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I have like 400 unpublished photos and i don’t have time to post.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…