Too early to say.. I haven't looked at the costs of anything in any type of quantity. The cost for this one is about a gazillion dollars It would be far more reasonable if I were building 20...
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
not sure why gz means - but It will probably still be 2-3 weeks before I have it fully built up.
CNC Machined from a 18" x 4" x 4" billet of 6061 Aluminum
I'm not sure I understand your question. The lenses will be attached to the mounting holes on the circuit board, positioned perfectly over the LEDs on the circuit board. On the front of the enclosure will be a piece of laser-cut Lexan with an aluminum bezel around the edge.
gz mean congratulations ...for the birthof your project, maybe is not the most appropriate adjective but my english is very poor sry xD
finally I got what mean the title, ty(read above xD)
mmh was really close to your answer... I think, ty xD
You do fantastic work. Can't wait to see the finished product
Thank You! That makes two of us
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
The vast majority of the reason I 'built my own' light like this is that I found the thermal charachteristics of most of the commercial stuff.. well.. terrible.
All of the big brands out there build their lights on an extruded aluminum frame. The problem with this is that, even when they do extrude heat sheading 'fins' into their frame - they face the wrong way! I don't drive sideways!
After a lot of reading, I found that most of the available stuff has serious heat problems. ALL of the lights have a small-print disclaimer about their brightness claims and it's all because of heat. They have to back off on driving the LED's because the whole assembly gets too hot.
So - 6 months later - here we are, and I've started building my own. Before I went down this road, I did plenty of thermal analysis, and I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my results.
Here are two cut-plots of the steady-state temperature of the light. These temperatures assume that I am driving 24 XM-Ls at 3 Amps Each (240 Total Heat Watts), and they assume that its 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) in the ambient environment. They also take into account a light breeze (2 MPH) passing from front to back. The numbers would be far better with even a few more MPH of airflow. These are worst case scenario.
As you can see, I can easily drive all 24 emitters full-blast for as long as I want, even in 90 degree weather. The careful thermal design of this light is what allowed me to cram 240 watts of LEDs into a bar that is 15" long rather than 48" long.
Cut-Plot JUST behind where the actual LEDs are mounted. This is the hottest part of the entire light. Also visible are the trails of cooler (but still quite warm) air as it passes through the fins at 2MPH.
Side view Cut-Plot through about the center of the enclosure. You can see one of the lenses and an entire fin.
Hope you're all enjoying my ramblings about this project. I really can't wait to get it lit up.
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
, MTBR’s Lights & Night Riding Forum NOTE: Now hosting my photos from my Google account. Post up if you can’t see them. Older photos hosted on Photobucket or Flickr may disappear (PM me if you want access to them).
Interesting Pilot. You are so right about the heat sinking fins on lights. For bike lights, they usually face front to back so air is flowing over them. As a matter of fact, most bike lights get quite hot standing still because they were designed with air flow in mind. Here's an example you might find interesting. Troute started as a DIY guy.
I'll take two! One for the roof and one for the front bumper.
Picture not showing up - but I actually have considered selling these once I have the design working and debugged.. I'll keep you informed if I decide to do that..
PPtk
That's ok. It was just a picture of my old trail Jeep (XJ). But yeah, keep us posted if you do decide to make them for sale. I've been holding off installing any aux lights because nothing really struck my fancy. This looks like a winner!
thermal analysis, and to an extent that very few, if any, manufactured lights get
that is one squared away flashaholic!
Sorry I've been gone for a while - Life got busy, as life tends to do once in a while..
dthrckt, Thanks very much for the 'wow' Thermal Analysis is quite amazing today - My suspicion is that the big guys don't do it because they don't want to know
dthrckt wrote:
Can you give us a list of software you used for this?
The Solid Modeling was done with SolidWorks 2011
Thermal Analysis was done with Solidworks Flow Simulation 2011.
CNC CAM was done with Mastercam X4.
