Back in Black - SST-90 4D Maglite "Shower Head" Aspheric build.

battery holder is finished, see first post.

I’m not sure I like all the “teasing”…maybe it would be better on us if you post it all at once! :wink:

Good stuff, as usual, O.L.

Well you're probably right.........

So I won't show the SST-90 on the Copper Star.

sststar

Yes, it looks funky, but it does work. There's two 7/8" 18ga copper disks, with a chunk of copper sitting on top. The wires are soldered from underneath and all the AA is because I don't like the wires suspended that way, so I wanted to make sure they were supported well. I could see one of the terminal strips peeling right off, now they won't. The led is soldered to the block, the block is soldered to the discs, which are soldered together. This will go on top of an aluminum heat sink that's the diameter of the mag tube and about 1" thick. That ought to keep things cool for a few minutes, but probably not longer. I am shooting for about 9.5 amps with it.

I tried it on 3AA eneloops direct and it is definitely about twice as bright as an XM-L. It will be interesting to see over 9 amps hooked up to it with 12 eneloops.

My apologies for the tease, but I just can't help myself.

Great work as usual Old L. That is a serious amount of work.

Sweet idea with that heat sink. Good job. I admire how fast you work despite taking care of the house and the missus and negotiating the heat too. Wish I had some of that tenacity O-L.

You are such an inspiration! Love that batteryholder.

Ive used 2x4 and 2x3 AA Eneloop for SST90 but it never got me real 9A. 3x3 should do better.

Justin, wonder where you got the SST90? I wish I had the $ and time to play with it like you do. Right now I’m just learning and hoping to “play” with all the knowledge you and others provide some day.

Mouser It’s EXpensive! but it’s the highest bin I’ve found (N) and 5700k.

This is how the light will look. I don't plan on a lot of embellishments. The only other thing I have to do to the body is the 550P treatment. I think it will look good with a Pa____rd w__p.

full

I'm waiting now for an Aluminum Heat sink. If I'm lucky, I might get the led/sink/drivers ready for testing this week end. Then I have to check focus distance and put the lens in permanently. After that it's the final touches, so by the end of next week, I might be able to do beam shots. I will do them at work, but I have to to do them on the week end, when I'm off. I have about 6 targets to use, from 300 yards, to 1.2 miles. No, I don't believe it will go that far, but that's a good target. It's a high rise on a hill and I'm on a hill at work.

Serious shower power. Great thread.

Aw man! This rocks!

Great stuff so far, O-L! Really like what you did with the host. Looking forward to you wrapping it up and turning it on. 8)

More photos, including a wiring diagram, in the first post.

great job on the soldering and wiring diagram. BTW, you don’t have to solder both the centre leg and the back leg of the AMC chips as they’re electrically identical.

Easiest way for me to understand the Master-Slave thing is this. The AMC chips are simple current sinks - switch ’em on and they pass whatever their rated current is, from the LED to the battery. To switch them on, they need a certain voltage on their Vdd pin (either the left or right front pin, I can never remember), 3V or thereabouts I think. So, simple single mode boards just have a diode or resistor between the B+ and the Vdd pin whereas multi-mode boards have an MCU that switches that pin on and off very quickly (PWM) to control the amount of current sunk through the chip over a certain time.

So, what you’re doing with the Master-Slave set up is making a couple of single mode boards (the Slaves), then wiring their Vdd traces to the Vdd trace on the Master board, et voila, mahoosive multi-mode current! Another way of doing it would be to just start with single mode boards as Slaves to begin with, but I don’t think you can get them in 8xAMC formats (only 4x boards as far as I’m aware).

Hope that wasn’t condescending, it was quite a revelation for me when I figured it out!

1 question. Will you be making some to sell?

Not condescending at all.

I soldered the back, just for stabilization and for another heat path.

I have found that Arctic Alumina does not like heat! What the heck is that? AA is supposed to be good for heat, but I'll tell you what, I have had many instances where I soldered something like these chips and the chip came loose from the AA. I've seen it on led stars too, when soldering the wires on. I am not very happy about AA and if it is the best of the bunch, I can see why stars should always be screwed down instead of using thermal compound.

Sorry, had to rant....... just had to.

You mean drivers or lights?

If it's drivers, no, I would not be making any for sale. It's too much stress, LOL.

Seriously, for me, it's very hard to do these, so I try to do them only when I have to.

What do the hardcore computer people use on their heat sinks ??

They use thermal grease, not adhesive and they use all different types of clamping methods, to hold the heat sinks on. They don’t use adhesive because they can’t take if off easily and because clamping or hold downs are the only real way to hold two pieces together. We just don’t have that kind of room in a flashlight.

AA needs pressure and a lot of it to work properly as it’s not an adhesive - alumina adhesive would be what you’re after AA on newegg Plain AA works fine on CPU heatsinks as the clips/clamps/screws provide an enormous amount of pressure, but wouldn’t be any good for a component left floating around :frowning:

I’ve always screwed my LEDs down on all of my builds, although I tend to have more room to play with. You can get sweet little allen cap screws with 4#40 threads that fit within the holes on the star, those might help. I have a draw full of them (scavenged off an old microscope filter wheel) if you want any - I’d have to build 20 or 30 lights to use all of them, which, you know might happen {tick, twitch}