Ervin's try (2nd. Annual BLF Scratch Made Light Contest) update 6/23/2014 finally beam shots of my new thrower

Ervin_Anastasi · April 19, 2014, 9:21am

Hi all,
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Update 30/06/2014
the last update is here Ervin's try (2nd. Annual BLF Scratch Made Light Contest) update 6/23/2014 finally beam shots of my new thrower because this page can not take anymore of me
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Update 27/06/2014
I am making a small update at current progres. Have made considerable progress but don’t have time to post, but since i have not much time i am posting this from my phone on the go just in case.

This is as it looks right now.

Will post how i made if i find time later.

well you know what is for, details will come later.

Have one or two ideas in my mind, still undecided what to go after. Can we try 2 projects at once or is against the rules?

edit 25/04/2014

ok I have to start it, because you never know how the “free time” will treat you in the future

I think i have an simple idea. I have not cleared it all in my mind, but am very clear on what will start building. so first thing I am going to focus is the place when the led will sit.
I consider it the most important thing in my build, the heart if we can say. it will have to keep the led safe and cool and on base of how it come, it will determine the all other parts, like head and body for batteries.
need I to say that will use cheap parts than can be easy obtained?
now I have to think about something strong and with a lot of metal in it ……

edit 27/04/2014

I think I have find something to start. I have this things that stay around in my desk from some times.

i believe a 16mm cree will find its place there just fine. I just need something to rise the mass and also help radiate the heat, well we all think of cooper in this point… but hm… where i can find cooper ? I am looking around in my work shop and thinking… I think have found something.

well I need to improvise something here. lets make a try

this is going to my nerves

now is starting to take shape(a strange shape but its a shape :p)

hm looking at it …

what the hell am i doing ???
but i think it should work in the end, just i have to find a way to make it little more uniform…
well improvise something fast again

hah i did not think before than in my life i would have ever thought for ways how to manufacture something

looking good and almost equal to me

ok no more time for today. lets see if i will have some tomorrow…
edit 2/5/2012
…that tomorrow was very busy day, not a chance to play with project.
whenever i have some free time I like to think about the project, how this and how that. for now i tend to focus on how will build the head, what driver, and what battery setup to use.
the more i think the more i like the idea of creating a useful light for my need(which are play and experiments :p) so i will try to make as more universal in parts as i can. for example I always have wanted to play with one of those 78mm asphericals for throw and what holding me back almost always have been one suitable host that was not expensive enough to destroy in mods. now i think will make one from myself
so head will be big and easy modifiable, also easy to change with a new one if needed.
driver will be made from scratch(i hope, if fail will use some ordinary one) and will have a big range of A output.
I think I have under valuated building a driver, the more i investigate, more difficult it become
have some crazy ideas, hope they are not impossible to realize in the end too :bigsmile:
battery , well i will try to use both AA and 18650. (as much universal as i can philosophy ) still undecided to go with 6 AA or 9 and 1x 18650 or 2 or 3? in the end this will be more an aesthetic choice and ergonomic.
led will be changed easy if i make progress with driver(xpe, xpg,xml) not sure on mtg2 need to read more on characteristic of that led.
well thinking about all this things and feeling almost lost I think now to focus on all those problems individually till i resolve one and then go to the next one just to keep my interest on project alive with smaller victories :bigsmile:
for now my desktop is a big mess :

today i made a small progress with feeding the led(xmlt6). have made some research on how AMC7135 work and finally was able to connect one (one 380 mA type)
was not sure at first and when put the led on it sounded like too much light for one AMC so i make some measurements. fortunately everything was ok as u can see on photos

this little electronic circuit are very hard to play because of small dimensions:

but in the end i succeed to solder one somehow.
I made some temp measurement bc on theory there is some heat that it is needed to disperse from there(IxU=0.35Ax~1.4V=0.49w ) and after 30 sec i measure around 47 grade Celsius from 22 that was the room:

oh too late again, soldering and posting took me like 3 hours, probability my wife will kill me when i go home now

edit 5/5/2014

lucky me i managed to stay alive so…

*+

Driver +*

Well I have one idea since its from scratch contest why not try to make a driver too? This got me to thinking about it. A lot of ideas come and go in my mind but to keep it simple in here i will try to explain only those i thought where more doable and simple. (all this is in the name of “ unique “ , if I fail than will use just an simple ordinary driver )

Idea 1 :

