Sorry, I’ve been gone today. Just got a new boss elected today and I’ve spent many an hour on that election.
When I first started this thread I had an idea for a flashlight you take to war and back. I had a set of requirements I thought I should incorporate. The light got reworked over into something completely different.
Quad XP-G3’s changed over to triple XP-L. Good change for simplicity and existing optics.
Two switches. Tail on/off and E switch modes selection.
26650 cell.
Driver leans towards a modified LD-2M that could possible color light the E switch for battery status. Led4power thought it could but would check.
It may never happen but I’m contacting a few makers to see if it could. I put out a plea for help on this endeavor and received many a guiding hand. Thank you all for helping. I went back to most of the original design and that’s how I’m presenting it.
Dale I look forward to seeing the end reuslt, I might be interested in getting one in the next month or so. I know the 32650 isn’t new, Eagletac has been using 2 of them in their rechargeable battery packs for the MX25L2 series for years. It’s just that they aren’t nearly as common as the 26650 which has also been around for years but just recently started gaining ground.
Texas Shooter sorry it got redesigned. I think most of us were just trying to help build a light like you wanted and throw out ideas that could be used. I guess at this point we can consider the build in this thread null and void if you do not like what has happened unless there are others who are interested. Hopefully everything works out for everyone here.
Dual switch lights are awesome and intuitive enough for anyone, I’d say.
The one tricky part about building scratch lights is acquiring the O-rings… I know places that have pretty much every size a guy could want, but I’m not sure if they are accommodating to small orders. I’ll have to get to the bottom of this.
Thanks KB. I purchased a big order from them in 2013 but haven’t looked since. Seems their metric offerings are the thing to look at. I’m liking the 1mm cross section selection. A company like Apple Rubber has o-rings in ~.001” increments but may require bulk purchases. Not sure.
I'm assuming you are planning on a small production run to sell, maybe offer to the BLF community as well (dunno). Getting back to basics and maybe keep'n the costs down, you could go with a 7135 based design. 20 7135's will get you about 7.5A on turbo. Modifying one of our existing firmware versions to change modes via an e-switch and using a power switch to turn on the LED to that saved mode is a no brainer, pretty easy to do.
In a 26650 light, you could probably fit a bigger diameter driver, like 25-35 mm, maybe?? And if so, the 7135's may fit well on one side. Or if you are restricted in diameter, a secondary board of 7135's could be used -- we have those already. Someone like PD68 could do the layout, all depending on what size he has to work with.
Using a LED for battery status would of course only happen when the MCU is powered, meaning the tail power switch is on, which means the LED is on. It's doable of course. Again, at least a couple of drivers we have now could support that. TK's Rocher F6 does in a 13A.
Not a difficult task, might be doable in a 13A, or might require or be easier to do in a Tiny25.
Some pros/cons of the LD-2 vs. OSHPark based 13A/25:
cost - not sure which is cheaper, based on volume, assembly, etc. Parts alone for the custom will be cheaper
LED Support: custom - Yes, LD-2 - maybe
availability: LD-2 pretty much immediate, OSHPark has 2-4 week turnaround for the board only
field tested: LD-2 has it goin for sure
ability to implement exactly what you want: custom for sure, LD-2 maybe??, tweaked perhaps by designer/seller
flexibility: custom for sure w/full source code and future changes, LD-2 probably just what's built in
additional features: LD-2 has true regulated modes but limits the mode selection, custom uses PWM's so any mode levels and # of modes. Few other comparative points here too.
Edit: You don't have to have a wide diameter driver space - could use a 2 board design.
Thanks for the information. It looks like I’m in the 26-28mm diameter driver range. I’ve got a few drawings; tail, body tube complete. Head, just a little tweaking here and there to fit the parts. Considering who maybe using the light. I thought an easy Green,Orange,Red constant battery status like some many of the better lights coming out now.
What do you mean by constant? Like when the tail switch is off? With that tailswitch you want, there is no power - no running MCU, no indicator LED's, if I understand this. I think any of the new lights with that sort of status don't have a full power shut-off. There's some other things high end lights can do with a tailswitch, but it doesn't really cut power to the MCU - smart tail, battery carriers with batt+ power at the tail, etc.
Y’all got me started on the 26650 triple, I ended up building a 32650 Triple instead. And since I really wasn’t going for the group buy light with the way things were turning out, I deviated. Thought y’all might like to see where it went anyway.
The entire light is one piece of 6061. The very end is threaded into the battery tube, other than that there’s no break. Brass retaining ring in the tail to hold the switch in, copper pill threaded in with an aluminum retaining ring holding the optic in place. 13.88A from an FET+1 ATTiny25 driver of Richards, with TK’s Bistro making from 9 lumens to 3519 lumens from the three XP-L V6 1A emitters. It’s 48.4mm x 140mm and weighs a whopping 665 grams. It took 4 minutes on Turbo to get it hot enough to set the thermal step down setting.
The walls at the copper pill are 6.5mm thick, at the battery the walls are 9.5mm thick. Should be fairly indestructible.
Dale I like it! The only changes I’d make is for it to be 26650 (just for the smaller diameter) and for it to have guppydrv. Besides that it looks awsome. How much would one of those run a fella?
Honestly, I don’t know. I only got the lathe last Sept and had no prior experience, on a learning curve. It took me about 18-20 hours to complete it. If you go by machine shop labor, well, you realize really quick what kind of deal Texas Lumens was offering on that CNC machined light. (the machine shop I bought the piece of 2” 6061 at had a posting at the counter… $90 an hour!)
I don’t think I’m good enough on the lathe for selling anything at this point. Too many details I am still struggling with.
I have done quite a bit of machining in high school and fully understand what it takes. What TL was offering was a heck of a deal and why I was so happy with it. If I had a lathe I’d make my own but I don’t have access to one right now.
Hi, I’m Caleb. I really don’t know a thing about building lights, but I’ve been following this thread since the beginning with much interest. To my uninformed mind, it seems that this post is the most doable.
On the cells, unless flashlight diameter makes a difference you could design for 32650 and include a 26650 adapter sleeve, increasing the chance you can find cells locally if push comes to shove and that’s needed. Wish I could offer more than thoughts to see this move forward but the rest is beyond my current capabilities.
texas shooter, I’m surely in for these 26650 lights; as long as they are well done.
And should the tide shift back towards Texas Lumens offer or something like it. I have no problem at all spending an extra $20 - $30… or however much…. to get a high quality, well made light…
And I do not say that because I am rich, I am far from rich. I say that because as far as I am concerned it is much better to pay extra for quality than go for cheapo and end up regretting it on almost every level.
If the price of a buy gets out of the range of what I can pay, no problem. I’ll just be out and be a well wisher for those still in. No bitchin’, moaning, or whining from me. :+1:
Good luck on what you come up with too, I like the idea of this 26650 light! :+1:
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TL, if you ever do “try another one at some point”; if it is a design that even vaguely interests me …… I am in!
Sign me up……… :+1: …
I’ve got this one fellas. Ordered some L2 tubes. Waiting on the slow boat before I can turn them into 26650 Khatod Quad toobers with miniaturized 10A Judco in the tail. This is more compelling to me than the C8 head I had proposed. I’d rather do some complete lights, you know?
