New light, DBC-03 FINISHED! 6-2-16

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Hiya hiya!
Seems the lathe has been calling my name lately. :slight_smile: This time, something uniquely different from my 2 previous builds. A fatboy tube light, utilizing the Trustfire 32650 cell that has 6000mAh capacity! This is a triple XP-L V6 1D with a CUTE-3 optic on a 32mm Noctigon and using 18ga Turnigy leads.

I bought a piece of T6061 Aluminum at the local machine shop in a 2” x 6” size. Started by building the internals, beginning with the copper pill. This piece of 100% pure copper must be inlaid with diamond chips or something, it was brutal on my lathe and took me 4 hours just to make the pill! Once that was done, I cut the inset hole for the switch and threaded the top portion for a brass retaining ring. The idea was to keep the light a one piece design save for this removable tail end to change the big cell. On the top, the copper pill is inset and threaded in, with an aluminum retaining ring holding the optic down.

Walls at the top are 6.5mm thick, while at the cell they’re 9.5mm thick! Big, tough, and enough mass to run the light in accordance to the fat cell, I hoped. :wink:

So here’s the initial light, a smooth shiny bar of 6061 aluminum. Yes, that’s a complete light! :slight_smile:

The aluminum retaining ring and brass retaining rings were both “lathe tight” meaning I didn’t cut any tool holes but machined them to match the light and let the cutting forces thread em in tight. I loved the look, but ultimately had to alter that to “mod” it. lol

Looking into the fat cell tube. The aluminum retaining ring there just happened to fit when I came in Tuesday night, so I put it together to see if it’d work.

The tail section with a bronze phosphor bypassed spring feeding the mini Omten switch.

But the smooth finish was too slippery, clicking the tail switch would push the light through my fingers. So I took it apart and headed back out to the shop yesterday morning. :wink:

While the machined-as-one-piece light hid the tail section amazingly well, I still used the fin to further make it impossible to see where the one break is… I hid the joint in the corner of the fin, this also helps keep any dings from showing that might occur changing the cell.

As you can see in this image, I made the fins the same shallow depth the entire length of the light, then went back and cut the ones at the copper pill deeper for actual thermal dispersion. :wink: A staggered step-up toward the head gives a semi-reflector appearance to the inner profile.

Removing the top ring and optic

A look at the top, XP-L V6 1D’s with 18ga leads… I ran out of black so I used a Sharpie to mark the negative lead. lol

The top of the body, shelved and threaded for the copper pill

A seriously solid chunk of aluminum!

The copper pill, with it’s new brass retaining ring and copper disc on the spring for a good flat positive connection to the big cell.

Before the copper disc, showing off the MTN ATTiny25 FET+1 driver that I loaded with Bistro

And I polished the honeycomb pattern off the Ledil CUTE-3 optic, this netted me over 300 lumens in conjunction with the copper disc on the spring. :wink:

So, initially I was seeing 13.88A for 3519 lumens in Turbo. After the polished optic and copper disc, I got it up to 3881.25 lumens. Low is a measeley 9 Lumens.

Then I recut the opening between the driver and cell, allowing the pill to fully seat and I put a brass post with an 18ga bypass in the tailcap for a solid gain up to 14.2A and 4502.25 Lumens! I Like It! :smiley:

So there ya go, my big fat beefy 32650 tube light, XP-L Triple at 4500 lumens. Beam outside is a big coverage, not a hot spot per say once you get a bit of distance but not purely flood either. I’ll try to get out and get a shot, we’re having more storms roll through…

Thanks for checking it out! Love doing this, except for the grisly copper part, and especially love the output! :slight_smile:

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, with the Trustfire 32650 cell installed it weighs in at 665 grams! :smiley:

Edit: 5-29-16 5:33PM
I did a little fine tuning on the tail switch end this afternoon, after all the modifications and such it was getting a little scratched and the brass retaining ring was seating deeper, exposing threads. So I tweaked it and now have it at a finished level. :wink:

