I live in the city of Amsterdam and I hardly ever come anywhere remote, light pollution everywhere, the only use for my flashlights is looking for lost lego-blocks under the couch for my little son, and despite having no need for a light on my bike at night, on the crowded streets people complain about being blinded by my 850 lumen Nichia triple. Living where I live I must be the most pathetic flashoholic in the world.
But yesterday during one of the school projects (I work as a technician there) I suddenly found good use for the one light that I really only built for fun: my xmlcolour 14500 zoomie with 17mm intl-outdoor driver:
With the 2nd grade children we were building pinhole camera's from little apple syrup cans, and in the darkroom (I completely blinded a classroom for the project) the even beam of the white die zoomed out was perfect for the exposure of contact-prints, and the red die (620-630nm) is actually a great safelight, I tested it by direct illumination of the beam close-up for 10 seconds: B&W-photographic paper is hardly sensitive to it :-)
Cool light where is a good source for finding these multi-color emitters ? ( would be great to find one with Neutral White, Red, Green, and UV dies in one emitter. ( i have a project that could benefit from one of these.
I got the led from leds.de but perhaps easier is RMM's store Mountain Electronics, or intl.outdoor.com. They both have the driver as well. There are probably quite a few blf members who did a build with this led and driver.
To build this exact light was not straightforward. I never did a build thread, but here are some 'highlights'. The 17mm driver does not fit, it takes some creativity (read: some cursing, a lot of sanding and an extra copper ring) to fit in, and the pill is hollow, the leds.de board was thick, and I glued it in with artic alumina adhesive. The lens is not stock, it is shorter focal length lens scavenged from another light, placed a bit backwards in the head with an extra (gitd) o-ring, the lens retaining ring was filed out on the inside for more light getting through.
A bit of both but at which end of the scale is probably determined by how we balance ourselves. I’m completely off balance and totally pathetic and only wonderful if your standing on your head.
(the man in the picture is not me ;-) )
where is a good source for finding these multi-color emitters ? ( would be great to find one with Neutral White, Red, Green, and UV dies in one emitter. ( i have a project that could benefit from one of these.