The ‘theme’ was to highlight the components (mostly battery and tube which looked cool) of disposable vaping devices…they shouldn’t be disposable.
I started from the tube and battery, then i remembered i had some of those powerbank style modules lying around and hey, why not make a rechargeable flashlight with a built in battery?
I scrambled around and looked for things to stuff in the tube and i found some components which came out of an old cheap flashlight, reflector, piece of glass and driver, surprisingly they still work.
I scrounged some other stuff and got the ol’soldering ‘iron’ out and got to work.
Output isn’t that massive and a heatsink might not be needed. Ill come back with pictures
Ill attach a One drive shared link, hopefully it’s fine. It’s not the prettiest thing but it works and i like the light ring around the electrical tape. Maybe ill look/make some plastic ring that i could fit there instead, might also add some heatsink as it does get a bit toasty at the highest setting. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AqMRplAMMSKKg-BDAJvvGzkexc4PXw?e=jzbkMh
Nice idea youve got there. I personally dislike vaping for various reasons but I absolutely love the message you are trying to make. Disposable vapes shouldn’t be disposable. Its a shame that the batteries and electric components are put to waste. Good work there!
In the meantime I added a small SMD radiator to the LED, used some transparent bicomponent adhesive to glue the reflector to the tube and painted over the glue with glow in the dark paint.
I took the pictures in order, ill write some description for each one.
1 - I glued the piece of glass to the reflector, it’s still holding though some padding could surely help, might do that
2 - Stuff I’ve used, reflector with the glass, the tube, the battery from the vape device, the LED, some latching switch and a momentary one, i went with the latching one (black), some wire, i used the thinner one and the battery charging module.
3 - bit of a close up with the battery specs and the driver
4 - mostly 3
5 - ye olde soldering iron, it’s probably 30yrs old, broken and battered, but still works, i use stripped copper wire as heating element, the flux and solder, oh and the electrical tape of course
6 - wasn’t sure if ill have issues with the reflector shorting the wires, but to be sure i cut to shape some kapton tape
7 - there’s the little driver, i soldered wires going into it and wires going out of it, i later removed the spring as it served no purpose other than taking space in the tube
8 - used some shrink tube to isolate the driver from the rest of the stuff ill…stuff in.
9 - the battery with the wires soldered on.
10 - theres the battery all snug in electrical tape, through the tube i dragged the driver and the led with no cooling ( i glued a small radiator to it later on, i used the super glue and baking powder tech to make sure it holds, for heat transfer i used some AS-6 thermal paste, a tiny bit
11 - the reflector wrapped in the tube with electrical tape (i later used epoxy to glue the reflector in)
12 - soldered the battery to the corresponding leads of the usb charging module, the switch i used on the (-) which goes to the driver, the (+) goes directly to the driver
13 - a bit of shrink tube on the wire to wire soldered connections
14 - wrapped the charging module in kapton tape to isolate from the rest of the stuff
15 - the switch alongside the usb port and all the goodies, all in the tube.
16 - charging the battery
17 - not the most versed in beam shots (or holding the phone still)
18 - though the beam is quite nice, the light going through the glass is pretty cool also
19 - the light turned on on the desk, light still showing through the glass (it’s like 1.5mm thick)
20 - the modifications i later made, added the SMD radiator, glued the reflector with transparent epoxy and painted the outside with photoluminescent paint, so the light going through the ring activates it. The “rocks” are added for artistic value, they’re also photoluminescent.
Soak the thread in glue it should become hard as plastic and somewhat protect the reflector, just dont know if the glue can damage the reflector during curing so better separate.
Great build
but its surroundings are beautiful. What are these? some kind of GITD pebbles?
