New Project!

Sirstinky · 2019-07-01T15:12:29.000Z

BillyBobJoe:

Looks neat. Will the whole assembly fit inside the original case or will it need modified?

The only modification I’m planning for will be the reflector. It sticks out top far from the back, but once I cut the back down to make it with with the led, there’s more room.

DavidEF · 2019-07-01T19:58:51.000Z

Curious, what was the problem you had with the reflector that made it not workable? I started a mod on a “10 million candlepower” light some years ago, and the reflector worked fine with MT-G2. I did have to move the MT-G2 up into the focal point by making an Aluminum pedestal for the MCPCB to sit on. But I accidentally stripped the shiny coating off the reflector and finally couldn’t use it for that reason. I stopped working on it after that, and ended up giving the MT-G2 away after a while. I had about as good a focus as could be expected from any incan reflector. It was definitely better than the cheap halogen bulb that was there before.

Sirstinky · 2019-07-01T22:05:43.000Z

DavidEF:

Curious, what was the problem you had with the reflector that made it not workable? I started a mod on a “10 million candlepower” light some years ago, and the reflector worked fine with MT-G2. I did have to move the MT-G2 up into the focal point by making an Aluminum pedestal for the MCPCB to sit on. But I accidentally stripped the shiny coating off the reflector and finally couldn’t use it for that reason. I stopped working on it after that, and ended up giving the MT-G2 away after a while. I had about as good a focus as could be expected from any incan reflector. It was definitely better than the cheap halogen bulb that was there before.

That was the issue I ran into. I would have loved to see how you did that and made it work. And yes, unless you get into the hundreds of watts, a single led will make more light than an incandescent light source and a lot less heat per lumen.

Logistically it was possible, but I wanted to try the other way for yucks. I knew I would have had to move the emitter up into the reflector to compensate for the roughly 120-125 degree view angle from the led versus the 360 degree light dispersion pattern from an incandescent bulb. I didn’t want to mess with fabricating a pedestal to put the emitter on, drill holes in it for the leads, etc. and potentially damage the reflector. Plus I run my LEDs hot so I got better thermal management the other way. I hope this works!

DavidEF · 2019-07-01T22:17:47.000Z

I have a short piece of 25mm round Aluminum bar that I got from Dale (DB Custom) a while back and have used pieces of it for a couple of projects. This was one of those. I cut off a piece about an inch long and lapped one end flat/smooth for the MCPCB, and made the other end fit in the old bulb opening in the reflector.

The way I ruined my reflector was trying to polish it. I didn’t know it was a coating, and underneath was a clear (epoxy?) coating to make it smooth, then under that just junk metal. If I wanted to, I could sand away the clear coat and try to polish the metal, but it won’t do much good, and salvaging the light just isn’t worth all that work to me now for subpar results.

Sirstinky · 2019-07-01T23:04:56.000Z

They are all made pretty much the same way, stamped and spot welded sheet steel that’s coated with chrome then has an epoxy on the inside and outside for corrosion resistance. I found that out when I was grinding it on my belt sander…funky smells! I’d have liked to seen what the post thing looked like with photos of the beam pattern.

Sirstinky · 2019-07-03T08:06:57.000Z

So here's some tinkering I did today. Preparing to mount the base of the reflector to the heat sink assembly. I'm planning on fabricating a mount for the reflector as well. I'm trying to keep it modular for easy disassembly.

The aluminum ring is about 4mm tall and 35mm wide. It's a spacer that goes between the platters of a hard disk drive. Here it's a spacer/ mount for the bottom of the reflector. It sits on top of the heat sink.

I could have spent a couple hours drilling holes into it and mounting it with screws, but why when you have JB Weld? I put thermal paste between the ring and heatsink since the reflector base will be aluminum and I will get some residual heatsinking. Yes, the bottom of the reflector is the top cover from a hard drive.

That's it for now. More to come!

Best

Sirstinky · 2019-07-12T08:09:09.000Z

I got to do some more work tonight. I got my replacement drivers from China (stupid fast shipping from Aliexpress) so I resumed the driver mounting and electrical connections.

To do the ground strap I drilled a shallow hole in the driver holder and filled our with solder.

Then I soldered on an 18 gauge silicone wire that comes off the momentary switch to complete the circuit.

It works! There's light. It gets really hot without the fan after about 2 minutes of turbo.

I'll work on the reflector next. It's been raining so I couldn't work outside (wife says no belt grinding in the house).

