1)If it bounced on carpet, look farther than you think you need to, they bounce.
2)If that does not work, put a flashlight flat on the ground, get down there with it, and look.
3)If all else fails, rubber-band pantyhose over a vacuum cleaner hose. The pantyhose will catch it and stop it going into the vacuum. Never done it to find a emitter, but it works all the time for small screws.
the other day I ran out, and had to go to the store to buy more. I ended up getting a bulk pack. the cashier gave me an awful funny look.
imma have to get me a can of oven cleaner now. thanks a lot. I just learned to control my obsession, then here you come with a way to make flashlights even more bright and shiny :bigsmile:
I do like the semi-florescent effect that the royal blue LEDs give, even if it mostly a showpiece, I still like this quite a bit!
I did try getting down on the floor and looking like that, but sadly I had no luck. And I already vacuumed the carpets cause I had people over, so it is most certainly gone. I ordered a replacement from rapidLED though, so I should have this done by next week. No harm, only a $10 foul
Nice! I dropped a 7135 I was trying to stack on a AK47 driver…on a black cobblestone colored floor…you guessed it…GONE!
definitely keep us informed
How will you be mounting the stars on the heatsink, RTV/silicone or epoxy…the silicone will give you much more time to get everything adjusted before curing and believe it or not are a better thermal conductor than expoxy
Can’t wait to see what you do with it
Oh and that bedazzler is what that red/green/blue stroby thing is called
(anyone want to build a 7135 driver board for this :D)
Try reflowing that bum emitter, sometimes it takes another try to get it working
I had an XM-L I thought I had smoked…turns out I did put it on backwards 2x times
And love the shiny bling bling…how long did it take to strip the anodizing? Might give that a whirl on some of my SK68’s (give us the deets on the oven cleaner and the dilution and whatnot please)
Yeah…the carpet is blue and gray so I looked for about 5 minutes and just called it, these emitters are so small—about 1/4 of the area of an XM-L.
I used Arctic Silver thermal epoxy. I found it quite easy to use, and the emitters are centered fairly well. Not perfectly, but it’s pretty darn close. If I had proper XP/XT centering rings, I probably would have done better.
Stripping the aluminum is actually easier than you would expect, and less dangerous than people on this forum/others made it sound. After a little trial and error, I found a warm water bath with maybe 3/4 water and 1/4 oven cleaner works well. Feel free to adjust your mixture, I certainly did. The warm water seems to be the key to this though I used a 3 bucket system—1 with the solution, and two with clean water. I would put the parts in the solution bucket, and agitate them with a fork every once in a while. Then I would temporarily move them over to one of the clean water buckets to rinse off any loose debris, and to check on my progress. I used a kitchen sponge to help gently wash off the filmy residue from the parts. Then back in the solution bucket. Rise/repeat until satisfied. Then I put them in the 3rd bucket of clean water w/ a drop or two of dawn agitated into the water to sit while I cleaned up. That’s about it.
It’s not hard, just be attentive and you’ll be fine. And if you leave it in a little too long (I did on my first time, when I was using undiluted oven cleaner) a quick hit with some of the mothers mag and aluminum polish really made it look just fine. Just wear rubber gloves, preferably the long cleaning ones, in case you make any splashes.
Look for cheap shooting glasses at walmart, ones with yellow lenses. If you already have a blue LED light, bring it with you so that you can gauge how well it works.
With the proliferation of ~450nm laser diodes, economical laser goggles are becoming available too.
450nm is getting to the point in your eye’s sensitivity that it has trouble figuring out what true focus is when somethign is illuminated with only blue light. Your lenses make either the object appear in focus, or the light that is hitting the object appear in focus, but your eyes will freak out that it can’t make the light and the object be in focus.
Blue light does have the potential to be more dangerous. Just like a green photon has more energy than a red photon, and a UV photon has more energy than a blue photon. Do your research and make your own decisions, though, regarding blue light hazard.
Just from the amount of power coming from a small package, be it red or blue, I’d avoid looking into your light, especially if it is on full blast!
You know what might be a cool accessory to make for this light someday? A remote phosphor lens. Lots of places sell remote phosphor sheet for low cost. Some with very high CRI's and tints of your choice. Just cut your lens size out of a sheet and you will have diffuse white lighting option for your light.
Been wanting to get some so I can breath new life into my badly dedomed emitters. I don't have any product recommendations though.
I use these glasses for my 445nm laser. They work awesome with UV light. Don't know why, but florescence looks so much better with them. Better than the glasses I have picked up at at sporting goods places and such.
I used Clean Force Premium Oven and Grill Cleaner K13. But I used that because that’s what I had available to me, I really don’t think it matters all that much.
I’m definitely not against a remote phosphor dome of sorts, it could make a very convenient camping lantern with a nice soft glow. The idea did occur to me, and maybe down the road I’ll look in to that, but for now I think I’ll just keep it bare!
I got the other LED from RapidLED today, and if all goes well, it will be all done by tonight!
I reflowed the final LED onto the SinkPAD and epoxied it down hard. While I certainly used too much in a few spots, I am certain the LEDs aren’t floating in a pool of epoxy at all—they’re all flush against the metal. I’m going to wait just a little longer before I start the wiring, but I thought I’d put out a little photo of where we are:
I like the idea but with the potential eye hazard where can you use it? Waving it about outdoors I'd worry about harming wildlife that you might not even notice were there, birds roosting in trees, etc. It seems a bit overpowered for indoor use.
As I’ve said before this will be used with safety glasses no question. And I may end up with a remote phosphor panel for a nice floody camping light. But this is just sort of experiment, and I think it’s safe to say that BLF doesn’t exactly shy away from excess
Very nice, thanks! The glass lens is just a hair under 74mm, so this would work perfectly. And besides, the XT-E LEDs are designed to work well in remote phosphor applications. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this.
The only thing I do not know, is how fragile the panels are. If they are, you might want to fashion a lens cap resembling the colored filters you place over the front of a light.
:bigsmile:
(give us the deets on the oven cleaner and the dilution and whatnot please)