Why not o use a simple resistor to control the Amps the led gets? It’s simple, no? Even better since we are thinking about resistor why not include an variable resistor or what is know as a potentiometer? Normally an linear potentiometer should do the trick and the good thing about it, is that we gain total control in led output from 0 to the max and differences are unlimited(analog solution  ) not like an finite number of choices we usually have in our digital drivers (for example like 3, 5,1, or 100 pre fixed positions)
Ok enough with theory but can it work in practice? Yes sure, the only standard it needs to accomplish is to mach the max total power of the led. For example you will use an XML at ~6 Amp well just be sure to find a potentiometer that is rated above 20W (25 or 30 will be very good). Do they exist? Yes i make a quick search on ebay and they cost around 15$ if I remember right. Problem is they tend to be big and heavy with increasing wattage and i don’t have any one around to experiment soo…

Idea 2:

Why not make it simple and use batteries direct on leds? Hmm max current but not any control on Amps… max performance but to much stress on led and battery and also little bit concerned on safety side of things… efficiency will be max (no driver in between to introduce loses ) but its to easy and not so safe hm… not a good idea for me

Idea 3:

Well I have some AMC 7135, why not try to use them? They behave pretty good with steady output in I are small and relatively cheap. I like them but damn are so small to play with inappropriate tools. I have just an solder some wires and that’s all, how to use them? Ok first I thought of this simple idea to put 10 AMC in parallel and to be able to select all one by one or all at the same time. Some sort of variable driver with 10 preset position in Amps like: 1-350mA,2-700ma, 3-1050….and so on till the last 10-3.5A.
Theoretically is easy but in practice when I try to realize what i have in mind was a sort of nightmare because AMC are so small and I never thought how hard is to solder them
Below is a schematic how I thought to realize:

The third contact is some sort of metal that will make mechanical contact and moving up and down in the third row of pins (maybe not exactly that pin but GND for example)

Well I liked the idea when I was thinking about it but fail miserably in trying to solder and make it usable in practice ( and i don’t lack the skill or patience in soldering ) just i have only some wires an soldering and AMC which are to small to little to realize as I wanted.
Well I do not give up easy so focus on thinking how to realize my idea in practice got me to this type of implementation. I thought why not to use simple switches to power on/ off those AMC ? Normally a panel with 10 simple switches in row that command those little current regulators should do the trick and be doable…

Thinking about it, the interesting bit is that are not needed 10 switches to control 10 AMC. With just 4 of them we can get 10 levels of output in different combinations
Example :

Well it sound doable to me and good thing was I have one motherboard with one DIP switch with 10 positions in my office. Old motherboard was like this before

After

And DIP swich ended here

a view of how it is right now for testing

Long story short it works. (an very general idea of what i am doing, or not doing :P)

I don’t know how reliable will be this switch in time (because DIP switches usually are not uses for switching power but are used for low current in logical ports and so on . ) but for now it work very well.
I am doing measurements in output like current and Vf of led but it looks Ok.
Later will post detailed result, total scheme how I connected with photos, how it can be better , because again my free time end here.(6 hours I spent only with soldering alone and today like 2 hours with posting and making schemes !!! )

edit 08/05/2014

Ok back again from the lab (three working days!)

This update will speak for driver. I managed to finish (almost) and also did some measurements in output and some schemes. Now i only have to think for ways of putting driver on flash making attention that wires being as short and as thick as possible where it count. An optimization revision if we could say. As is, it work but lot of loses are introduced because of long and thin wires and lousy and too much connections in between.
I have never worked with drivers before, have a very general idea how they work, but being over-saturated with electronic stuff (because of my work) I never take the time to study them in details. Well making my driver for project changed situation I was forced to start read on AMC. Once i grasped the general idea on how they work I started to play with them. Well first thing was needed to solder one AMC and make LED glow.
But soldering those tiny AMC was difficult.
Just one AMC is relatively easy and in fact I soldered it fast enough:

Problems start when I needed to solder two of them. I never thought would be so difficult. In the end just found some ways that worked for me. Below some photos of how realized this:

The same method I use (despite being more difficult this time) soldering 3 of them together:

When i try to repeat the process with 4 it was again impossible, the holder always failed
to keep them and they always ending in my table. Part of the problem was that I put some solder in the pins before to make soldering more easily in the end and because I do not wanted that they sit very close to each other because of heat radiations.
Well this brought me to the next way of soldering them. I used my copper wires as shown in photos:

Once I started to solder than was easy. Maybe in the final design I solder the other stacks of AMC this way because I believe that soldering GND in pill will really help in heat and
reliability.
Next step was soldering DIP switch. I just start with my single AMC in the switch number one. Once that it work other part was just repetitive and easy. The end result:

All wired together i started make measurement curious how it will work

Results were so so, but I believe that there is very room from improvement in performance in the end product because i will solder all wires and will use short ones and thick. Also contact with battery will be better and also missing connection for I will improve too. Battery was not full but 4.08 and protected. So I have faith.
As it is i use 4 stacks of AMC in 1,2,3,4 configurations getting 10 combinations from 0.38A to 3.8A in theory but thinking on it I optimize it and in the end will use 15 AMC in total (from 10) in again 4 stacks but in 1,2,4,8 configuration getting 15 combinations with outputs from 0.38 to 5,7 A MAX. below is the scheme how i connected, yet to put capacitors but I think will put in the end. Also tested a low output adding a resistor 10 ohm parallel with led and in use with one amc. Not sure on safety thing on this it works but will test more later…
total scheme:

well with this i consider close the driver section on my review.

I know you like to se more metal work and i ask sorry if bothered anyone with this part, but it was fun for me to realize it and who knows maybe some other electronic folk out there will find it interesting and helpful.

Next step is design and back again me, that bash my head to the metal, hoping it will bend as I wish: p
Some ideas what I am aiming for

And the very very very good thing is that in my office now arrive these:

Ervin_Anastasi · June 30, 2014, 8:42pm

reserved..

edit 18/05/2014

ok lot of days have passed since i update and it may sound as no work is done but trust me I have worked full time on this project. Even when i am not in my office working on it but in my home when i find the opportunity i take my note pad and draw ideas. Yes I have said it before better call this for now, my free time black hole sucking project I have like 400 unpublished photos and i don’t have time to post. Every time i come in my office i say to my self, today i post something and go to sit before my pc, but the other chair (of work with project ) always drag me to the working desk and i end up working another day with the project. Well enough is enough today is posting day so……

                                                <span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">DESIGHN </span></span>

(… when I hit the metal with my head… but the metal is strong…… so I hit again and the metal start to bend )

 Ok this started as a simple project just for fun, when i build some sort of pill for the led. As i said before this will be the hart of my project, working on UF-T20 teaches me some things and one of the most important one was thermal management, if you want to have a good performing led u have to sort out heat management issues. With a good platform in heat management u have the base of making a strong performing light if u pump in enough current. When i enter in competition my mind was stuck in thermal management and how important it was getting strong results in my UF-t20 moding and this explain why I start the way I start :p

Enough retro explanation, having sorted out (or think to have sorted out) how the place when led sit will be, I started drawing how to proceed with head of the flashlight. And some early implementation photo i put it in driver section:

That lens is a Fresnel type with a 100mm dimater with a very short focal lens _{45 if I remember well now. For now will use that but building a big head will help me play with other type of lenses and reflectors in max} 120 mm diameters. As i said before since i am building this why not make it suitable for multi play later. So my mind was fixed in making big but how to make it and what form to give that was very hard for me. I make a lot of drawing trying to decide:

^^this is some early try

Well in the end i go this route:

but again I still try to work with it:

My first cooper wire is in around 1.7 mm dimater and when i start experimenting how to build head with that it looks little fragile as a build so i get the sec wire which is around 3mm in diameter, with this i feel confident and start experimenting and building:

(click on small photos to see them better !)
! !

Everything went good till the moment i decide to solder the part together to make it solid. I try to solder one by one and even that i managed to solder 4 parts together for a moment they where to fragile and brake in my hand. After i thought a way to hold the parts together when i try to solder them again this time with a more solid solder work. Idea was to hold them with copper wire which i have:

After one hour of try and bending I give up…. It looks like it was impossible for me to hold the parts to hold the parts together in the perfect positions to solder them. Then i take it more seriously (and my desk start cursing me for good this time ):

!

!

In order to work it not have only to be strong but also transfer heat, so i work little bit with superficies.

!

!

Hm it looks strong and OK to me

!

!

Believe it or not posting is more tiresome for me than working, so now i am going to make some rest for the remaining day, a lot of photos with progressing work soon…

Continued on 19/5/2014

Can I call it ‘cooper fever’?