Circuit board Schematic Design was done with Orcad Capture CIS
Circuit board Layout/Route was done with Cadence Allegro 16.3
More to come! PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Had a few minutes the other day, so I threw together a schematic and layout for the circuit board that will carry the LED's and the drivers. I may consider sharing this once it's been debugged and proven to work.
Here's what went out to be fabricated. Should have it back in three or four days.
Overall, the board has 1,678 vias - the vast majority of which are strictly for helping move heat away from the LED emitters and into the enclosure.
The board was designed for 30 Amps of current (Max current with 24 LEDS at 3A each is about 20 Amps) with less than 0.05V of drop across the 14 inch length. Each group of 3 LEDs will be infinitely and independently variable in brightness. PWM Frequency of the constant current drivers will be 500 KHz, so there will be NO audible hum or visible blink. With the particular N-Channel MOSFETs and ultra-fast recovery Schottkys that I've picked, efficiency of the driver should be 92.. maybe 93 percent. Not bad..
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Circuit boards showed up yesterday. They look great. I'll be putting parts on and testing the circuits this week - should be making light by next weeekend.
The enclosure goes monday to be anodized.
2ish weeks and I should have a fully completed light!
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
This project is so awesome . . . I can't wait to see this on the front of your Jeep. Regarding throw; would you say each triple approximates say, a Dry or Sky Ray in size/reflector depth/configuration. Will it be, basically 18 Drys and 6 triple XP-Gs driven to within an inch of their collective lives?
Sorry if I missd it . . .
Foy
—
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
This project is so awesome . . . I can't wait to see this on the front of your Jeep. Regarding throw; would you say each triple approximates say, a Dry or Sky Ray in size/reflector depth/configuration. Will it be, basically 18 Drys and 6 triple XP-Gs driven to within an inch of their collective lives?
Sorry if I missd it . . .
Foy
Foy,
Thanks very much for the kind words. I'm happy that you are enjoying my project.
The optics are a LITTLE smaller than the SkyRay/TrustFire/DRY - but they're TIR, not reflectors. In my limited experimentation with them, the beam profile is quite similar to my trustfire 3-XML. The hot spot is beautiful and is hard to even define - it just rolls off into very useful spill.
I believe the Trustfire and the Skyray are actually driven less hard than I will be driving my emitters. I'm giving them TRUE current-controled 3A each. I'm not sure how hard the DRY is driven, but I think I recall it having a Direct-Drive mode where it's probably getting more than 3A per emitter.
For the moment, I'm going to populate the board with all XM-Ls (24 of them), as I don't believe I'm going to need the additional throw from a few XP-Gs. There will just be so much light coming out the front of this thing that I don't believe its going to matter, and I'd rather have the raw lumens of the XM-L's than the slight increase in throw from the XP-G's with the resulting fewer total lumens. I'm also more confident that I can get the tint to match using all the same emitter type.
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Absolutely brilliant project, looking forward tot his perhaps becoming available as a kit.
I still haven't made my mind up about this.. Depending on how it all comes together, I may sell the completed units. I'd probably be willing to sell it as a kit as well, but frankly, it would be really difficult for most people to put together at home. The circuit board uses QFN parts.. 0603 parts.. and even the emitters aren't easy to solder. I solder QFN parts by hand all the time, but I've been doing this for a long time - a hobbiest doesn't stand much of a chance of soldering a QFN..
What I might consider is selling the circuit board with all the parts already on it as part of a 'kit'.. The only problem with that is that the unit is 90% built at that point.. kind of defeats the purpose of the word 'kit'.. Still pondering..
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Awesome work! Did you learn or study something related to this?
THANK YOU! I'm an electrical engineer, and all of us EE's are forced to be mechanical engineers whether we want to or not..
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
wow you are a perfectionist also a dedicated board
but hey lazy ass you promised 2/3 weeks! ...kidding xD
Oh, I'm far from a perfectionist... Too many years of getting things done, not getting things perfect. Perfect comes at the cost of time - not a luxury I usually have.. I always strive for 'as close to perfect as I can get in a reasonable time period'. Thank you though, I'm proud of my project - perfect or not.
