DIY Wooden LED Torch Build

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

After a lot of friends, family and people in general had showed a lot of interest in my DIY torch PROTOTYPE that I built throughout the year, I figured I might as well make a thread about it. Maybe I’ll inspire some of you guys to come up with something creative or unique! It’s basically a homemade torch that uses a 10mm 1W LED and runs off 3x AAA batteries housed inside a wooden body.


Some details & technical specs of the torch
table(table#posts).
|LED Type|10mm 1W White LED driven 3.2V@150mA (Approx. 50 lumens output)|
|Switch|Simple Slide Switch|
|Battery|3x AAA (Used: Sanyo Eneloop Lite AAA 600mAh)|
|Lens|40 degree Acrylic Diffuser|
|Modes| 1-mode ON-OFF|

Construction Creating the Wooden Body Originally I had 44x44mm radiata pine timber which I had drilled a 22mm hole on the top. This would house the AAA battery holder. On the side of the body, I drilled and chiseled out a relatively small rectangular hole that would fit the slide switch. After that, I used a wood lathe to change the exterior of the body into almost a perfectly round shape that was ergonomic to hold in the hand. Next up was sanding the exterior body using granet paper starting from 60 grit to 240 grit. The next part was to create the wooden top part where the LED would fit. It was also round and in the same dimension as the body. I drilled two small holes so that the LED leads could fit through and mounted the LED directly on top of the wooden top. Another hole was drilled to allow a philips head screw to secure the top to the body and allow the changing of batteries.

Electronics Part

The whole torch was basically a simple circuit that consisted of a battery power source, a resistor, a LED, slide switch and connecting wires.
Here is a simple circuit diagram:


Here is a picture of all the electronics components used for the torch.




This is a picture of the AAA battery holder fitted with three Sanyo Eneloop Lite AAA batteries.



After some soldering, assembling I’d finally complete making the torch prototype and it is now functional.



Now for the last bit I had stained the exterior of the body with Cedar stain and then finished it with a coat of Tung Oil. Now the prototype is finished! :slight_smile:

Another pic
<img src=“http://www.deviantart.com/download/4218034048245754/untitled_by_drkzin-d5pzihi.jpg” width=“864px” height “576px”


Battery Life & Continuous Use
On my Sanyo Eneloop AAA Lite 600mAh batteries the flashlight can run for over 4 hours of continuous use and suffers no heat problems. The LED does not get to a temperature that is very hot to touch either, though it may become warm but that’s about it. I guess if you used larger capacity AAA batteries, like 800mAh or 900mAh you could probably squeeze out an extra hour. Though my next torch build I’ll be utilising 18650 batteries as they have WAY larger capacity and only require one cell to achieve the required operating voltage of the LED.


Conclusion
I know that it’s not really a torch because there is no reflector and the LED sticks out. But this was basically a prototype to try and fit everything together and make it look neat, etc and also get the experience in building and assembling it so when time comes to build the final thing, there would be less chance of doing something wrong.
It took me about half a year to think of ideas of a total DIY torch to build, how to do it and all the components and timber required as well as the manufacturing process. In this time I looked all over the Internet for alternatives and for components that I could use for my build and then ordered some of the parts online. In less than a month I started to build and assemble the prototype torch and it was finished just less than a month.

For my next build, I am planning to use a similar body, but using a Cree XR-E Q5 Emitter along with tailcap switch, 18650 battery, battery terminals & springs, 26.5mm or 18.5mm reflector + glass lens and a 18650 18mm driver board with 3 or 5 modes. I’ll keep you guys updated when I start on the next build. I’ve already ordered the parts and should come in the next few weeks! :smiley: Most biggest challenge will probably be heatsinking the LED but I heard the reflector acts as a good heatsink already, but it wouldn’t be enough to dissipate 3W of heat from driving it at 1A (High mode).

