Hi everyone,
I don't particularly like introducing myself so i'll show something i've been working on instead.
A lot of my builds, due to my interest in doing things differently for the sake of it, err on the expensive side and that's not really in the spirit of this forum.
This build however has stayed quite cheap as most of the stock material has been off-cuts and the components aren't particularly special, i don't think i've even broken any tooling yet either.
So i present my 5mm array drop-in:
I'm not really sure why i started making this drop-in, i suppose i just thought it would be cool to use something considered quite out of date, the original flashlight LED format of 5mm, but
in an 'as up to date as possible' kind of way.
The LEDs i'm using are Nichia NSDW570GS-K1's with a stated output of 28 lumens each and are one of the highest performing 5mm LEDs available (i hope).
I'm over-driving them quite a bit with 1.4A from the standard Nanjg driver so perhaps 250 lumens from the array might be achievable.
I've run out of silver solder so progress on this has stalled for now.
I'm also awaiting some stainless solder flux for the positive spring and some potting mix.
Hope this has been of interest, stay tuned for more progress in the next few days.
(07/07/13)
Right time for some progress.......
The flux for soldering stainless still hasn't turned up so i've had to some things out of the order i'd have liked, but this may actually have been a good thing.
All will be explained:
This picture just shows some of the lead paths before they get covered up by the rest of the assembly.
I didn't really want to solder the leads to the driver board before i'd installed the spring but with nothing else to do i pressed on with it.
One thing i did mean to do though was install the LED assembly into the main body before joining it to the driver as the body is narrower than the driver board.
After cursing and considering unsoldering the board i decided to dremel two slots for the board into the body section:
This actually worked out quite well as i can test the module while still having enough access to fix any problems that may occur.
Luckily it operated perfectly well for the second or two i tested it for and after blinding myself to make sure all 7 LEDs were operating i potted the leads to make sure they couldn't move and break when the wires are coiled up when the driver board is installed fully.
I'm about to do the same to the leads at the driver end, there is now a brass heat puck stuck to the back of the driver to secure the wires to.
Apart from the potting mentioned above i still have to:
Learn to solder stainless steel,
Tin the stainless spring, install it around the copper braid and solder it to the driver board,
Test the module again,
Pot the internal space in the module and secure the driver board into place with the retaining ring.
I'm very much hoping the flux turns up tomorrow and i can finally finish this project.
(07/09/13)
All finished thank goodness.
Soldering to stainless steel wasn't too hard at all with the right flux and a decent silver solder.
The brass contact puck is not soldered into place but fits tightly into the top of the spring. This makes replacing the copper braid a simpler task if needed.
I was going to put this drop-in into an L2N but since it hasn't arrived yet i swapped the Nailbender that was in this host; a lovely L2T Stainless Edition.
The drop-in gives a complete flood of light. I suspect the reflector does very little apart from giving a petal effect to the edge of the beam if observed close to a wall.
I'm finding it hard to do any tint comparisons as this doesn't have any real hot spot and i don't have any other mule type lights.
I'll mess around tonight to see if i can get some tint comparisons some way or another.
(07/10/13)
The beam turns out to be not very good at all; full of lines and shadows.
It's kind of pretty but not any great use as a light.
The tint comparison shots are of little use as this drop-in gives different shades throughout the beam.
The light on the right is from a edc+ nichia triple on medium, on the left is the 5mm array drop-in on high.
It was an interesting build and gave me the opportunity to improve some of my electrical and mechanical skills but it's a bit of a lousy light engine.
In retrospect i should have used the Nichia NSPW500GS LED as is has a 15 degree projection angle rather than the 140 degrees of the LED i used.
Welcome to this wonderful forum and thanks for sharing!