I only wish it was me being lazy that has held this project up a bit. I can't tell you how much I'd like to sit on a beach with a Johnny Walker Blue and have people point and call me lazy Unfortunately, what has held this project up has been work - I've been absolutely buried the past month or so.
It's coming though - results soon!
PPtk
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Ahhh . . . TIR, so that's how you're getting the throw you need. And, you're right about the Dry; mine pulls near 5 amps at the tail cap - don't know how much each emitter gets . . .
alotFoy
—
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
Ahhh . . . TIR, so that's how you're getting the throw you need. And, you're right about the Dry; mine pulls near 5 amps at the tail cap - don't know how much each emitter gets . . .
alotFoy
5 Amps? Holy crap. the DRY has 3 18650's right? If it does, that means that each emitter is getting 5 amps! (subtract a LITTLE for driver inefficiency, but it's a few percent at most)
I can't believe XM-L's are not just blowing up with sustained driving at 5 amps! It's also pointless, since past about 3.5 amps, XML emitters convert almost all of that extra power to heat, not light...
PPtk
P.S. - The driver circuitry I designed could easily support driving each XM-L to 5, even 6 amps.. Once I have everything debugged and working, I might crank them up to 4 amps per to see if it makes any (visible) difference.. It would also be trivial to put a few SST-90's in place of some XM-Ls. The only thing I would have to do is change the inductor and double the output capacitance (easy), and then my driver could happily give 9 amps to each SST-90 Heat would be a major problem though. It would be fine for short bursts, but there is no way that my enclosure could dissipate 720 watts of power without a shit-ton of airflow. If one needed a ton of light during a hurricane, though, it would be perfect
—
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Many Drys (including mine) have a 20 second step-down UI. 20 seconds in "turbo" mode and it steps down to high and you're right; Match did a chart that shows the gains above 3.5 amps are small/don't justify the heat/emitter abuse. But, with 3 x 18650 the Dry does indeed feed each emitter with that much current.
Since there's no free lunch when dealing with extreme output, I guess that's why I'm so impressed with how you've addressed the necessary trade-offs.
amazingFoy
—
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
-the- Throw calculator - Pulsars list
Too early to say.. I haven't looked at the costs of anything in any type of quantity. The cost for this one is about a gazillion dollars
It would be far more reasonable if I were building 20...
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
gz mean congratulations ...for the birth of your project, maybe is not the most appropriate adjective but my english is very poor sry xD
finally I got what mean the title, ty(read above xD)
mmh was really close to your answer... I think, ty xD
You do fantastic work. Can't wait to see the finished product
Boycott Nike
Thank You! That makes two of us
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
The vast majority of the reason I 'built my own' light like this is that I found the thermal charachteristics of most of the commercial stuff.. well.. terrible.
All of the big brands out there build their lights on an extruded aluminum frame. The problem with this is that, even when they do extrude heat sheading 'fins' into their frame - they face the wrong way! I don't drive sideways!
After a lot of reading, I found that most of the available stuff has serious heat problems. ALL of the lights have a small-print disclaimer about their brightness claims and it's all because of heat. They have to back off on driving the LED's because the whole assembly gets too hot.
So - 6 months later - here we are, and I've started building my own. Before I went down this road, I did plenty of thermal analysis, and I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my results.
Here are two cut-plots of the steady-state temperature of the light. These temperatures assume that I am driving 24 XM-Ls at 3 Amps Each (240 Total Heat Watts), and they assume that its 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) in the ambient environment. They also take into account a light breeze (2 MPH) passing from front to back. The numbers would be far better with even a few more MPH of airflow. These are worst case scenario.
As you can see, I can easily drive all 24 emitters full-blast for as long as I want, even in 90 degree weather. The careful thermal design of this light is what allowed me to cram 240 watts of LEDs into a bar that is 15" long rather than 48" long.
Cut-Plot JUST behind where the actual LEDs are mounted. This is the hottest part of the entire light.
Also visible are the trails of cooler (but still quite warm) air as it passes through the fins at 2MPH.
