I have recently discovered that you can make your own TIR optics with products like silastic moldable optical silicone. Its an A B 1:1 mix so I should just be able to 3d print a mold and polish it up then pour the mix into it right? One of my problems is that I dont really know how to design an optic but I can copy other designs and I found a guide on it so thats solvable. The main problem is that I only found huge portions of the resin like 36kg and more. So if anyone has experience I would thank the help and Id like to know where I could get smaller amounts or different products that are similar. If I succeed Im going to try making my own flashlight. The main limiting factor are the optics currently available.
Thanks in advance
You must be building something truly weird, as there are quite a few TIR optics suitable for LEDs available off the shelf- the problem I always have is finding a suitable host, I suppose a 3D printed head and the LED mounted on a heatsink would work okay, but not exactly pocketable 
In the past if I’ve been looking for smaller quantities of paints/glues/etc, I’ve found resellers on eBay to offer smaller quantities.
I suppose you could also try UV cure resin, I suspect it would need a vacuum to minimise air bubbles so the UV light would have to be mounted inside the vacuum also- possibly an issue for cooling…
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The really nice thing about the resin i found is that it has great optical characteristics. I will check on ebay, thats a good idea. Im trying to make a sort of d4v2 mini/d4v2 inspired 14450 light. Its not practical in any way but my mind went “I want a mini d4v2 no matter what” and now I cant not think about it. The best case would be if it had a 16mm quad optic, 18ish mm head and a 16mm body. Thats the best i can/want to achieve. The first versions gonna be just to get everything working and then i want to add aux and stuff like that later. If the optic is successfull im gonna design the driver next and then the body. The driver will be just a linear driver in the first version but if everything goes well i want to add a fet, dual channel or boost driver but thats the future and now Im trying to make the optic first. I want to put the design files and proccess on github when im done.
lol, you’ve just invented the D3AA but with 4 LEDs.
I doubt you’ll be able to make an optic with comparable performance to a mass produced one even with high end optical resin, there’s a reason only larger companies have the R&D to produce TIRs.
A 16mm diameter quad would need a minimum of around 5mm lenses with the edges clipping into each other. At this scale any large LES will not work, so you’d be using 1414 or similarly sized LEDs (W1 might work but even the TS10 optic struggles with it)
Also why there’s no small diameter quad, you’re better off using a triple or a single reflector with that size.
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Yeah but I also want to make a mini dt8 some time in the future. I know its not practical but I like the idea too much. My best bet is making TIR optic that doesnt have a lens in the middle so its a bit more efficient than a reflector and its transparent so i can put front aux in it. If I do the simple reflector kind of TIR I only have to polish one surface which would make it much easier. Its hard to decide what to compromise and what not to.
Keep in mind that a reflector is still a lot more efficient, TIRs are just more customisable for weird designs. A lot of the spill comes from the lack of a lens in the midle, if you suspended a frosted lens in the middle of a reflector you’d get similar performance to a TIR
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From what i saw optical plastics are ~90% efficient and reflectors are ~80-95% so a good reflector is probably better but its not transparent so no aux. As I said I mainly want to make it for appearances. If Im really unsuccessful Im gonna do it with a reflector.
An interesting solution for aux is to 3d print a gasket using clear filament or resin, and use side-shining LEDs with an aux flex PCB
Thats a good idea but itd make the head larger. I will try a few different solutions and pick the best one. The one thing Ive found that will work really well is a 14450 single led thrower but I like the mini d4v2 more.
You could sand down a KD quad lens to fit a D3aa like what some people did with the fw3a.
Reflector aux:
Yeah seems like the smallest place a quad fits is 20mm.
One thing you could consider is gluing together four small, single TIRs into a quad. I haven’t tried to source very small TIRs like that, but assuming you can find some… just sand flat two sides of each one until they fit together as needed. CA glue works great, even easier/quicker if you use an activator.
Four single TITs glued together wouldn’t form a circle around the perimeter. You could make a mold and pour in a small amount of epoxy to fill in the gaps and form the circular perimeter. You could also tint this epoxy (might give the beam a weird tint) or make it opaque.
I’ve tried this with a D4V2-sized quad. Smaller would be harder but certainly doable.
I could also 3d print a holder or a mould for the holder. This is a good idea but I didnt really find any sub 10mm TIRs. Probably this and sanding a larger multi-emitter optic are the two most realistic things i could do. If i get ahold of any small TIR lenses i will try. I can also try with the 10mm ones but first i wanna search more.
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