Opinions on DIY Light Buildup

[divinginn]

I think packhorse has it down on the optics,ask him what he is using or check out his threads.

 

[350xfire]

Hey Hector:

I hope this doesn't get me into trouble with the Mods (OT kinda')...

Deep Breath, OK. With any lathe you can turn, remove material, and drill nearly anything (acetal, metal, acrylic, etc). The only thing you can't do, initially, is mill but where there's a will for a mill, there's a way. That's for later though. But let me really start of by saying, "You get what you pay for." I looked for about a year before I dropped the hammer on a lathe, and I actually have HF about 8 blocks from my house! I just couldn't by a HF lathe. I had many reasons but customer support was the biggest, as in if you had a question or broke a part or something, you are SOL with HF. The guy behind the counter wouldn't know a tailstock from a tailwind!

But I am not saying that hope is lost IF you buy the HF lathe, provided it's the right size and you know what you're doing and how to get by. The reality is, that any lathe we as hobbyists are going to be able to afford, is, going to be non-American, or simply Asian. Hopefully, the lathe is a 9*20, or 9*19 (advertised). This simply means, that you could chuck up a piece that is roughly 20 inches long, and has a diameter of 9 inches. But these aren't actual working numbers all the time, as in just because your lathe can handle these sizes, doesn't mean you can work the piece with tooling! Think about our stuff though: what could you possibly want to make that is larger than 9 inches in diameter (besides a ring for a pressure vessel maybe) and longer than 20 inches? Nothing really. The canister for our lights may be longer than 12 inches depending, so a say 7*12 lathe may not fit the bill but a 9*20 would. And unless you're using car batteries for your project light, 9 inches diameter for stock is plenty enough.

Personally, I would look at Grizzly for a good deal, and they have awesome lathes amongst other things. You may say, but it looks the same as the HF lathe, and you will be right. But they have customer support, their machines are a bit tighter before we get them, and they have all the accessories, doodads, and whatchamacallits than we as budding metalheads could ever dream of having! If you do get the HF lathe because of cost or convenience, you could still get by, Steve Bedair has a HF lathe and he has it dialed in and does wonderful work with it. So, it all boils down to how comfortable are you working with the lathe before you start using it. But you probably won't be plugging your machine in and making lightheads right off the bat; you'd better make small chip and curls first. Stay away from used lathes, initially, and I hate to say it, stay away from old American lathes. They are beautiful and did precision work back in the day but more often than not they will be worn out and unless babied or you know how to fix them, wouldn't do what you want it to today. And even as such, they would still cost you your firstborn or at least a couple of grand.

Check these out too. MetalWebNews, Enco, Mini-Lathe (small lathe but still good stuff), and my favorite. Exhale.

So, I hope this was tolerable to the Mods as this wasn't exactly about the divelight. But lemme' appease them and me by asking you to weigh in on my dilemma: what do you think I could or should do, and which lights would you recommend? The DR light head is not an option now. Oh, and I love your latest project. Does the linear configuration do well for orientation of the LED's, and especially underwater?

With kindest regards,
Thomas

Thanks for the info Thomas and thanks to all for letting me "highjack". Now for some light related stuff. The linear config works amazingly well. I have three very small reflectors., about 25mm and they actually put out a nice hot spot. I tried loading all the LEDs into the aluminum chunk (no reflector) and lit them up and it was way too much flood. Video would have sucked without a reflector. I just bought a 1.5" by 4" by 12" long chunk of aluminum from McMaster and cut it with a HF band saw. The $200 band saw. I did pay $40 for a machine shop to true everything up with a mill and cut a groove on the two chunks to hide the wires into. ALso, I used 1/4" polycarbonate for the lens, simple, cheap and replaceable. I took to cave country and shot some video which turned out quite well. It definitely puts out more light than a Salvo 21W LED which my buddy and I both own. Not bad for less than $500 vs the $1000 for the LED. The one thing I am going to play with is 18650 batteries. These are Li Ion with 2400 mah. I am going to use them in parallel on a single LED configuration. I may also try to do multiple LEDs in parallel with a bunch of 18650s in parallel. I like the small size of the Li Ion.

I am working on some single LED lights now using aluminum rod for a light head.

And, oh, that grizzly looks great. Only a couple of $100 more than the HF but comes with more than one chuck, tooling etc... Three months to pay and no shipping it's also great. Thanks for the info.

 

[Packhorse]

If you have 3 R2's and the batteries already then best bet is to use them.
I looked at suitable tripple optics for a MR11 size but I couldnt find any. All MR11 heads I have done I have used SSC P7 LEDs.

If you go to a mR16/maglite you can fit up to 7 Crees and reflectors. Trouble is finding a driver to drive 7 LEDs (6 is easy as is 4,3,2, or 1) and the size of the reflector is to small for a tight beam.

I find 4 a good number of LEDs. Easy to drive in a 2x2 configuration (2p2s) and enough room for 21mm aspherics I have been using ( cut down by a few mm)

The result is a 12watt light that puts out a tight 8 degree beam (95%+ of the out put is in this hotspot) and can match a 21watt salvo.

The question you really need to ask yourself is what style of beam do you want? Then choose the optics to suit.

I would consider getting a 4th R2 if I were you and going the mag light route.

You also need to consider the driver. I use a cheap and nasty Kai Domain 2.8amp driver designed for the P7 LED. I have wired 4 LEDs to it in parallel giving each 700ma at about 3.7volt. (you can use any input voltage from 6-12 volt). I have also tried wiring the LEDs 2p2s. This puts 1.4amp thru each LED. Twice the current. 2/3rds brighter half the run time 1/100th the LED life. This requires a higher input voltage of at least 8volt-12 volt as the output voltage is now around 7.4volt.

You may get a 1amp driver that will drive 3 LEDs in series. This should work well with a 12v battery pack. If you go to 4 LEDs you will need to consider increasing your battery voltage or wiring the 4 LEDs 2p2s.