Side view Cut-Plot through about the center of the enclosure. You can see one of the lenses and an entire fin.
Hope you're all enjoying my ramblings about this project. I really can't wait to get it lit up.
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Gonna need some beamshots of this baby! Looks fantastic!
-Garry
My Bike Lights Thread, Optics (TIR) Comparison Beamshots, Diffusion Techniques
, MTBR’s Lights & Night Riding ForumNOTE: Now hosting my photos from my Google account. Post up if you can’t see them. Older photos hosted on Photobucket or Flickr may disappear (PM me if you want access to them).
Interesting Pilot. You are so right about the heat sinking fins on lights. For bike lights, they usually face front to back so air is flowing over them. As a matter of fact, most bike lights get quite hot standing still because they were designed with air flow in mind. Here's an example you might find interesting. Troute started as a DIY guy.
wow
thermal analysis, and to an extent that very few, if any, manufactured lights get
that is one squared away flashaholic!
That is quite an impressive project!
Can you give us a list of software you used for this?
This is my flashlight collection.
That's ok. It was just a picture of my old trail Jeep (XJ). But yeah, keep us posted if you do decide to make them for sale. I've been holding off installing any aux lights because nothing really struck my fancy. This looks like a winner!
Nice, thumbs up for figuring out the cooling!
Some serious driving, 24 XM-L´s at 3A
At least I would be satisfied even with a little less of current with that amount of emitters
Wow.
I wish there more threads like this. 24 XM-Ls . . . farking awesome.
farkFoy
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
 
Really great
Cant wait for the result!
Fritz
Sorry I've been gone for a while - Life got busy, as life tends to do once in a while..
dthrckt, Thanks very much for the 'wow'
Thermal Analysis is quite amazing today - My suspicion is that the big guys don't do it because they don't want to know 
The Solid Modeling was done with SolidWorks 2011
Thermal Analysis was done with Solidworks Flow Simulation 2011.
CNC CAM was done with Mastercam X4.
Circuit board Schematic Design was done with Orcad Capture CIS
Circuit board Layout/Route was done with Cadence Allegro 16.3
More to come!
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Had a few minutes the other day, so I threw together a schematic and layout for the circuit board that will carry the LED's and the drivers. I may consider sharing this once it's been debugged and proven to work.
Here's what went out to be fabricated. Should have it back in three or four days.
Overall, the board has 1,678 vias - the vast majority of which are strictly for helping move heat away from the LED emitters and into the enclosure.
The board was designed for 30 Amps of current (Max current with 24 LEDS at 3A each is about 20 Amps) with less than 0.05V of drop across the 14 inch length. Each group of 3 LEDs will be infinitely and independently variable in brightness. PWM Frequency of the constant current drivers will be 500 KHz, so there will be NO audible hum or visible blink. With the particular N-Channel MOSFETs and ultra-fast recovery Schottkys that I've picked, efficiency of the driver should be 92.. maybe 93 percent. Not bad..
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Circuit boards showed up yesterday. They look great. I'll be putting parts on and testing the circuits this week - should be making light by next weeekend.
The enclosure goes monday to be anodized.
2ish weeks and I should have a fully completed light!
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Man, that's lookin' bad ass.
Pilot -
This project is so awesome . . . I can't wait to see this on the front of your Jeep. Regarding throw; would you say each triple approximates say, a Dry or Sky Ray in size/reflector depth/configuration. Will it be, basically 18 Drys and 6 triple XP-Gs driven to within an inch of their collective lives?
Sorry if I missd it . . .
Foy
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
 
Impressive. I'm really looking forward to this thing completed.
This is my flashlight collection.
Absolutely brilliant project, looking forward tot his perhaps becoming available as a kit.
Awesome work! Did you learn or study something related to this?
wow you are a perfectionist also a dedicated board
but hey lazy ass you promised 2/3 weeks! ...kidding xD
Foy,
Thanks very much for the kind words. I'm happy that you are enjoying my project.
The optics are a LITTLE smaller than the SkyRay/TrustFire/DRY - but they're TIR, not reflectors. In my limited experimentation with them, the beam profile is quite similar to my trustfire 3-XML. The hot spot is beautiful and is hard to even define - it just rolls off into very useful spill.
I believe the Trustfire and the Skyray are actually driven less hard than I will be driving my emitters. I'm giving them TRUE current-controled 3A each. I'm not sure how hard the DRY is driven, but I think I recall it having a Direct-Drive mode where it's probably getting more than 3A per emitter.
For the moment, I'm going to populate the board with all XM-Ls (24 of them), as I don't believe I'm going to need the additional throw from a few XP-Gs. There will just be so much light coming out the front of this thing that I don't believe its going to matter, and I'd rather have the raw lumens of the XM-L's than the slight increase in throw from the XP-G's with the resulting fewer total lumens. I'm also more confident that I can get the tint to match using all the same emitter type.
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
I still haven't made my mind up about this.. Depending on how it all comes together, I may sell the completed units. I'd probably be willing to sell it as a kit as well, but frankly, it would be really difficult for most people to put together at home. The circuit board uses QFN parts.. 0603 parts.. and even the emitters aren't easy to solder. I solder QFN parts by hand all the time, but I've been doing this for a long time - a hobbiest doesn't stand much of a chance of soldering a QFN..
What I might consider is selling the circuit board with all the parts already on it as part of a 'kit'.. The only problem with that is that the unit is 90% built at that point.. kind of defeats the purpose of the word 'kit'.. Still pondering..
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
THANK YOU!
I'm an electrical engineer, and all of us EE's are forced to be mechanical engineers whether we want to or not..
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Oh, I'm far from a perfectionist... Too many years of getting things done, not getting things perfect. Perfect comes at the cost of time - not a luxury I usually have.. I always strive for 'as close to perfect as I can get in a reasonable time period'. Thank you though, I'm proud of my project - perfect or not.
I only wish it was me being lazy that has held this project up a bit. I can't tell you how much I'd like to sit on a beach with a Johnny Walker Blue and have people point and call me lazy
Unfortunately, what has held this project up has been work - I've been absolutely buried the past month or so.
It's coming though - results soon!
PPtk
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Ahhh . . . TIR, so that's how you're getting the throw you need. And, you're right about the Dry; mine pulls near 5 amps at the tail cap - don't know how much each emitter gets . . .
alotFoy
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
 
5 Amps? Holy crap. the DRY has 3 18650's right? If it does, that means that each emitter is getting 5 amps! (subtract a LITTLE for driver inefficiency, but it's a few percent at most)
I can't believe XM-L's are not just blowing up with sustained driving at 5 amps! It's also pointless, since past about 3.5 amps, XML emitters convert almost all of that extra power to heat, not light...
PPtk
P.S. - The driver circuitry I designed could easily support driving each XM-L to 5, even 6 amps.. Once I have everything debugged and working, I might crank them up to 4 amps per to see if it makes any (visible) difference.. It would also be trivial to put a few SST-90's in place of some XM-Ls. The only thing I would have to do is change the inductor and double the output capacitance (easy), and then my driver could happily give 9 amps to each SST-90
Heat would be a major problem though. It would be fine for short bursts, but there is no way that my enclosure could dissipate 720 watts of power without a shit-ton of airflow. If one needed a ton of light during a hurricane, though, it would be perfect 
I am currently extremely busy with work. Please do not expect a response from me quickly. I will be dropping in as time permits, but the amount of time I can dedicate to responding to topics and PMs is very limited.
Many Drys (including mine) have a 20 second step-down UI. 20 seconds in "turbo" mode and it steps down to high and you're right; Match did a chart that shows the gains above 3.5 amps are small/don't justify the heat/emitter abuse. But, with 3 x 18650 the Dry does indeed feed each emitter with that much current.
Since there's no free lunch when dealing with extreme output, I guess that's why I'm so impressed with how you've addressed the necessary trade-offs.
amazingFoy
No referral links and nothing embedded . . . ever.
 
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