something? I just can’t figure out their relevance…

PPtk

The car belongs to someone named nofearek9. (Though there's no way you could know that.)

Both the cat and the dog posters have the words "no fear".

The pictures usually have something to do with the new member's user name.

Got it… Thanks for explaining :slight_smile:

You should measure the temperature of a LED. I guess it is rather high. What kind of PCB?

thanks.
this is my actual car :slight_smile:
ek9 is the chassis code for the car. (honda civic type R 1997-2000)

Looks like a Troutie got bit by a radioactive spider. Nice board. Nice housing. Also make a good back up light for say, the Space Shuttle.

.031 FR4 with tons of vias under the leds. I have hit the board and leds with my infrared gun and they measured 70c, this is where thermal rollback is. This was with no air flow. Housing temp is barely over ambient when traveling 50+ mph.

Sweet! I would be interested in one. Probably need to machine a groove in the housing to solve your o-ring/gasket issue.

Great build Bigtoy! Hope you could deliver to Philippines once its available.

Can your setup support dimming via potentiometer ? exploring possibility of having a High and Low setting so we can have low for non off-road use and high for off-road sorties.

There is a groove in the housing. It is the lens cover that is flexing between the bolt holes.

No pot. Light can be programmed for up to 16 modes. The light has low,med,high now.

I missed the fact that there was already a groove for the 0-ring. DUH. 4 more screws in the ‘corners’ would certainly help but have you given any thought to just using a thicker piece of lexan/plexiglass or whatever it is you are using for a lens? Just a thought.

It is the aluminum cover that is flexing not the lens. Adding more screws will fix it.

Gotcha. Really nice work. I want one to light up my workbench. Yeah, I know. Sounds a little crazy but…………

Very nice work. Too bad they’re a little out of my price range. I’ll have to stick with cheap hid’s in cheap housings until I can afford a nice LED light bar like that.

Man, great project. That unit looks both serious and professional - nice board by PilotPTK :slight_smile:

Will

A beamshot with the two outer elliptics now would be nice, curious to see how much better side lighting you have now!
Do you have an idea on availability date? weeks, months, years… :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, any chance the final product will have a lower price tag?

I will get some beamshots tomorrow night.

I am hoping to have lights ready by the end of the year. I want to test his one some more and finalize the wiring.

Pricing will not change unless you want to buy in bulk.

Great idea and awesome craftsmanship on the unit.

If you have the time, you might also want to experiment with a 5-unit design where the middle three emitters have larger reflectors (say 55-57mm) and the ones on each side have smaller reflectors and are angled out a few degrees. That will greatly enhance the throw down the center, as well as the flood off to the sides.

Also, when you do the beamshots, try a couple different shutter speeds, say from 2 sec to 6 seconds, I bet it will give you a better depiction of the beam.

Best application I have seen of XM-L technology outside the flashlight world.

Oh, almost forgot. You mentioned the optics being 26.5mm narrow; looks like they use aspherics. Have you tried it without the aspherics?

The board is one piece, so angling the side ones is not possible. The elliptcals give plenty of light to the side.

Leds are in strings of 3, so 5 is not logical. I am trying to make the light small, I do not want to use any larger optics.

The optics I am using are not aspherics.

Pics are F4.5, ISO 100, 6 seconds on a tripod. Canon T3i.

I’m thinking one of those would be an awesome compliment to a safari rack on my landcruiser, no bashing lights on low branches when green laning 8)