Well this was all a huge waste of my time. In the end the light has a copper mounted XM-L2 U2 1A dedomed direct drive at 4.2A (measured at the emitter, the switch is very limiting). By the numbers it should be somewhere around 1400Lm and the square spot at 3m is only about 10”x10” but it’s only doing 13kLux@1’ (measured @ 3m). What a huge let down. In the end I’ve learned why they don’t use fresnel lenses in flashlights…
This took me a few tries to come up with a really good plan for this light but I’m finally in the process of a really cool build.
I’m using this old WF-008 host that I broke the mirror in. First just screwin around I put a tripple XM-L board in it out of an SRK but it had no optic so it wasn’t very useful.
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Now the plan is a single dedomed XM-L2, a BLF17DD FET driver with 3 modes and a fresnel lens focused so its still a thrower. I picked these 18 & 22 gauge 1&3/8” copper rounds from etsy and soldered them together with solder paste. I’ve got the emitter, just waiting on the drivers (have the boards coming from OSHPark and Noctigon).
Perfect fit, no tape needed.
For the spacer on top of the new heat sink I used part of the stock “reflector” cut down. I believe I should paint it black to not make any artifacts in the fresnel’s beam, can anyone comment on this?
>2oz copper
Head together
Previous build pic’s:
I believe even tho it weighs less the new heatsink should work a lot better since its solid and it makes much better contact with the head.
The reason I’m doing this project is for practice, I’ve got an SST-90 and have an HD2010 on route to put it in running ~9A+ so I’ll be wanting to make my own copper pill for it, this light here isn’t that serious it’s just so I can get a feel for making a pill of of plumbing parts / sheet copper. I plan to turn the threads on the I.D. of the HD2010’s head off and make the pill press fit for better heat transfer.
I’ll be making that pill/heat sink out of bar stock so it’s not quite the same, really I’m just taking up time till my parts get here and practicing soldering copper.
I know a single aspheric just will not work with multiple emitters (even unfocused it’ll be extremely messed up) but I’m looking into a fresnel setup (again “zoomed out”/defocused).
If anyone could point me to a 35mm triple TIR optic (for any emitter) that would be what I would do. Another option would be 3 individual small TIR’s (3x 21mm’s don’t fit, I tried already).
Project update (no pic’s)- I was able to pull out the press in tail switch. I replaced the factory cheap switch with a small omten switch and braided the spring. Now that it’s got much better heatsinking abilities I’m really gonna be running the amps threw this light.
All that’s left now is waiting on parts. The fresnel is coming from jspeybro’s sales thread and should be here in a week or so, the only other thing I’m waiting on is the Noctigon’s from IO.
Nice mod's. You don't play around when it comes to copper. Hoping that Fresnel lens works out for you. Did you consider any of the triple TIR's? Most are pretty low profile.
Yea I looked into them, the LEDIL (triple and single) are 16.4mm from top to emitter base then add ~1mm for the star so about 17.5mm from lens to heatsink. I could of used about another mm of copper had I went with that setup but really I wanted a really tight spot since this was a no-spil thrower before that’s what I was going for.
I do have a LEDIL single optic in route as well so if I want to make a more useful light out of it later on I can add another 22gauge disk or two and have the proper thickness for that optic pretty easy. Honestly tho if I do decide to redo the optic with a TIR, even tho I ready have the single considering the driver going in this one I’ll probably pick up a triple and go all out. The real reason I switched to a single emitter in the first place was cause the heatsink wasn’t flat enough for 3 separate stars but the new heatsink took care of that.
Edit*The 10755 Ledil triple is only 15mm tall, I could add another 20+ grams of copper on top. That’s looking like a better and better option.
Fresnel lens came in and I got it cut down to size. The question is do I use the glass lens in front of it or ditch it?
I’m going to finish the light with this setup and an Al mounted XM-L while I wait for my Noctigon’s (coming from IO), triple optic (from mouser) and more Cu rounds (from etsy), I may also order some warm white HCRI emitters for the triple rebuild. If the switch is up to it (or I can find a replacement) I’d like to use this light in triple TIR setup for a more general purpose / general use light with a nice low mode.
If you have a good AR lens I would definitely consider it, because the ridges (the convex (aspheric) side) are on the outside.
I think I’d put a O ring between fresnell lens and glass lens too.
Update- still waiting on my Noctigon’s but I went ahead and got it together with an Al mounted XM-L I had. I believe I need to increase the distance from the lens to the heatsink by another .5-1mm to get the focus perfect but I’ll work on that once the Noctigon’s get here.
I can tell I need to paint the inside black.
I’m going to take it out to the field tonight along with another FET SRK I’ve just finished up but I don’t expect much from it with the old XM-L @ 3A.
