naimis
Contributor
I'm back into trying to build an SST-90 (9A 2250 lumen LED) based dive light, thanks to the industrious folks over on candlepowerforums (specifically, Der Wichtel, who has put together a 9A driver).. and also because the battery can I built for my P7 based light flooded...
The flooding prompted me to be a bit more careful in the construction and testing of the battery canister, and one of the results was that I built a jig specifically to guide the drill for holes for the latches...
Lucky for me, I found a block of aluminum in our machine shop's discard pile that was not only big enough to fit the 2" PVC fittings I've been using, but it also had a hole bored in it already that was the perfect diameter, if not quite deep enough.
Hopefully you can see in the pictures, but what I've done is bore out a hole in the aluminum block to fit a 2" PVC coupling plus a little bit extra, the ring that can be seen on the caps in the photos. To do this, I dropped guide lines off the center of the main bore, on three sides of the block. One of those lines guided the position for the hole, which was later tapped, for the clamp screw seen in the photo. The other two lines, on opposite sides, I used in conjunction with lines marking the depth of the bore to lay down the latch and catch, which resulted in the four holes seen in the photo. Those four holes guide a 7/64" drill bit into the PVC fittings. The holes are tapped, the o-ring surfaces sanded smooth, the latches/catches screwed into place and then everything is cemented together.
The first can I did using this method didn't leak. Unfortunately, when I went to drill the hole in the cap for the cable gland, the chuck came loose in the tailstock of the lathe I was using and tore the cap up.
The two caps in the photos above are meant to be the replacements.
In related news, I put together a circuit/PCB design for a simple mosfet power switch driven by a reed switch. The intent is to provide a dive light suitable switch for the common power supplied used by the mag lite hackers.
The flooding prompted me to be a bit more careful in the construction and testing of the battery canister, and one of the results was that I built a jig specifically to guide the drill for holes for the latches...
Lucky for me, I found a block of aluminum in our machine shop's discard pile that was not only big enough to fit the 2" PVC fittings I've been using, but it also had a hole bored in it already that was the perfect diameter, if not quite deep enough.
Hopefully you can see in the pictures, but what I've done is bore out a hole in the aluminum block to fit a 2" PVC coupling plus a little bit extra, the ring that can be seen on the caps in the photos. To do this, I dropped guide lines off the center of the main bore, on three sides of the block. One of those lines guided the position for the hole, which was later tapped, for the clamp screw seen in the photo. The other two lines, on opposite sides, I used in conjunction with lines marking the depth of the bore to lay down the latch and catch, which resulted in the four holes seen in the photo. Those four holes guide a 7/64" drill bit into the PVC fittings. The holes are tapped, the o-ring surfaces sanded smooth, the latches/catches screwed into place and then everything is cemented together.
The first can I did using this method didn't leak. Unfortunately, when I went to drill the hole in the cap for the cable gland, the chuck came loose in the tailstock of the lathe I was using and tore the cap up.
The two caps in the photos above are meant to be the replacements.In related news, I put together a circuit/PCB design for a simple mosfet power switch driven by a reed switch. The intent is to provide a dive light suitable switch for the common power supplied used by the mag lite hackers.