Stay tuned.

tirma · 2019-07-12T08:13:09.000Z

I am amazed with the great ideas I see in the forums. Interesting project

Sirstinky · 2019-07-18T04:48:52.000Z

Update! Here's the first images of the beam patterning. This is the most tedious part of the mods I do. It took 4 hours of grinding, sanding, and filing to get this far, but I'm pretty much done. I wasn't going for crazy throw or flood, but a nice mix. I think I got it.

It's insanely bright. The pictures don't do it justice. It's on my ceiling at about 7 feet. Next up is mounting the reflector, finishing the base, painting it, and attaching the whole assembly together to the heatsink and fan.

In the mean time, I cut the opening for the balance connector.

The charging plug is next to the balance connector port.

Some progress, but still a long way to go!

Thanks for looking. Stay tuned for more soon.

1stein · 2019-07-18T11:07:11.000Z

How did you like your Jalapeno sauce?

Sirstinky · 2019-07-18T15:11:07.000Z

I love my El Pato (Spanish “the duck”). Fantastic salsa and also makes a great solder tip cleaner.

DavidEF · 2019-07-18T16:24:49.000Z

Looking good!

Sirstinky · 2019-07-18T18:13:26.000Z

Thanks! I’ll work some more on it today. It was bad weather yesterday so no painting. My wife still won’t let me spray paint indoors

Sirstinky · 2019-07-24T04:30:09.000Z

Here's some of the latest work I've done, mostly fails, but some progress. I started working more of the base of the reflector where the LED sits, and decided on using threaded standoffs like you use in computer motherboards to mount them to the case. I drilled 8, 3mm holes in the plate for mounting the standoffs.

I was planning on threading the threaded ends in between the heatsink vanes, but that would have been too difficult so I scrapped that idea. I found some bigger separators with threaded inserts.

They were a little tall and wide, but nothing some belt sanding couldn't fix. I lmost got them to work, but I lost one after it spun off the threaded rod I was using to hold it while reducing the outer diameter and height on my belt grinder. Boo. Now it's off the hardware store to see if I can find something different. Any ideas?

In the meantime, I mounted the fan mounts to the heatsink assembly with JB Weld. The ends are threaded to accept self -tapping screws.

Once that's dry and I find a way to mount the reflector base, I'll mount the reflector to the base. I'm planning on keeping everything one single unit that breaks down into 2 or 3 parts for maintenance.

Stay tuned for more!

Phlogiston · 2019-07-24T14:58:33.000Z

Nice to see the project coming along!

You probably shouldn’t post pictures of the death ray satellite you’re going to mount it in, though.

Sirstinky · 2019-07-25T07:23:48.000Z

Fan's mounted!

I had a chance to finish the battery as well. I removed the 16 gauge wires that were competing the series connections and replaced them with nickle strips salvaged from other batteries. The balance board will eventuality be covered once I make the other electrical connections.

This nearly ended in disaster! It was 1AM and my tired eyes overlooked that I had shorted out 2S cells. The connecting strip immediately glowed bright orange and started burning through the first layer of protective wrap covering the batteries (they were covered in masking tape for assembly). I pulled it off with my small pliers before it could do any real damage though.

I realized I brushed the hot connector with my finger when it was glowing and burned it slightly. Burned skin sinks. High output batteries are no joke! Be careful with them.

DavidEF · 2019-07-26T01:39:43.000Z

I accidentally shorted a cell once, trying to measure it with my calipers, which are stainless steel.

shirnask · 2019-07-26T01:59:44.000Z

I bought a cheap pair with plastic blades after almost doing that exact same thing without thinking

Sirstinky · 2019-07-26T03:59:02.000Z

I did that too luckily the cells were pretty much dead and only got a little spark action.

Sirstinky · 2019-08-03T17:50:26.000Z

Update: I was on vacation and hadn't had time to do any work, so here's some work I did before I left. I figured out how to mount the back of the reflector.

I found some aluminum coupler collars and ground them down to the right height. I JB welded them to the heat sink so I could screw it down.

The real hard part was figuring out how to stick the reflector on it to make it easy to remove. So added the plastic mounts to the sides of the reflector. They were originally the posts inside hollow enclosures that connect two halves. I cut them out and cut them to length. I ground and profiled the sides for a good fit and glued them to the reflector.

I decided to add screws through the bottom of the heat sink that went up through the reflector base to the mounts.

See the baking soda box in this picture? Pro tip: mixing baking soda with super glue makes a rock- hard concrete in seconds that bonds just about anything. I use it for difficult situations where I need an instant bond. The cheap super glue works better than the more expensive stuff for some reason

I needed to do some adjustment to the focus since it was hard to know exactly where to drill holes for the mounting screws.

Back to work on it. Stay tuned for more soon.