David
http://pbar.fnal.gov/organizationalchart/Leveling/2004%20water%20cage%20work/Cutubehandbook.pdf
Pages 21 through 25 will cover ID and OD of most all of the Copper Pipe you can ever find. USA that is. There are three main typed of Copper pipe Type K, Type L, Type M and the thicknesses are different for all of them. These tables helped me out a lot.
Also, here's a quick sheet too
http://www.petersenproducts.com/Specifications/Pipe_Copper.aspx
I’m sure you will nut it out. looks good so far with lots of bits. :+1:
Thanks for all the responses, guys. All of these suggestions are going to be helpful to me - even the ones I don’t use directly in this light. But, I have to say the one that surprised me is the one about using 7135’s without a driver. I have to say that would NEVER have occurred to me! You know what? This tube is just long enough for a xx650 cell, if I don’t take up any room for a driver. AND, since I dug a trench in the aluminum instead of just a groove, I have plenty of room there for 7135’s along with the LEDs. Hmm…
fritz, I just caught this, after reading your post again.
That’s actually a very good idea! I’m not sure there’s enough time in this contest for me to both learn how to design a custom pcb and get it ordered and delivered from OshPark in time to actually build the driver before the deadline. Maybe if I’d had even the tiniest bit of experience I could do it. Makes me wish I’d learned Eagle before now (I knew about the tutorial).
Fastech has 20 mm stars with a 7135 and reverse polarity diode pre mounted but they’re for souel LEDs. One of my first solitaire mods I soldered the 7135 ground tab to a copper disc with a 10mm star stuck on the other side(before copper sinkpads) B+ to led + and the pwm pin led pin to led and ground to B- . Takes very little space and an on-1, on-2, off switch and resistor can give you 2 modes without any other parts.
I had a look at the tutorials a few days ago and it’s not that hard to get started. At least the basic things are simple. You just need part 1, 3A and 3B that’s around 25 minutes in all and of course you are welcome to ask here.
Here you can download (again thanks to Mattaus!) the needed parts: Eagle Libraries
I for my part have to say that I am really happy that I learned it. It is easier than expected and will be so useful for this as well as future projects. Additionally OSH park is so cheap, three copies of your board with shipping are around 3$…
Another little update in the OP. I’m still trying to decide on a driver (or driverless) configuration, but I had other things to keep me occupied for a little while, so I kept moving forward. Pretty soon, I’m gonna run out of things to fiddle with, and I’ll have to do something about powering this thing up.
To hold the magnets in line while the epoxy sets put a plastic bag between them and a straight piece of steel. To make the driver a tight press fit roll a piece of copper wire into a ring just larger than the tube, solder it to the driver, and sand it until you like the fit, should only need it on one side.
To anneal copper or brass it needs to get red hot(glowing) before it softens and then it hardens again as its bent and shaped, sometimes needing annealing again to continue. Simply loading it with weight probably won’t flatten it, it needs to be rolled like dough with a large, smooth, heavy pipe. I use a section of brass pipe with another longer one inside as a rolling pin.
Figures… I did it all wrong! :person_facepalming:
Well, POO-POO! I don’t have any loose 7135’s laying around. I thought I might, but I don’t. I don’t even have any extra linear drivers from which to rob a few (By which I mean that I have a couple linear drivers here, but one is already slated for a future project, so it can’t be robbed, and the other has already been robbed of most of its 7135 chips, so I don’t want to rob it any more). I guess the driver situation is on hold until I get a clue. :weary:
I’ve got more than I can use if you want some. Not long ago I didn’t know squat about annealing either. Google is my friend.
One subject I find has not been addressed by the rules of the competition - spinning metal. This method is used to create objects using a wood lathe to create objects from sheet metal. It is in many ways inferior to using a metal lathe. Is spinning handmade or machine made? In my case I would use it for the driver housing.
I think they just list tools rather than worry over how they’re used.
Yeah, that’d be great! Thanks!
Yeah, there was a bit of a discussion about it last year. The consensus was that the tool is the tool. If you’re able to use a spinning tool as a lathe which isn’t a lathe, that’s a skill! However, it has also been stated that more weight would be given to builds which use more manual means (for the Hand Made category). So, while using a hand drill clamped in a vise works as a lathe, it is acceptable for use in the Hand Made category. You just won’t get as much credit as someone who doesn’t use a drill as a lathe and gets similar results. Anyway, that’s how I understood it.
I agree. I’m not going to sweat it either way. If there’s a rule then somebody’s going to bend it. I’m just trying to show what can be done with the tools I have that were allowed. Even with a wood lathe the cutting tool is held in the hand or adjusted by hand. A metal lathe has the cutter controlled in x, y, z by highly accurate gears with calibrated travel indicators. Mimicing the motion doesn’t give the same results or the repeat-ability of a machine tool.
Okay, I’m facing a conundrum. I’m trying to decide how much power I want this thing to have, and how to get it. I was planning on limiting it to an amp or so because less can definitely be more when it comes to an accessory light. This light is mostly for small-area lighting, such as in a small room, or under a car hood. It isn’t for path-way lighting or distance-spotting like most flashlights. If I make it too bright, it might do more harm than good in many scenarios.
But the other side of this is that I like bright lights, and I like it even more when a little light is surprisingly bright! I don’t want this light to end up with underwhelming performance. My household has several lights that max out over 1000 lumens, and one now that reaches 2500 lumens on turbo (Thanks again Olight!) I don’t want to look at this light when I’m done and think of it as a disappointment.
What do you guys think? Help me out here. I’m stuck between wanting it to be enough, yet not too much, and neither of those ends of the spectrum are well defined right now. I really just don’t know enough about this stuff I guess. 
The way I’ll do it is that my light will have a Burst mode which provides 3150mA to the led and then turns down to a more sustainable 700mA - 1000mA. Maybe you could do something similar?
One way to look at it is that you can always use the lower modes and save the uber bright for special times. But if you don’t have the uber bright available, well you can’t use it ever. I like the custom firmware option on many of RMM’s drivers. You can choose up to 6 custom levels and IIRC some also have moonlight available as a 7th level.