Well as the main form of the head was done, I started to like more and more cooper. More I work with it the more I like, what is that?
Looking at the progress so far on my desk those iron parts looks ugly to me. I guess my mind see them as hurdles on conducting heat well enough at least compared to cooper. That and also the fact that cooper is more easy to work with the simple tool I have at my disposal. Plus that color the more I see the more I like… lol I go out and started searching for something….
…. When I come back I have with me:

Well I think to have now more cooper that I will ever need in my entire life
Ok those small part I have a roughly idea what i bought for but that 2 cm , 1kg pure cooper wire why i bought for?

I don’t have the tools to work with that lol o well …

I start the work to finish my first job on the radiator part of the flashlight.
My mind was set after finishing head that all things near led must be cooper so lets photos speak for themselves:

(click to see them better )
!

!

It was hard for me to work with first ring i made from pure cooper. I have to say that i have almost 0 experiences before of this working with metals so this is a learning and work experience for me. My first disk for cutting metal broke (and that was the sec one i break) before letting me finish work. So i use drill bits to finish cutting the ring. And almost burn my hand trying to make it looks good. Still i finish in the end.

!

!

That ring will be putted inside the small cooper parts i made before.

Now i needed something to hold the parts together letting me do the work, and for that i bought some cheap modeling clay for kids.:

I start putting the small wires in place to see if the idea work, well it worked:

I put them back and start the last revisioning on them to make them as more uniform as i can:

After that i put them back in place for the last time with max attention on positioning them.

It looks ok to me so start soldering all together:

Some polishing to contact area with other parts in flashlight to max heat transfer :

Ok i call it done this part!

Continued on 20/05/2014

_ Trying to put cooper everywhere…._

Finished the first ring and radiator i finish two other ring and this time was more e easy for me because i use manual bow saw and somehow i learned to use right ways to work with it.

In the third disk I work little bit more, because if I wanted to use the way i have in mind it needed to have an smaller inner diameter so I make an fourth smaller ring and worked on them to fit each other perfectly.

My work is little bit creative in a sense that I have not thought before for all the components in detail, i have some ideas and continuously work and progress and for this my project is a little bit dynamic . This have pluses but have minuses, also i just hope to not come in a dead point where i see have done something wrong to the point there is no way to go back.

That said in this moment i just think a way i could make the led sit on cooper and also to have a cooper path till the radiator and head, so i said to my self why not to try?

Even better why not to have some more flexibility:

Hm… it looks like could work

………………………………
The other day i start polishing trying to max the contact superficies and start working on putting led in place

For a moment i thought oh crap where do i put the wires that go to the led?
Fortunately there is a solution to my problem:

And it work

In the end i just have to make more room there that wires be safer, maybe I put solid cooper wires with enamel on if i suffer performance issues in feeding led with enough current.
I put all back together

16 mm alumin led sit ok i see, but i wanted to try and a 20 mm noctigon G2 and for that i see than need just a little work on sides to fit well

I made some temperature measurements on t6 in alumin but without paste just to see and after around 7 min on ~2.5 A the led go ~75 grade Celsius. Meh not bad but not good enough for me. I polish again all superficies from led sit to the radiator and put back again and this time put it tighter (just screw little bit more, still not very strong pressure because I am still in testing) and this time put noctigon and a dot of paste just to see how it will perform this time:

From what I see it looks ok. Led max temp i measured on junction when noctigon is soldered with led was ~ 45 grades Celsius after about 5 min on max. make some extended measurements on different part to see how heat flow, but this is another part which i think to put in the end when i will make the review of my flashlight (if i mange to finish it :p)
Some more photos:

I was thinking seeing the photos if we have some small batteries that can be puted there without seen and put it on this looks like some kind of magical specter from the old times …

Ok since time is against me I am forced to be denser in my posts. Fortunately I have made some progress during this time and now have some time to post. Have made some photos (more than some to tell the truth around 1000 ) and now I am in the position that don’t know from where to start posting, I think to create another thread to dump there all the photos unedited for the curious to see the work more in detail and here to post as little as possible. This will spare me much trouble I believe.

So update 18/6/2014

After finishing the head and the pill my focus shift to the body, battery tube, switches, miniaturizing driver and optimizing everything. I have posted some photos in post 46 and to be more consequent I am adding the more important here too:
Idea is that I find some cheap and easy way to make an body for my project

Also worked little bit with the head trying to make more solid as a structure

well in the end managed to solder all and also work little bit on cleaning soldering points

made some experiments trying to clean the superficies of cooper and also adding some decorative parts however I stopped there and since then have made no more progress in this part.

also worket little bit in making something to hold the led in place but also let me calibrate easy for best focus. It’s pretty simple idea but works extremely well I was surprised by that after almost one month in use.

