6 Xm-l light bar build

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)

Beam shots with outer two optics swapped out for ellipticals.

Looks like a perfect mix of hotspot and spill now, very good! :bigsmile:
Would you say the exposure of the picture reflect the same amount of light your eyes were perceiving? If so that’s really a great offroad light for sure, the wait will be worth!

In the picture, was it still mounted on top of your DR Suzuki? I may be wrong, but light seems to be aimed slightly downward, and maybe it could result a bit more throw if aimed a little higher, don’t you?

Such an impressive build. One of those would fit perfect in the front of my car, that’s for sure.

The pictures are very close to what you actualy see.

Yes, these pics are taken with the light on the DRZ. I do have the light aimed down. Aiming it up did not gain any throw. It just took away the light righ inf ront of you.

Wow, that's friggin' amazing!