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Good luck with the build…and the recovery

Thanks mate!

I thought who ever had the worse injury wins a prize? lol

I am going to try and move my drill press and sander out of the shed blow away all the metal chips with my mini blower. I will try not to stick my fingers in the blades lol

Thanks lads! Went back to hospital and they cleaned and fixed it up again now its up to me to maintain lol.

Choosing an LED option
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I bought all 3 SST20s tints to try and i have 2 left the 4000k and 6500k so ill probably use one of them. Or might use the XPG3 if i just want it bright.

MascaratumB wrote:

Are you better, mate? Back to the build or not for now? Get better soon!!

Hey mate still not the best its still bleeding here and there after almost 2 weeks but its healing. You can see it closing in.

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Starting the build slowly. Cut the alloy down to size in two 8cm strips and sanded the sides nice and flat.
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Shout out to my cheap soldering iron that stays outside. No way i am leaving the good one in the shed
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Trying to get the LEDs centered lol
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Okayyyyy don’t laugh but i stalled my drill press 3 times doing this to much RPM i think so i changed it to the 500rpm setting i am still getting use to owning a drill press. I used s stepper drill bit to get the optics to fit inside the front bezel. I find i have no feedback from the drill press i was using a vice to hold the bezel steady while drilling.
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One drill press later lol
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Due to my injury i deiced to make a normal torch i wanted to make a custom headlamp but i can’t work with my finger to well so i planned this on the go.

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Thanks for the support lads!

Yea i went to Bunnings and got some Tasmanian oak to use should be easier to use some wood i had to get more flat bar either way. The oak is mediocre i liked the western red cedar it has a good pattern on it but i couldn’t find a size i could work with.

I am wondering how fast my plastic battery holder will melt if its going 15amps lol.

I will put this all together when i am done with the thread!

trying some heat sinks
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With 6 XPG3s running from 2 cells in direct drive it may get hot so i am trying to make a heat sink
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The gap is almost 4mm and the heat sink are only 3mm so i have to shimmy some shims in
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testing if the heat sink even works lol I used my heat gun to heat up the shelf
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Seems to work not the best but better than nothing? First pic the shelf is 40 degree Celsius and this picture the back of the first heat fin is 34 degrees Celsius
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Inside should look like this except i will cut the middle heat fin so i can fit driver and battery pack in
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It will have a wood top and bottom but the sides i have not decided yet i will polish the aluminum and see how it looks
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I may keep the front alloy or use wood it depends on what looks best
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Yea i might go fishing this weekend so i am making time when i can.

I found a better battery carrier with brass looking inserts so i hooked up what appears to be 20AWG wire to both sides. !!

looks mad dodgy but it works i got 3k lumens with one set of LEDs and 1 18650 so ill see how it goes when i add the other side.
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I ended up doing spring bypass on the battery holder to see how it goes and it helps but i either have to get bigger gauge wire or shorten it a fair bit.

I guess i will be happy with 4-5k lumens

So another day has come and i needed to join the aluminum frame together, Monday i tried brazing the frame which was a fail. Yesterday was d day i needed to have the frame together first up i tried drilling holes with a 1.5mm drill bit into 3mm aluminum which was not working so i quickly gave up on that.
Issue is the drill press has some run out its not that much but seeing as the dimension are so small its an issue. I currently don’t have the time to fix before doing this project but that is next up on my list. This was supposed to be a none issue cause i was going to use 5mm+ thick flat bar which i never got around to buying!

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Okay so best i idea ever! make some custom brackets all well and dandy if i had used steel lol. The aluminum ones snapped lol i tried to make the brackets with 1mm thick aluminum flat bar. Honestly i wasn’t expecting much but i was still disappointed when they broke! They are strong enough so i couldn’t break them by hand but once you attach them to the longer flat bar frame you they break easy. Steel would over come cause it can hold strength while being bent but i have no steel on hand.

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I was a proud parent for a while till they disappointed me like all children hahahaha For a moment i though id start a business fabricating custom parts hahahaha
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Okay so the brackets didn’t work. whats next? Bunnings trip maybe? Think monkey think! Googles gluing aluminum to aluminum lol This whole time knowing i don’t need the frame as such because it will be covered in wood. I didnt want to glue because the whole point of the frame is to help heat sink the LEDs. So a mechanical joint is the best way to go.

I fixed my back fence so the niece and nephew wouldn’t jump down the ledge with steel rope.

I mean who am i to judge ones beauty?
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I done more work after this i cleaned up the front of the LED shelf and made the heat sink fins shorter on both ends. I have glued some wood together with wood glue which will be the top and bottom of the light. I also rewired the driver with 20 gauge wire and i soldered the LED wires to the driver wires i thru in 2 cells and gave it a burl. Not tee bag!