Hello,……I would like to mod some lights or possible build some and would like your help. My son and I use headlamps for hunting at night and the lights we use are very expensive and we would like to build our own and possible some to sell locally. The light we use now is a 3 led light mounted to a hard hat/bump cap powered by 8 AA NIMH batteries carried on a belt with a rotary style switch and some models also have a single flood led on the “switch box” to light your path as you walk,…this light is advertised at 2200 lumens and sells for around $400 with a wall wart charger.
I purchased 2 “budget” head lamps as I was curious to see how they compared to our expensive lights and to experiment with.
Both of these lights impressed us,…the 3 led version is as bright as our $400 light and the single led version is not far behind.
Some issue I would like to address in my build,
1.) Increasing battery life by adding additional cells,…building battery packs using 26650 batteries,…or just building same size packs with better batteries such as Panasonic? Can I also increase voltage for brightness?
2.) Overall output,…better drivers,…leds,…?? Not really sure how to get more lumens or lux out of these lights but based on the fact that both lights can be left on for over an hour and never get warm they cant be driven very hard.
3.) Less spill,…the perfect circle is what we are after but this may be hard to do with a headlamp style light?
Come on guys,….is no one interested in my headlamp build??
I have decided to start with the single led light,….I guess some amp draw measurements are a good place to start,….see how hard we are driving the led? Not really sure how to do that with this light but I am sure I can find out.
I have the light apart and hope to get some pictures soon,…the driver has a clicky switch mounted on the back,….can I find an upgraded driver in this style?
The light is running at 8.4v,….what will happen if I run it at 12v-15v,……not really sure how the driver,emitter will handle more voltage but seeing as I plan to build better packs anyway seems like an easy way to increase current at the led?
I noticed that the led is not centered,…not even close!!! Will it really make a difference if I center it??
Over volting the driver is a bad idea , many years ago there was a 8.4v driver that was touted as handling up to 15v ...
Ok it didnt fry @ 15v or 12v but it did overheat and switch to low mode after about 30 seconds on high .. People complained about this driver for years as they used it in mag mods .
Now if you limited the voltage to 8.4v the driver ran just fine , no issues .
Moral of the story , over volting a driver is not such a good idea , it might work , and then there is a good chance it will not .
As for your build : You havent supplied is with any information .
What emitter are you using ?
What driver ?
What battery ?
You want to run what voltage ? and why ?
Are you modifying and existing light or building from scratch ?
Is the battery going to be part of the headlamp or belt mounted ?
Perhaps using a hobby battery ( flight pack ) of the right voltage might be an idea if the battery is belt mounted ... ?
How about this one , 13000mAh capacity 7.4v nominal ( 8.4 fully charged ) , could make a decent belt mounted battery ?
If you’re interested in increasing runtime you might want to consider going with a hardcase RC Lipo battery.
Then you’ll never have to worry about draining too much current if you then try to run high currents to the LED’s. Even the budget 5000 mah lipo packs can easily discharge a continuous 50 amps without issue. That’s more capacity than a 26650 and it’s in a more convenient form factor, rectangular and protected with a hard plastic case.
This is what i would do with the single one; measure your current draw[cheap dmm], check lux at 1m and ceiling bounce lux and record measurements, [cheap light metre]these will provide a real measure on before and after mods. Order a new led, xml2 1a on copper noctigon pcb [$7 ea] and dedome led, try to source the same size driver with higher amp draw, use pana 18650b protected cells and try to lower the resistance of the cell carrier. Should yield at least double the throw and add up to 300 lumens with a modest 1amp increase new led and resistance mods. Hope this helps- there is heaps of modding in the forum- you can check out all the great mods created by the talented members for ideas.
The battery pack will be carried on a belt,….weight and size is not much of a factor within reason. Currently we are using 12 AA NIMH in a pouch on the belt and they are not light, I dont think using 18650 we will have a problem with weight.
I have removed the drivers from our test lights and we have came to our first problem, the drivers have the switch mounted to them and I have not found any after market drivers with the switch built in?
I know you guys will be able to help when I get some detailed pictures of the headlamps apart, I plan to take some measurements and pictures soon.
P.S.
Just for fun we plugged the test lights into a 14.4v NIMH battery pack and they are much brighter and did not heat up,….I am not sure what this tells us? I was really surprised that they worked at double their voltage.
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How about this one , Just plug in a battery like this ...... 13000mAh capacity VS 4400mAh capacity
If you are going to start moding , then first hit kaidomain.com / dx.com and see what reflectors are available .. If you cant find a reflector ?
Thats my advice , first find the reflector .. No1
any decent 8.4v driver will do , just work out the current you want to run
just add a switch , lots and lots of switches out there , turning the light on and off quickly will change modes .