I’ll have some brass or 7075 to make a final optic bezel from sometime next week so that should finish it and I can proudly shelf it. lol

Edit: Finished! :smiley: I got a piece of 1/2” thick 2” wide x 2” long Alloy 385 Architectural Bronze and made a new Optic retaining ring. This took me a few hours, having to make a tool to cut a plunge cut into the square piece of bronze to get a round out of it. Fun fun fun! :slight_smile: I placed the o-ring, used the friction of the lathe when fitting it in place to tighten it, so it’s in there with no easy way to get it out. lol

Love it! :smiley:

2

Pure artistry my friend.

I would suggest that you need therapy :wink: but it would seem you have found a better therapist than you could have hoped for in the form of a lathe. Is it possible that the source of your insanity is also your best self-prescribed therapy?

Is that paradoxical???

Nice work brother! She’s a beauty.

Edit
I keep forgetting that I shouldn’t talk after the Benadryl kicks in. :person_facepalming: :disappointed: :zipper_mouth_face: :innocent:

3

Thank you Jared. Appreciate it.

I should probably add that in setting the thermal step down in the Bistro firmware, it took 4 minutes to get hot enough to engage it. There’s enough mass there to really disperse the heat and you feel it spread throughout the light as it builds, maybe a bit hotter at the pill area but not a lot.

1 1/2 pound flashlight, perhaps you’re right, the solution just might be part of the problem. :wink:

4

Wow, simple and elegant! I really like that one, keep up the good work.

5

“It is an established fact that in present-day Europe this art is the most serious occupation of people of intelligence and merit, and, between amusement and reasonable pleasures, the one most highly regarded by those who seek in some honest exercise the means of avoiding those faults caused by excessive idleness.” -Fr. Charles Plumier, (1701) in regards to turning on a lathe.

Looks like a lot of work went into that light. Nice going Dale!

6

wow! this already wins the build from scratch for me. not just here - i dare say the entire internet. nothing could look more simpler but be brilliant at the same time - and so beautiful! and here i am struggling to get started with my first mod attempts on a maglite 2D and 2AAA. i aspire to be you (and dchomak when it comes to homedepot deal hunting :slight_smile: )

7

Thanks Hoop, this is definitely one of those things that the more you know, the less you know, ya know? :wink: lol

I had all the components in my pocket, for measuring driver diameter to fit, switch pcb, switch stack height, optic/mcpcb/pill stack height, and do you know what I forgot? I didn’t even think about making sure the optic fit! I got in the house and, with the body threaded for the retaining ring already, found the optic a wee bit too big to go in! So I modded it! lol, a few minutes with a 10” double cut file and it works just fine!

The results of having no diagram, no preconceived list of measurements or plan, just winging it with a general idea of where you’re going almost always leaves something out. Especially when one is as forgetful as I am.

Initially, I was planning on turning it down in diameter to about 40mm, but at 48.8mm I like it, it’s beefy and so capable. Of course, the way it’s put together, I could always re-shape it if the mood struck…. and toss hours of labor down the drain in so doing. (I’ve done it before, who’s to say what tomorrow shall place upon my feeble brain?)

8

Man I want a lathe! That’s real nice Dale.

9

Beautiful work Dale. I love reading about your projects.

One thing worries me a bit just looking at the driver contact spring and copper disc.
Are you absolutely certain there is no way it can “slip” sideways and contact the body.

It’s not that I don’t trust your build but with 6000mAh in a big cell, such a short would be something you’d want to run from very quickly. I’d feel a bit better about your prospects for ongoing health if I could see some kind of insulating ring in there.

10

good design and craftsmanship . really cool light.

11

Nice chunk light, Dale! It has enough material to reshape it multiple times!

12

It’s a giant Lumintop Worm! That is awesome! How many hours/days did it take, or is that like something you whip out in a day? Also, what steps did you take to polish the lens?