I have a lot of choices back then for the body but due to time restrictions now have to continue with the black body.
I made another body with a more solid material (still little bit delicate for my tastes …)

the black material is some sort of plastic mat adhesive I found resting in my office from some years … so I can’t say where to find it but am pretty sure is something used in ads industry covering decorative parts for outdoor use or something similar. But its strong it glue very well and feel good in hand. In the negative side it’s just a poor heat transmitter compared to metal parts, black color little bit compensate this.

Batteries

_When every little detail count …
… and to make it right it seriously challenge your patience
_

Next step was to work with battery compartment, and that was hard and very time consuming. I was not clear what battery to use and what configuration. It was not that I wanted just to make it work I am after performance (more throw more throw more throw !!! ) so I have to make something that perform good in the end too. My driver cannot handle 2S and up on 18650 so this factor in one side and the voltage sag of batteries under load (to meet high Vf of the led in high current modes) in other side where to things working in opposite sides and this make things more difficult for me.
I could use alkaline too and in fact the way I concept the battery holder take in consideration this fact too in the sense that I can use 3sAA for every place I made for 18650 which are three in total. This factor make the diameter of the battery holder little bit bigger that could have been other ways. But due to time restrictions I have not experimented with AA yet. I believe this will be part of play after contest. I miss some good battery holder for 3AA like this splendid one djozz have made DIY here : DIY tripleAA in series battery holder and with 3 of these I believe could get decent result.

Well I started working on it even that I had not clear all parts in my head, but you know sometime u have just to start working. I had made just 2 general schemes

in base of those I started to play around:

Well I didn’t know what I was asking for but this part challenge me very much, and the amount of work I have to do was enormous. In this moment for example I don’t know where to start posting for this part of review so first thing I am giving a link here for all my photos of battery section:
http://postimg.org/gallery/2ba6vnl8/
I have made other work after that but pretty much u get there the idea what I am trying to do.
Ok let’s try to be traditional with the thread here but if I forgot to post here something all photos and work is in the link above
First I try to work with 2 discs

the other disk is different

I work back again on the other disc

sorry I can’t remember the right sequence of work in this part and maybe something maybe not sound very consequent , I should have posted earlier when I was working on it but time stopped me from doing it right.
Then I start working on positive contact, I had to try and see what can work and what not.

then I start working on negative side but this time I use more thick cooper wire

After soldering and some work starting to give form and trying to polish

Of course in the beginning it looks bad

Then I start to work and improve as much as I can

After I polish it for the sec time

And it finally started to look good for me

in its place

When a tiny detail takes you 5 hours of work u gets the idea how much effort I decided to give battery section and that was not random decision. I need that battery holder to work perfect and be reliable in time. In order to have high performance from my flashlight I needed cut the losses to almost zero. Therefore springs with their tiny contact superficies and their native resistance where no option for my project. As u can see the entire path where current have to flow is made in thick wires made of pure cooper. In this way I make sure that the driver can see every difference in potentials (voltage) the battery can deliver. After that I have to focus only in driver section if the flash doesn’t perform well because the battery section should be excluded automatically from the list of potential failures and this type of projecting and progressing should have spared me precious time.

Also I make sure from the start that if I want to change from 3P to 3S that should be easy and in fact just with some cutting the battery holder can be very easy transformed.

Hope the above explanation does make sense so let continue with building
In this moment I have to find a way to make this contact part to stay in its place but also to not be a permanent solution but one that I can easy disassemble latter. The whay I chose to proceed was this:

I had just to find some small object to put there and so hold the part in its place. This sound simple.

After some soldering to strength the structure:

problems come after

In order to have good contact you can’t relay only in a big and smooth superficies but you need pressure too and for this I needed strong springs. I find strong springs but with strong springs the structure I made to hold the part in place just keeps braking after some time in use. It was clear than for me that I have to find some other material. It may sound simple but I really struggle to find something that work good, for example any solution you think can work?
Long story short the luck smile at me with this simple solution:

Its just a small cut from the decorative sheet of bronze or whatever it is made for.
Lol it just work so well, I can’t believe it with so many failures with other things I try before.

