First post on the forum but long time lurker. I have a light the has been a dream of mine for a long time now. The main use for it would be out in the woods as a spotlight. I want to take one of my Vision x light cannons and replace the head of my Dewalt DCL040 with it. I have the light cannons set up now hardwired with just a simple 1” square tube as a handle. they work great but I am limited to the length of my power cord. My dream is to have this light set up with 1000’ of usable light and rechargeable dewalt batteries as the power source. I guess my main question here is has anyone done this before or is there anyone out there that is willing to attempt this for me??
The first thing I notice is that your dewalt light is 18/20v, and the spotlights I’m assuming are designed for automotive use, therefore ~12v. Not sure how much the electronics will play with each other.
I don’t have any photo sharing accounts and I don’t see a way to upload one to this sight from my computer or I would post some pictures! I could email them to someone if they would be willing to post for me?
Yes, the vision x light is rated for 11-30v input. Thats why I figured this may work.
So I took the dewalt light apart and here is what I found. Battery terminal has four prongs and the battery itself has 5 slots for the prongs. I will label the slots on the battery from left to right with numbers then what it says on the battery: 1) B+ 2) TH/ID 3) C1/C2 4) C3/C4 5) B~~. Number 3) C1/C2 is not used on the terminal. Wire coming from the 1) B+ battery terminal has what looks to be an inline fuse or resistor, writing on it says (T2A 250V), it then goes to the on/off switch then to the circuit board. The 5) B~~ battery terminal leads straight to the circuit board. There is also a yellow wire that leads from 4) C3/C4 directly to the circuit board.
Volt meter readings are as follows for combined slot #: 1&5~20v, 2&5~20v, 4&5~12.06v, 1&3~8.04v, 2&4~8.04v, 3&5~4.01
What I see from this is there are four +positive slots and one -negative. I would think the best ones to use would be 4&5 since it is 12v but I’m not sure if that is linked to all of the cells in the battery. In other words, Im not sure if I would be able to use the battery packs full capacity.
The wires leading from the circuit board to the led show ~3.5 volts on my meter. Not enough for the Vision X.
I went ahead and tried a combination last night and in my tired state of mind with a few drinks in me, It didn’t go well. I didn’t see that 4&5 produced 12v and I figured since the light is rated for 11-30v it would handle the 20v easily. Here is how I hooked it up. Wire from slot 1) B+ to 30A fuse to dewalt switch to vision x light. Wire from slot 5) B- directly to vision x light.
Click the switch and pop goes the fuse and I think it messed up the light itself. I took the light and tested to see if it was okay on a wiring harness for the rigid lights on my truck. Popped the 15A fuse for that wiring harness. So now either there is a short inside the scosche weatherproof plug leading to the light or even worse, there is something wrong with the light internally. I have another vision x light so I can use that one if this one is dead. For now I think I will use some cheap chinese led cubes to do my testing with. Live and learn I guess.
On a positive note, I trimmed the dewalt housing so it would fit the vision x light on it and it looks freakin’ sweet with the light mounted!
So, where to go from here. My thoughts are to have the dewalt switch activate a relay that turns the light on. only problem is the relay I have from the vision x wiring harness is huge and I can’t find a good place to mount it on the light.
Disclaimer: I may do some stupid things throughout this adventure. I am by no means an expert at this and I only have a general knowledge on how these things work. Please go easy on me :sunglasses:
Welcome to BLF
Tinypic let’s you upload and share one pic at the tine without account but an account is easy to make (also on other sites, trust me you’ll need it here )
I bet the combination looks cool as you described.
But honestly I don’t think it will be an efficient or effective mod.
Your first step should be to determine the model of the dewalt battery pack,
and google the pinout of it. Maybe you can find a post somewhere that details how the power is passed out from it.
In order for anyone to be helpful, they would need to know specifics about what vision x light and battery pack you are working with.
So by looking at this, you want to draw power from the 1st and last pins on the battery.
Using the photo and orientation in the link you can determine which is positive and which negative.
The other pins are for battery management functions. Apparently some of the management features (low voltage shutoff, etc) are in the tool units themselves, which is why the battery needs the extra pins to communicate. Without these pins involved in your mod, the battery may be subject to damage from overdischarge etc. Maybe you can read further and determine this for yourself. Hope this helps.
Maybe you had the wrong polarity? Even though LEDs are diodes, they aren't designed to be hooked up in reverse.
Also I can't see how an LED array would be rated at such a wide voltage range unless there is a DC-DC converter inside the unit. If there is, and the polarity was reversed, it's probably the converter that blew out.
It's ok though, because you can build a simple current source for the DeWalt battery and bypass the DC/DC converter. It's a little less efficient, and you need to know how much current to program, but as long as your components are rated for the work and you've got a way to get rid of the heat it is a simple solution. Or if you're not the DIY type you can replace the DC/DC converter.
I want to do something similar, and I think my approach is going to be to use my dead DeWalt flourescent 18V shell and mount LEDs into it. I've got some 15V chips and that's almost perfect for a current source driven by an 18V battery. I've also upgraded a couple of my battery packs, replacing the NiCD with NiMH cells. They're about double the capacity which will be handy for a light. I expect this thing to be a little less of a cannon and a little more of a small portable sun. The chips are around 1100 lumens each and I'm going to use 6. That'll require around 3.5A of current at full intensity, and I plan to use the switch to get a 1/4 intensity setting also for saving battery life.
Thank you guy for the responses. I had given up for a while on this because I’ve been busy and a little disheartened by the project.
Thanks for the link, it’s pretty cool to be able to see inside without tearing into mine. As for the batteries, I have two dcb203 which are 20v “max” 2ah and I have one dcb201 20v “max” 1.5ah. I was planning on getting one of the bigger amp hour batteries so the light would last longer but I’m not sure how that would affect everything.
Angler, what do you think would be more efficient and effective?
I am pretty positive I didn’t have the polarity swapped as I checked it with my multimeter. I was going to send it back to vision x to be repaired but I’m not sure if I should now or try and replace the part myself.
Taylor, that seems like a pretty cool idea and should be pretty similar to what I am trying to do. Have you worked on it at all since your last post?
Honestly I would love to just find someone I can pay to do this. I don’t think I have the time or expertise to do this myself right now.
I don’t get notifications from this forum for some reason so if anyone wants to offer their services, please shoot me an email. Bradrobbins113@gmail.com
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