MtnDon’s 11th Annual Old Lumens Challenge Entry - Hand Made Category

Right now, all I can say is watch this space. I haven’t a clue what I will do this year. I’m up to my ears rebuilding wildfire-damaged wire (barbed and barbless) fences for the next few weeks so will have time to think this out. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Awesome, my favourite time of year begins again. Really enjoy following these build threads. As always, good luck to all entrants!

I am changing horses in midstream. My idea has been rethought and a fresh start will be made in a few days.

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Space holder…

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For those who saw my original post, I apoligize. I removed the little I began with as I changed direction somewhat. This light is still planned to be more in the lantern class than a tubular shaped flashlight.

Today I made an honest start after nailing down the components that will be used. More or less nailed down.

The emitter will be a single Nichia 519A. The driver is from Sofirns SP10Pro, with Anduril 2. This is a side switch driver but I will be either moving or simply using an e-switch patched onto the SP10 driver switch contact points. There will be an on-board 1 amp charger for the 18650 cell. A USB-C port for the power connection. One Samsung ICR 18650 22P cell. Possibly two in parallel, but more likely a single.

After I resize some of the images I will be back to post them and some description.

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First, a mount for the driver. I found that I had a short length of 19mm OD x 1mm wall copper tubing. Using a tubing cutter and soft jaw pliers I was able to cut an 8mm length of the scrap of tubing.

The tubing has an actual ID of 17mm. The SP10 Pro driver is about 17.3mm. A little sanding around the circumference of the driver and it slides inside. I cut the rolled-in edge that is left by the tubing cutter from one end to permit the insertion of the driver. The driver slides in and is stopped by the rolled-in edge at the other end. For the finished project, the driver negative ring will receive a couple of solder joints to retain it in the copper tube.

Before getting too far along I decided to test the driver. The driver worked fine, ramping up and down and turning on and off. Great!

The driver and the charger board will share a heatsink. The heatsink is a copper strip made specifically for cooling an SSD (Solid State computer Drive). I cut some required spacer blocks from a copper bar I had on hand. Some copper angle stock (1/2" angle) was cut to make up the assembly.

The piece had flux paste applied at the points where they would be silver soldered together. A spring clamp was used to hold some pieces together while the driver ring was held in place by gravity and a prayer.

I was happily surprised when it all came together without falling apart or slipping out of place. The solder flux residue was washed off with lemon juice and salt, which also removed the discoloration of the copper from the heat of the butane torch.

Today’s final image shows the heat sink assembly with the driver and the charger board temporarily positioned for display purposes. The wires shown are all temporary at this time.

Thanks for having a look.

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That’s an interesting looking heatsink

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:+1: , the LED heatsink will be separate from this one.

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On to another piece of this light.

The MCPCB with LED will be mounted to a nice black anodized and finned aluminum heatsink made by Wakefield-Vette. The heatsink will be mounted inside a wood shade. I glued together 2 small blocks of American walnut for this part. One piece was just not quite thick enough. If the hole was precisely drilled it might have been possible to make it with a single block. But why tempt fate?

A 1-1/2” hole was bored through the glued up block , into the end grain.

The walnut block was then trimmed…

A 10” sanding disc fitted to the table saw was used to sand away wood to make a cylindrical shape.

The OD was measured and a couple of test holes were drilled in a scrap piece. 1-13/16” (46mm) and 1-3/4” (44.5mm) test holes were drilled. As is, the walnut piece fits the 1-13/16” hole best, but a little more sanding will make it fit the 1-3/4” hole and I believe the thinner wall will look better.

I took some time to sand the outside and the inside of the walnut shade using fine (220 grit) sandpaper, sanding in the direction of the grain.

These two pieces of wood are olive. Olive frequently has attractive grain patterns. One or perhaps both of these will be used in this light. The stock is ½” thick and 3” wide. I do have to hope that the upper piece does not separate along the fault lines when I go to machine some cutouts. We will see what happens.

Thanks for looking. More to come…

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Looking good mate.

If you don’t want to ruin the copper pipe, you can usually fit a pair of needle nose pliers inside to hold it still while being cut.

Great to see you entering again Don! it woodn’t be the same without you! :grin:

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I really like your ingenuity Don, your works are an inspiration :wink:
Keep up the nice work!!

Some miscellaneous things were done today.

I reflowed the 4500K Nichia 519A emitter to the MCPCB

It tested okay the first time, too!

This light will be powered by a single 18650 Samsung 22P cell. I decided to use solder tabs on the cell and hardwire it in place. The cell will be accessible, just unable to be changed quickly. But it is meant to be an end table light. (My first spot welded tabs)

For now, I wrapped the tabs with tape to prevent nasty surprises.

Lastly, I glued some wood together to make a block that will become the main body section of this light.

Thanks for dropping by. Still more to come.

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That´s some nice wood work here and the DIY heatsink is one of a kind for sure :wink:

Here is that glued-together block of wood, after being trimmed…

The driver and charger heatsink assembly will be mounted inside a cavity in this block with the rectangular plate on the exterior side of the block. The cavity is cut out using my table-mounted router.

This is the router table with stop blocks clamped in place. The router bit can be raised and lowered with the hex-key handle. The workpiece is positioned between the stops and held as the bit is raised. Then the workpiece is moved right to left to cut. Reposition the workpiece, the bit height, or the fence position and repeat as needed.

After the first cut.

I use various digital measuring tools…

There are no action shots of the routing. However, here is the wood block with slots cut and the heatsink assembly trial fitted.

The heatsink assembly and the block. We are looking at what will be the bottom surface of the block.

One more view. The cavity will be enlarged a little on the right side of the driver mounting ring and some other grooves will be cut for wires as well as the cell, e-switch, and USB port.

That’s it for today. Thanks for having a look.

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Well, I discovered a small problem. I decided to run a capacity test on the 18650 cell I showed above. It is a left-over cell from a batch I used to make some 12-volt 25 Ah power packs a couple of years ago. This cell did not test all that great so I don’t see much point in using it. I should have had the sense to test it before. Instead, I believe I’ll be using a 4000 mAh Sofirn 21700 that has not been used much and isn’t needed for any other light at present.

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Looking forward to how it turns out MtnDon! :heart_eyes:

Trying to come up with a name for a woodworking electrical engineer flashaholic.

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Your annual OLC submission never fails to impress, including how thoroughly you pictorialize each step along the way! Thank you for sharing your project with us again this year!

If you don’t mind, I have a couple of questions for you.

To begin, when laminating boards together as you often do with your projects, do you include either biscuits and/or dowels to augment the glue, especially when your design requires edge-trimming and routering or drilling out large sections of material?

Additionally, what’s your preferred brand and specific type of wood glue, and is the decision based on whether you’re laminating hard-wood species or soft?

Thank you for your answers!

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