Yeh, I got a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8, and that’s about 53oz, too. Fun, though!
Even my “95% lens” (suits probably 95% of my shooting) is a 28oz 28-300mm. Not quite a featherweight…
Kind of a bullpup. :laughing:
Extend the “heatsink” to a handle/grip, and…
Be careful when powering up this light on the trailer! You might have built a photon rocket .
Great work!
I did a little beveling of the bottom end on the exposed head to kill the squared off look this morning, I wanted to also cut the fins deeper, a lot deeper, but my lathe wants the chatter and I’m afraid it’s going to grab and wreck the piece, any machinists here that can tell me the trick to using a parting tool to cut deep fins? I sure don’t want to wreck it at this point, but the plan was deep fins and I really want to go there.
The part off tool needs to have an appropriate grind and be dead center to the work piece and also perpendicular. You can pinch a 6” rule between the part off tool and the work piece and if it is vertical you are on center. The part off tool should not be sticking out of the tool holder further than required to perform the cut. Your RPMs should be low. Use copious amounts of a good lubricating oil like Relton A9 during the cut. You may need to feed in more aggressively to prevent chatter.
I had the parting tool square and centered, comparatively shallow feed out from the mount, and was in the lowest rpm my lathe will go… BUT I didn’t use oil of any kind and I was feeding far too slow. (afraid of it grabbing, but of course it’s the two things I’m doing wrong that induce grab… vicious and non-forgiving, the parting cut.)
From the bezel, I need the 2nd 3rd and last groove exponentially deeper… the last one can be almost parallel to the original head or even deeper.
Edit: The caveat… I’m now trying to deepen the cooling fins with the light assembled, removing only the battery tube and bronze “heat sink”. So … touchy
I see where you are going and it will look really good but is this for looks or a functional need? I saw a discussion somewhere in the forum about effective cooling dependent upon a specified air space between fins.
Anyway, I'm trying to say you've put a lot of time into this and it is remarkable! Perhaps, start on another bar stock so there's less risk(?) to existing progress.
BTW, I've been working with hand and power tools from a young age. Spent a lot of time on my dad's work bench. A lathe and a table saw are fantastic tools to create whatever!
Livin DANGEROUS ! Adds more thrill to the game. Just don’t get tooo aggressive with your plunge. Good luck !
Just feed hard enough that it sounds better in the cut. Peck away at it and keep adding oil. If your RPMs are too low it will be hard to feed the tool at a steady rate and this could have the appearance of chatter.
When I cut the fins in the bar stock originally I found a rythm to it and it was progressing really well. I had just inset the top end for the MCPCB’s and Optics and cut off/threaded the bezel, so the finning process was taking me into a long time at the lathe and it was time to go, so I quit on it even though I had a great rythm going. I wish I’d had a narrow tool to work with, but here I am. I knew then that I should have kept going to reach the target depth, I get impatient and want to build the light and see how it works, so here I am with a completed light that cannot be easily disassembled and I’m wanting to readdress the depth of the fins. Bad timing, I know.
I have ordered a new parting tool with a carbide insert that is slimmer than the HSS T shaped tool I use now, this may allow me to make side by side cuts to maintain the present fin width and this will probably also give me a cleaner cut. I’ll “plunge in” and see where it goes. lol
Scary though, mounting the assembled head unit with everything in place… spinning up drivers and optics and the whole 9! If that goes flying, well, regardless of whether or not it actually causes ME any physical damage it’s gonna hurt!
BROODMASTER, it’s dual purpose… I didn’t like the incomplete look of the squared edges and the cooling fins are an absolute necessity to disperse the heat of 17 pumped emitters, so by removing some mass to improve the shape it becomes even more critical to get the cooling fins deep enough to function at an optimum level. I’m no genius, I know that, but my gut tells me I need the fins deeper even as my OCD says it needs some STYLE. So here I am, messing with it when it should probably be left well enough alone. Story of my life…
DB, It's one thing to show the results of your craft but the insight to how this comes together is the real teaching/experience value. So many nice lights at affordable prices abound but it wasn't too many years ago that members here fabricated the best lights in their workshop, desk, garage, etc.
And besides, the HAM'R has to look good with your GT!!!
I sold my GT, primarily because I built two lights from scratch that equal or better it. lol
Where the 458 Ham’r is 101mm in diameter the middle light is 134mm and utilizes a 124mm reflector that is a sprung member of the light, the bezel screws directly to the reflector and the pill uses a step-up adapter to also screw directly to the reflector at the bottom. I used a Fenix TK75 extension tube for the battery holder, re-bored and re-threaded to fit. It’s an XHP-35 with Richard’s Buck driver and his 4S carrier as well. The far left light is 114mm with a 95mm reflector, built similarly (the first one actually) but with the components all turned by me. It uses an XP-L HI with a single 32650 cell. Both of these lights have throw that is equal to or better than the GT.
Wow I had not seen that 134mm thrower before. Does it use a GT reflector?
No, it’s bigger than a GT reflector, and deeper.
Took a throw reading, at 5M, and with rested cells it does 128.25Kcd for 716.24M throw. Not bad, I’ll take it!
Did some more aesthetic work today, cut the fins deeper and extended the radius a bit more. I’m officially done messing with the Ham’r now. The only other thing is waiting on the extension tubes from Sofirn but I’m really happy with how this has turned out. When I was attempting to cut the fins deeper the other day I was using an RPM of 150, today I doubled it to 300 and used gear oil during the process. This went really well and I got the fins cut pretty deep, deep enough to call it good and finally stop working on it. lol
I was worried about the speed and the use of the oil, but everything appears to be fine. Whew! lol
That came out awesome! Congratulations!
That is some awesome work.
Butt I can’t believe you called the MR70 ugly.