It’s very strong and refuses to break up and after like 7 times I opened and disassembled the battery holder during building of it
Regarding the right pressure I got 5 different pens and try their springs and none worked right then I tried 2 springs together again was not satisfied. Looking around then I find some different kind of springs and after some cuttings and experimenting I finally settled for a 3 spring together setup. It worked just right and was strong
Third spring after some cutting and working on it

And in place

I polished one last time this part:

As much as I try to capture how cool it looks in reality after polishing and work on it the pictures just don’t do justice how nice it looks in reality.

After I think how to make an elastic contact between two thick wires of cooper. I don’t have those nice flexible bare copper braided shunt I see someone use in this forum to make stronger contact here and there but know it my style is when u can just do it your self

and after some boring minutes

Then I make something to hold the elastic cooper wire in place

I made a last revision making sure that everything works as it should!

And I work in every small detail I think could make better

And in place

Unfortunately the spring I made for positive side was not needed so I change it

After soldering together

And some polishing

That has to be soldered here

After I made the contact between the two discs

And in place

Ready for soldering

After I make other 2 contact

And everything will be soldered in its place

The last thing I do was doing something for the exact positioning of the 18650 batteries in holder, even though the spring was very strong and once the batteries where in right place the battery don’t move even after some pressure I feel I have to do it as good as I can. In order to do this I chose an elastic material that tolerate some bending

The battery just sit there perfectly

And finally the project is ready for the next step

All connected tested and working better than excepted lol after some testing and measurements I got very high Vf from an xp g2 with dome on a single 18650. of course if I put the 2 other batteries I could get even better result but since I was very satisfied even with just one 18650 and the time was a factor here I stop there developing battery holder and jump on next step optimizing and minimizing my driver to fit in its place…

Ervin_Anastasi · June 30, 2014, 8:05pm

~~just in case…~~

Update 20/06/2014

Finishing driver and my eyes together with it

Shrinking the mass of wires switches and AMC chips that I call driver in one small place

I really was afraid how will pas this. Lots of unclear thing is the process so I spend a lot of time thinking about how will do it. Once I make a general idea than I start work on it.
This is how it looks before I started this part of work:

In that state it served me well for testing and measurements. Again since it is a lot of work I will try to post the smallest number of photos that I believe can give you a right idea of the work. For those who are curious here is the link of all photos in driver section:
http://postimg.org/gallery/9idvvcto/

About measurements of Vf after I made them and studied one sentence come to my mind:
‘Huston we have a problem here’ lol
Here are the measurements:

I have an printed copy of Match tests that I usually use for deducting I in my led. I chose this way simply because measuring I from multimeter is very hard and inaccurate usually. Measuring V in other side it’s easy and usually very accurate even from cheap meters.

Problem in my readings is very high Vf compared to Vf of Match. In the start when I is low everything match pretty well but later one in high ampere levels to my eyes something is wrong. I can’t explain this right now and invite anyone with more knowledge than me on the subject, please come here and share some light. Maybe match used some PWM power supply and these affect readings? Maybe latest cree with higher bin act slightly differently? OR I am missing something and am just interpreting wrong this graph?
But let’s move on. Since I can’t say for sure what current my led is getting I am making some educated guess. I believe that from a single cell fully charged I am getting around 4.5 A, but again I can’t be 100% sure on this. Judging by Vf of Mtach I should have more but I don’t believe am getting more than this from a single cell…
Saying this lets move one with the build:
After I made some drawings in real scale (1:1) which helped me to clear ideas

I started work on this

Than I make solid the inner part

next step was ripping apart the old driver getting AMC I have solder before from there:

in the first version I use 10 AMC (380mA) in 4 groups in 1,2,3,4 configuration optimizing it now will use 15 AMC (380mA) again in 4 main groups but this time in 1,2,4,8 configuration. This will gave me 15 levels of output from 380mA to ~5.7A
For doing this I preserve 1, 2, 4 stacks and only added 5 AMC to the 3 group.
The next step was putting them in place. One of the biggest mistakes I made during this build is that in this moment I chose to experiment with the group with 4 AMC and not solder it in the pill but use epoxy just to see the differences with soldering procedure I chose for other groups

I ran on different problems later on during the work

The green wire is the temperature monitor I put there to monitor temperature during soldering process of AMC. I do not need nasty surprises like burned AMC or flickering after, during use. I have not much time for repairing later so better do it right. So soldering was a pain for deferent reasons. My eyes starting being tired so in this moment I decide I need to do something for them, after little thinking I come with this :

may sound like stupid but work good and the added light really help. I like it so much that now I am thinking on building something more seriously or just to buy one. However for now I finished the work with this and was very satisfied in the end lol

So let’s continue with building

I made some temperature measurement to see what I have done:

And the results where more than good, the most problematic single AMC during use in one full 18650(worst case scenario) after ~2 min in use rise only 0.2 grade C. the big stack with 8 AMC rise only 0.1C during use.
Next I played with different switches (I can’t stress how important is a good switch in the overall performance of the flashlight in my case) to get the one with the lowest resistance.