13

Drewl so beautiful!

14

Wow, that is one monster chunk of metal there. Nice work! :+1: :+1:

15

Sweet build Dale. Impressive light for sure, though your numbers look odd to me. For an extra 0.32 amps you’re getting an extra 621 lumens.

16

Awesome :slight_smile:

17

Very nice Dale. I am liking your custom lights! How did you polish the honeycomb pattern off of the optic?

18
19

Nice Dale! Keep Going!!!

TL :+1:

20

gadabout, the driver stops short of coming through into the cell bay, there is that shelf separating the pill side from the cell side such that the cell can only go in so far and the wrapped shoulder sits against that shelf. So it can only press on the spring just so much. Granted, it’s somewhat difficult to tell just exactly how much it’s getting compressed, but since I can easily press it straight down below the shelf level, I’m not too worried about it. When given a linear compression force, a spring compresses linearly, right? What would press it to the side? The cell fits perfectly into the tube, virtually no play, barely enough to push air out. Also, the larger flat disc keeps contact surface at the cell wide, so it really can’t deflect sideways like it might could if the pointy top of a spring was against the wide cell.

pinkpanda, there’s a hidden component… I measured 14.2A at the tail with a 12” long piece of 12Ga Turnigy wire in a clamp meter. With the large brass post on the switch pcb and the very wide contact points in the “tail cap”, there’s better ground when the light is assembled than when I’m reading the current with this set-up. So there’s a higher current draw when assembled, than when testing. I can probably open up the top end and remove the optic, put a loop in the negative lead to pad and get a real time current draw at the emitters. One thing at a time, ya know? I had just gotten the last mods done to the just completed light when I wrote this up last night. I first got to wondering if my small bronze phosphor spring and 20ga bypass were limiting current so I used a 1971 Penny to make the contact with the tail removed and the light in the light box. I got 4200+ lumens that way, so this is how I discovered the switch assembly was costing me some current. I set out to remedy that and used the brass post with 18ga bypass to the switch through the pcb for virtually no resistance. Assembled, this gave me even ~300 more lumens than the copper penny did! Pleasant surprise, yes, but of course the penny had small contact points and the assembled light has massive contact. I’ll try to get that top reading this morning. For both of us. :wink:

WillyD, initially it took me about 20 hours at the lathe, then some more fine tuning time spent, and the build, along with polishing the optic and such. So all in all it’s about 24 hours worth. It’s very time consuming removing 34mm of stock 70mm long inside a 2” bar of 6061. Even boring it with a drill bit in the tail stock first, then using a boring bar to bring it to specs, it just takes time. I am not an existing shop, I never ran a lathe prior to Sept of last year, this is all new to me, and tools are not necessarily readily available. I mean, everybody else probably has a 1 1/8” drill bit that’s nice and sharp but most of the stuff I have here is either old or has Daditis (my Dad got to it before me… he can be a really smart guy but knows ZIP about tools. Seriously! I’ve known him to attempt sharpening a drill bit on a bench grinder having no concept of the proper angles, not even keeping the sides the same, ugh! I’m not kidding here, he put a chop saw blade on our table saw to cut steel angle, the slag filled the set screws under the table so you couldn’t adjust the angle and height of the blade on the table saw, I had to file the slag out of the threads to use the table saw!)

Brett, on the optic I used wet/dry sandpaper in our utility room cast iron/porcelain sink. Using the wall of the sink as a flat, I stuck the wet paper on the flat surface and simply ran the optic in circles, alternating my grip on it by rotating one TIR each time I stopped to check it, like every 20 circles made. Then I polished it on a piece of newspaper with Mother’s Aluminum Polish using the formica counter top as a flat. Works like a charm, takes maybe 10 minutes max. (I skipped steps, used old 320 first to get rid of the honeycomb, then 1500 to remove the sanding lines) It’s probably more work washing the optic in soap and hot water then getting it thoroughly dried off with no fingerprints. :wink: