Flashlight made of no flashlight parts, just cardboard,duct tape and aluminiumfoil. aka the tactical hobo flashlight#1

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Yesterday I came up with idea of building a light from things layin around…but that would have been to easy because I have piles of flashlight parts.
So I decided to build a light build without any flashlight parts.
A tube and all other stuff can be made of cardboard and ductape, the hardest part is building the LED,pill and reflector. So I came to the idea of using a simple MR16 LED light. It lights up reasonable well when powered with two 18650s.
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I found some old grey tape which is not even has the fibers like ductape so I thought this might the best thing I can do with it. I also have some aluminium tape which I thought would be easier to use than aluminium foil or a piece of wire for getting the negative pole back to the LED.

Aluminium folded in half and put on the middle of the tape

Cut a piece of cardboard with the right dimensions for two 18650 and put on the tape. Don’t get jealous of my high power 4200mAh ultrofite Battery;)

Added apiece of tape to glue inside when wrapped together.

Taped together and voila we have a high tech composite flashlight tube

As I wanted to use no solder or flashlight parts I simply bend one of the legs to the outside and added a piece of aluminium tape to wire it up. sadly the aluminium tape isn’t conductive on the sticky side :frowning: so I always had to wrap one side inwards to make contact. Also it doesn’t sticks very well, so I added some pieces of gaffa tape to make it more sturdy and of course I am aiming for miltec quality;)


There we have almost ready flashlight, just missing the switch…

Switch ready “assembled” and taped.

Voila a working light made of no flashlight parts.

So it’s totally doable. It would have been a lot easier if I had a MR16 socket with some pieces of wire attached, which would be the way if you rip of a ceiling lamp in case of a emergency…
Maybe I will invest the 1$ for some sockets and try it again in a neater way(if that is possible)

2

Very dangerous mixing cells in a hotrod like that! :smiley:

3

ah, good old school days :slight_smile:

4

I just played around with it in the dark and it is really lightweight and kind of bright around 100 lumen I would guess.
Tailflapcurrent is around 0.25A on almost full cells.

5

This is awesome!
Living life on the edge with mixed Li-ion cells!

6

All I saw was serialized ultroflte. Careful, it has way too much power to mix with other lowly batteries!

7

Love it! Kind of like MacGyver.

8

Lol :bigsmile:
You are just jealous that I am the only one with 4.2Ah 18650…

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I don’t use the ultrofite for other things than getting dimensions right and scaring some people, because despite it says protected it isn’t and I never use unprotected cells in series. In fact I also use only matched cells in lights…

9

You had me lol at tail flap current. :smiley: For a switch you could sandwich a piece of qtc between the negative foil layer and an insulated wire from B- to anywhere on the host(?). Instant forward mushy.

10

Nice light. You must of been board?

11

It actually came out better than I expected. Pretty neat.

I bet it's even waterproof. For about half a second.

12

Maybe he was on a sugar-high from all those Choco Krispies? :slight_smile:

13

great build!

14

I built a pair of reverse lights for my first 4x4 out of MR16 halogens, the top of deodorant aerosol cans, speaker wire, some rtv and hose clamps. They looked pretty comercial aside from the hose clamp mounting system. I was really happy with them and had them for a couple of years until one was destroyed on a rock.

15

You said you would make it with no flashlight parts.
Hence the Ultrofite! :slight_smile:

16

Nice! IPX rating? The white and red tube, is that toothpaste? :slight_smile: