Hey, thanks for all the great comments, much appreciated!
Yes that’s the barrel from a silver aluminium pen, it’s the only piece of tubing i had handy that was a snug fit for both the inner diameter of the (plumbers radiator) copper pipe and the outer diameter of the cell. It is quite thin, approx 0.5mm.
The pill is made from the same pen with a piece of aerial tube press fitted inside to make a ledge on which the 10mm copper MCPCB sits, the LED board has a 3mm round of copper ( made from copper squares ) soldered onto the back which fits tightly inside the aerial tube inside the aluminium tube inside the copper tube… :laughing:
The driver is potted with RTV silicone inside the pill and filed down to press fit in the copper host with a 5x2mm neodymium magnet soldered on, same with the switch.
Because of the design waterproofing is not really possible so the copper switch cover made from 1mm copper squares again is epoxied to the top of the switch, but there’s a fair amount of thick silicone grease around the plunger and this is also press fitted & fixed in place with thermal adhesive so i reckon it could take a quick dunk.
I also soldered a round piece of 1.5mm solid copper wire to the underside of the outside rim of the switch cover to help with stability. The TIR from an old light is filed slightly to press fit also and sanded on front.
The decorative lines are done by wrapping insulating tape around the light three or four times at 0.5mm intervals to make a guide for a junior hacksaw, i just sit the light on top of open vice jaws and lightly go around the grooves a few times while rotating the piece.
The light was made on a whim when i came across a couple of cuttings of pipe from when the radiators were installed, the other stuff i already had and it took about six hours to make.
I’m not sure if I read the above correct. Pens, silver at that, aerial tube, bits of copper and on we go. I think I best go have a lie down and come back and read it again.
Yeah, one of my favorites. It has 3 Nichia 219C emitters now and a 17mm FET driver, pulls over 8A at startup with a 20 second turbo timer to 50%. It’s a fair chunck of copper so just gets nice & warm all round set up like that.
No i didn’t do a rundown of what i did, just posted in the What did you mod today thread along with my other mods.
It’s just a 10507 filed down to about 18 or 19mm, same with the triple Noctigon.
I buy these copper slugs for 99p each, it says 5mm in the listing but they are usually rough cut at about 10-15mm.
A lot of work filing these by hand so i first cut to size, drill a 4mm hole and mount it on an M4 nut & bolt then put it in a battery drill and the same for sanding down the MCPCB.
