100 W COB LED portable floodlight DIY

This kind of pointless thing was hatching since November and forgotten several times. Finally the rev. 1 is complete. In my book, this will count as sort of a flashlight once it's complete with an external battery pack.

A little gallery:

Obviously this is still work-in-progress. Even a ventilation hole under the fan is still missing.

The 100 watt emitter was just inexpensive enough when I started. It's currently driven at about 2.3 amperes or roughly 70 watts. In this config, heatsink reaches at least 60 degrees C. I did short test runs @100W too. This is a platform project and I'm thinking about possibly going for a 200 watt emitter and larger lens or maybe mule flood. Alternatively, I could use an array plate with several Cree emitters and probably get higher efficiency. Maybe one that's already out there or even make my own with several MT-G2s.

I'm currently using a 19 volt high-output laptop PSU for powering this thing. A battery pack is under construction. Now it's still relying on AC power. Next accessory will be a car cigarette lighter plug. I hope the boost converter can step up from 15 or 11 volts. The 6S pack with ICR18650 26F initially will be pretty much guaranteed to work as it provides more voltage than my AC PSU but still 6-10 volts less than the output, and the battery pack current will only be around 3-4 A at this power level.

Any budget suggestions for a 6S battery holder for slightly longer than standard cells? I'm going all duct tape and stuff otherwise.

Component listing. May not be from these exact sources but identical products:

100 watt COB array unit: www.dx.com/p/100w-9000lm-3050k-warm-white-light-10-x-10-led-module-33-35v-169052

Optics kit for the LED: www.dx.com/p/jrled-44-5mm-50-high-borosilicate-convex-lens-condenser-lens-set-silver-transparent-301069

The housing is modified from some house electrics stuff from Biltema. http://www.biltema.fi/sv-fi/Bygg/El/Elektrikerverktyg/Kopplingsdosa-2000034324/ Biltema product number 462022. Made by "tp electric". No longer IP67.

DC-DC converter for LED: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-DC-600W-10-60V-to-12-80V-Boost-Converter-Step-up-Module-Power-Supply-/170893208817

Heatpipe cooler: http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/freezer-7-pro-rev-2.html

The CPU cooler's fan was removed and a smaller 12 volt fan installed instead.

DC-DC converter for fan: www.dx.com/p/mini-3a-4-5-28v-input-0-8-20v-output-step-down-voltage-regulator-green-238815

Switch: http://www.biltema.fi/sv-fi/Bil---MC/Bil-tillbehor/Bil-el/Strombrytare/Vippstrombrytare-med-skyddslock-2000019022/

DC power connectors: www.dx.com/p/male-female-dc-power-converter-connector-adapters-w-terminal-blocks-for-cctv-camera-pair-105084

Input voltage meter: www.dx.com/p/s3230-3-digit-red-led-digital-voltage-meter-dc-3-2-30v-163583

I had to switch to the beefier converter as this converter/driver did not really work above 2 amps and made a distracting whining noise anyway. It appears that when going up even from 20 to 30 volts, the maximum output is significantly reduced with unit. After setting the desired current limit, malfunctions after cycling power and goes down to about 1.6 amperes every time. It might just be reaching its output maximum voltage too. The "600 watt" unit works very well and is easier to adjust, too.

There are no beamshots yet, as I simply had no dark rooms or darkness outside when taking the photos. These will be added later. Well, they won't be beamshots really, as this thing does not have much of a beam. Just flood and spill.

Dude!! You’ve put a lot of work into this light and i’m impressed! :smiley: but, you need to post… it would be real nice if you post beam shots! or at least some comparison to an existing bright light. Thanks :slight_smile:

OK, I decided to do something right away. Here they are.

http://imgur.com/a/hMpfK#1

It's not very powerful... at least yet. And I don't have anything remotely similar, so let's compare with something very different so we can see which beam is which. A generic budget chinese semi-thrower with cool tint! XM-L T6 @ 3.3 amperes.

Here we have 70 watts against 10 watts, and the COB array has considerably worse efficiency than a high power Cree emitter, and the lens optics are nowhere near the decent 35mm reflector of the flashlight.. So it's not 7 times the amount of light. Even then, the flooder is more powerful in comparison than it appears in these photos. I'll take better photos later (as well as beams from my triple 219 S2+ I also promised). These very quick phone camera shots were at auto mode.

Added edit: Found more details of part numbers, and found an error in one of the gallery titles. It's not XM-L @3 watts obviously, it's 3.3 A as stated in the text so more like 10+ watts. I'll post more updates as I make upgrades.


The housing measurements are 110 x 180 x 70 mm, and the light is slightly bigger with protruding parts in the front and top.


The admittedly unimpressive photos have automatically adjusted exposure and ISO, so next time I'm going to manually force those. The location was also bad with the white door visible etc. But there was suddenly snow out of nowhere in the middle of the night and I couldn't be bothered to put on my shoes!