Hope you guys enjoyed this thread, and feel free to leave any suggestions, ideas and comments! :smiley:

2

Very creative. Can’t wait to see what’s coming up

Don’t let Justin see this… I seen him mention that the mag hosts are getting slack on the qc… And he is the human lathe

3

Haha thanks! :slight_smile:

4

Wow, nice work! I love the wooden body, I have to ask though. How many did you make? I see tons of batteries, LEDs, resistors, and carriers. From the looks of it you made 15. (Thats how many pieces of wood/carriers I see)

5

I guess more of a lamp than a torch but nice work.

6

I love things made of wood. Nice work!

7

A TIR lens might be a good option here, since it would be less complicated to get a focused beam. Looking forward to seeing you next wooden creation!

8

Thanks for posting the thread, very nice stuff.

9

Thanks! :slight_smile: Great counting! I made a few of them, about 3 or 4. I gave two of them away, though a lot of my friends have been asking me to make a personalised one for them with their name on it and their choice of wooden body stain colour. I still have the rest of the wooden bodies (one had been broken on accident), though I stopped making them because I realised it was a very tight fit for the battery holder and for the wires inside the body as I drilled a hole too small. But the hole fits a 18650 perfect (without a battery holder), though I’m trying to get a hold of some terminal springs so the battery can be easily replaced and installed. I can’t seem to find any battery contact springs and for a decent price, most of them are very overpriced for some apparent reason and are relatively rare to find anywhere… I’ll show you a pic soon of what I mean about the inside.

10

No worries, thanks for the support!

11

That is very inventive and unique!

When you talk about a Cree led and the heat, here's an idea. For the top section, use a piece of aluminum rod stock and make it where the led/star goes on. That way, the body is wood and the "head" is metal, to absorb the heat of the led. If you drill down in the aluminum and set the led/star down in a little, you could use a TIR optic and have the top of the TIR flush with the top of the aluminum. Or...... well you got me going again, LOL. Anyhow I think the mix of wood and metal would be nice.

Keep up with the good work!

12

Thanks….haha I don’t really know what to call it. I don’t even have a proper name for it all i call it is ‘wooden torch’.

13

That’s a great idea! I was thinking on somewhere on those lines but I don’t have the machinery to work with metals that’s the thing. Though hand-cutting Aluminium would take quite a while to do as well. But thanks for the idea, I’ll keep it in mind and see if i can find a way to do it. I was thinking of copper…but that’s way too much more expensive than Aluminium (as expected).

14

You have done a terrific job with this build. Old-lumens made me smile, you could almost here his imagination ticking over as you read his post. If I attempted to make this light there is every likely hood that it wooden work. (apology here )

15

Nice to see something other than alloy being used. Got me thinking now if I could persuade my woodworking friend to make a wooden 18650 body with alloy threads that could be used with generic heads and tails.

16

Thanks! I think the reason why manufactures and people have been using alloy bodies is because when the tail cap screws, since parts of the alloy body are unpainted when you screw it on, it allows electrical conductivity from one of the battery terminals into the alloy body and that goes to the driver which will complete the circuit.

It would be more convenient to have alloy threads, but unfortunately I don’t have the machinery for that….so I had to improvise with using screws, haha! A bit inconvenient but it works well.

17

It’s a poor man, indeed, that doesn’t like wood. :wink:

I’m thinking of building my 15,000 lumen light out of wood.

18

Are you trying to earn the 'torch' moniker?

Very creative light, diyau. We don't see many wood lathe mods on this forum, and you did a great job !!!

19

Nice work, I love wooden things.

Copper and wood would just go terrific together I think. And since you don't own a metal lathe, you have an advantage: machining copper is very hard, hand-work may just be the way to go with copper (i.e. see Old Lumens build threats).

20

You’ll need a lot of heatsinking if your going to make a 15 000 lumen light using timber! Since wood doesn’t have good heat capacitance nor conductivity, you can’t utilise the full metal alloy body like an ordinary torch. I could imagine that would be over 50W at least! :open_mouth: That’s a lot of heat to dissipate! Either you’ll need a large CPU Passive Heatsink (provided that you don’t use active cooling solutions) to deal with the heat…