Opened and check different ones but too tired to go in detailed analyze now. What I chose was one that worked really well. It was not the best looking of the bunch but what differentiates it was how well it works.

update 23/06/2014

I think a lot how to make something very solid for holding all parts of the driver including DIP switch and general power switch too together with all AMC and wires. This is a key part that connect led and battery section. I have done led part and also batteries section, this was my last big hurdle making my project a reality and finalizing 3 month of hard work. Ok. I look what materials have around make an last evaluation and start the work.

And put the driver inside

it looks that with some work everything will fit inside
so I continue work for switches

it was not that easy:

it was a fight against the patience this:

and I am not going in details here how much tries I have made till I was satisfied with result in the end

When I all connected first thing I do before put batteries on and fire up I check all with multimetter. This was a wise decision; I have something very wrong somewhere causing a short circuit between plus and minus. In an unprotected 18650 or even worse three of them this could cause serious problems…
Can you imagine what mean connecting all together and now to not have idea what was wrong; I was devastated for a fraction of a sec, lucky me I find defect and what goes wrong and repair it for living, so I gathered forces and started to check. Problem was here:

During put all together one of cooper wires soldered in driver pill for cooling cut the positive wire that go to led. Well cooling is soldered in GND of AMC so was negative…
I was so happy I find it, it was little bit hard because it was not a permanent short, some time it make contact some time not depending on pressure. I take measurement that something similar not happen again in future.

Everything was smoothed there to not cut anything again

This photo shows the original driver on UF-T20 compared with my driver

I had another defect that causes some flickering AFTER some use of dip swich, lucky I find again where problem lie:

this photo explain it all:

i was not vigilant enough during projecting and this detail escape me back then, do you find where problem is???

in the end i fix this too and driver was more than ready to work:

Ervin_Anastasi · June 23, 2014, 4:18pm

~~bump ?~~
that was a useful bump

well my flashlight was finally ready to shine but you know me having a xp g2 in copper overdriven like X3 or more around 5 A with an Fresnel lens 100mm diameter with around 0.4 f was not satisfied. The beam was good strong and with a big hotspot. Around 200 000 lux but still I wanted more, so before we go in beam shots I have one more little modification to do.

Reflectors +Aspheric

When I marry reflector and aspheric together for the perfect throw,

and the waiven start to be little bit jealous….

I took this reflector :

curious like always how it will work. Diameter 100 mm, not smooth but not orange peal type either, it have somehow strange reflecting pattern, but it work relatively well.
Better than fresnel both in lux AND in total lumens it output and I like this fact.
But it was not only this I have another idea in mind to that had to experiment.
I took the aspheric of my UF-T20 and this time I had the luck by my side.
In theory I wanted to kill the spill one wide reflector have and recycle it in the throw, and this can be easy obtained in this way :

Normally in a reflector the throw numbers are the area in yellow and in the middle there is a missing part in light that looks like black hole. In my setup there is added the lux throw from aspheric so total throw of the system is reflector throw + aspheric throw like there are two separate setups IF is done right way.
I started the work:

Even the reflector alone it was better than the Frensel in throw.
I continued with the plan>

Lucky for me I find an very elegant solution for my new setup

apart that it was very difficult to focus, (three deferent parameters in one) it was a big success for me. The max throw I was able to add to the reflector was around 1/3 of the reflector. On one fresh 28A Samsung I get around 350 000 lux from a xp d2 with dome. Without dome it should go around 700 000 and I believe with three 20R Samsung and some fine focusing I could get even more maybe. It would be very cool if I get my RBRZM lux numbers(just over 1 000 000 lux) in a smaller package AND with a lot of lumens too(around 900). So throw and lumen in one and good run time in other modes all in one scratch build make me very hapy.

