The Amoeba - The simplest "light" form

[scar]

Well I have been playing around with some LED bits and pieces that were given to me, trying to get some light output. I used Achesalots' Dual Luxeon V design http://myfwyc.org/Timberlake/DualLuxV as inspiration as I was given some Luxeon V's and some custom molded reflectors. I wanted to keep the design as simple as possible and the cost at a bare minimum. For the driving circuit I built a $1 "constant current source" circuit as described in this Instructable http://www.instructables.com/id/E0TL4RID3YEWIJMKVI/. I currently have it set for an output of only 500ma as that was all I had for resistors lying around at the time. Also have the batteries hooked up in series to get enough juice to light up the Luxeon V's. I am thinking I am going to use this light as an emergency light. Throw it in my Camelbak for that ride when I am out there a little longer than expected. The black straps holding the batteries to the housing are Velcro so I just have to reach up and stick it to a Velcro piece attached to my helmet. Like I said earlier, I was just playing around with some parts that were given to me, but I am really impressed with this light so far and its potential. Did a run time test with the alkaline batteries and got over 3 hours!! Very nice light with no heat at the housing. I am going to build another version of the Amoeba using a couple of Crees or SSC's with some of these Lithium Ion batteries hooked in parallel http://www.batteryspace.com/index.as...OD&ProdID=2373.


msxtr - I know, I know - I will get some beam shots as soon as possible.

[msxtr]

msxtr - I know, I know - I will get some beam shots as soon as possible.

How you know to me, hehehehe.

Excellent job, but, why with 2 batteries of 9v??

Greetings - saludos

msxtr

[Tinier]

Very nice and simple. But with that 9V battery setup, isn't the runtime going to be really short?

[scar]

I was trying to find the easiest way available to me to play around with these Luxeon V's on the bench top. Typical forward voltage for the Luxeon V's is 6.84 volts. Found that one 9 volt battery would power up one Luxeon V. Decided to wire two 9 volt batteries is series so that I could power up both Luxeon V's easily. Played around with this set-up for a while and just for fun I decided to see just how long I could power the two Luxeon V's with the two 9 volt batteries in series. I got over 3 hours of run time! I was very surprised. No cables, can give the light to anybody and they can find batteries for it, light weight. Can't think of any real negatives except for it is not waterproof.