Beam shots

I have limited view from my house. I have like 4 or 5 distances I make comparisons for my lights. They vary from 15 meters to around 250~300 meters
Waiting for the night to come

This is around 15m
This is control shot

Around 50 m

Around 150 meters

Around 300 meters

One in the sky
!
Control shot

sorry for my low quality of photos and posting but this is a race against time. If i find more time will post better shots and maybe some comparisons with convoy M2 because that is my only flashlight that you know well enough to get an idea.
i have to work on my flashlight to make it decent looking have some nice ideas but not sure on time. functionally its working 100 for now as it is and it looks very reliable from 2 week test i done.

ImA4Wheelr · April 27, 2014, 12:13pm

Hey Ervin. Intrigued to see where you go with this. Hope your ideas crystallize for you soon.

Clever idea on making that jig for shaping that copper wire. Will you need to strip the enamel coating off that wire for your purposes?

Rufusbduck · April 27, 2014, 4:34pm

Great photo sequence. Not sure if it was intended but you had me lol with your burgeoning herd of copper critters. You have my attention.

Ouchyfoot · April 27, 2014, 7:28pm

I’m loving this. I can’t wait for more.

MRsDNF · April 27, 2014, 8:42pm

I'm loving your build. Just a quick question. Where do you get it, patience that is, you sounded jaded half way through and then continued onto mk2. You certainly are building something unique.

RaceR86 · April 27, 2014, 8:46pm

Art.

Looking forward to the rest. :)

DB_Custom · April 27, 2014, 9:36pm

Interesting

djozz · April 27, 2014, 10:12pm

You should already get extra jury points for this starting photo-series, whatever happens in the rest of the build :beer:

18sixfifty · April 27, 2014, 10:20pm

I can’t wait to see what the heck this is gonna be.

sedstar · April 27, 2014, 11:40pm

hm. you basically created a “standard wire bending jig”.

older people that were handy all had one… i picked one up years back, and used it once or twice.

if everyone of the copper bent pieces were uniform ENOUGH,i see what you are looking for, a really cool heat sink.

great imagination and resourcefulness… applause

sinner · April 27, 2014, 11:44pm

Looking forward to the updates, very interesting work.

Ervin_Anastasi · April 28, 2014, 12:50pm

well believe it or not I am intrigued myself, its the first time I am doing a flashlight so its a new territory. Thanks to the Old-Lumens who made this possible, after all i don’t think I will ever try to make an flashlight from scratch other ways.
unfortunately yes I have to strip enamel coating and already started to do that if u can see in the last photos. now I have to make them straight line, all again from the beginning, of the copper parts that I worked to clean them up and again to work with the new mode by hoping they will look better. so for now i have some bulk and repetitive work to do, only time is needed.

thank you

thank you too I will try to progress as fast as i can.

thank you. patience come usually whew you enjoy something or love it, and I am trying to enjoy this

thank you. you are all kind and this is turning in something I have to take more seriously. hope I will be able to finish it.

thank you

ah that was very reassuring, especially now that am starting to feel the weght of fear of deluding, if I fail with this build cheers

but i intend to take my time with this, so even if I have a lot of free time(which i don’t have), I do not intent to rush with this.

thank you

thank you , as soon as i can…

again thank you all, as soon as i can will post photos if I progress.
I was hoping somebody will like it, but as is turning out you are putting me before responsibility. now i have to think more to not delude anybody :bigsmile:

DB_Custom · April 28, 2014, 12:54pm

And therein you have discovered the nature of the scratch built beast.

Last year I made a light from a .50 BMG live round. It was a big success and I could barely believe I did it!

This year I’m having to step up the game, and am not sure I’m up to it.

nickelflipper · April 28, 2014, 4:00pm

Ervin, last year, I picked up some heavy copper washers from a friendly, local plumbing supply house for under a $1 ea. These were not the skinny crush-able type used for auto oil pans and the like. The washers were normal sized, like in your bolted assembly pic, and were meant for a Jacuzzi brand spa pump fitting. Just an idea that could help out?, or not.

DBSAR · April 29, 2014, 4:45pm

This is going to be cool

Ervin_Anastasi · May 2, 2014, 1:15pm

nickelflipper thanks

thank you i hope, for now its just a black hole for my free time :~
by the way nice work u are making too, will post later

firs post updated.

MRsDNF · May 2, 2014, 7:50pm

I hope you weren't in to much trouble and dinner was ready when you got home. Its good to see you get the soldering done and the light lit up. For some reason I only seem to make them smoke.