All the parts I had ordered 2 -3 weeks ago from the far reaches of the earth finally arrived on Friday and I was up until 3AM soldering and stuffing everything into the tiny case. I think if I had practiced my soldering skills (which were non-existent prior to Friday) things would have gone quicker. I must have contaminated one of the holes on the bflex driver because I couldn't get the solder to adhere. I finally q-tipped the hole with isopropyl and everything came together fine.
The most daunting part of the whole build was figuring out how I was going to get everything into the tiny case, but it proved to be easier than I thought.
Once I got it all together I fired it up and it actually worked; really well; In fact, amazing.
The white light it produces is fantastic and when compared against my 14.4 overvolted mr11 10watt halogen, it completely drowns it out. You can still see my 14.4 overvolted mr16 20watt halogen when they are side by side, but the yellow color of the halogen just doesn't hold up to the LED. I took it out for an inaugural run last night and was able to blast through the nastiest single track without any difficulty. The 2-CRSM and 1-CRSSS Ledil lenses seemed to provide a good mix of spot and flood.
I want to thank achesalot for his excellent DIY site and for answering my email questions. I am really happy with the way it turned out.
Here are some specs and build pics (I tried to do beamshots, but my camera kept shutting off because of the cold (it was 8 degrees F outside when I finally finished up with the build).
3 - CREE XR-E Q2 Emitter with star LED
1 - CRS-SS Ledil lense
2 - CRS-M Ledil lense
1 - bFlex-UIB2
1 - Trail-Tech Male Waterproof Coaxis Lockable Connector
1 - Li-Ion Battery Pack: 14.8V 4.0Ah Battery with Regulator
1 - Universal Smart Charger (1.5A) for 14.8V Li-Ion Battery Pack
1 - Allied Electronics Part No 650-5014 Strain Relief, Liquid Tight PG-7 Thread Connector
1 - Mouser Part No 850-59-113 Momentary contact switch
Thanks for the minimalist answer. I'd call you a little biotch, but your not little... lol.
Those must be as bright as the brightest HID. How much do have into it $ wise?
Sorry, wasn't trying to be an arse... I was slammed at work when I last responded.
I have setup the driver in multimode to run 4 settings 350/500/750/1000ma and
based off average lumen output for the Q2 bin led (~90lumen@350ma), I have a potential output of:
270 lumens @350ma
338 lumens @500ma
460 lumens @750ma
540 lumens @1000ma
I really don't know what the high end HID's output can be but I suspect it is substantially higher. Based on the Trinewt claims of 480 lumens, this should compare well. The difference between this and a halogen is amazing, the light is SOOOO white and crisp, unlike the yellowness of the halogen.
We'll have to do a side by side test with Kev's HID (Do you run HID as well?) when the snow packs down.
All told, I have spent $169.97 without shipping (I told my wife that shipping doesn't count). The biggest cost by far was the Li-ion battery and charger (~$90). I could have gone cheaper on the battery, but I wanted something that would put me in the 5+ hour range on high for 24hour races next year (I suffered badly because of poor lighting last summer).
Calculated runtimes (I know there is an efficiency loss in the circuit, and I have heard on the order of 10% but I don't take that into account in the figures below)
15.24 hours @350ma
10.67 hours @500ma
7.11 hours @750ma
5.33 hours @1000ma
This was a really fun project (except the 3 week ship time for the LEDs), and given the progress the industry is making on LED output, it wouldn't surprise me to see the lumen output double in the next year.
The nice thing is that when they do make the better LED, you can retrofit them into your setup.
Thats the plan, although I already have some design changes that I want to incorporate to make the assembly a little easier. It is not fun trying to screw on a switch backing bolt in the area the size of your thumb using pinch nose pliers.
Originally Posted by Severum
Do they get hot?
They can get pretty hot, but not in the halogen range of hot. One of the nice features on the bflex driver is that it has an onboard temp sensor and you can set it to drop the current to the light to the next lower lever (ie 1000 -> 750ma) if the temp exceeds the trip point which will allow it to cool. Currently I have it set to trip at 70C with no problems on the 1000ma current. The design changes I have in mind are specifically aimed at better thermal management.
You have to order the parts from the 4 corners of the universe, as I can't locate one place that carries all, or has the best pricing if they do happen to have more than one of the items in stock.
how hard is it to retrofit newer LED's into an existing housing, or is it better to just build a new light?
I'm assuming you would desolder the bare emitter off the star, and solder the new ones on? Or can the AAA be pried off without damaging the stars that much?
how hard is it to retrofit newer LED's into an existing housing, or is it better to just build a new light?
I'm assuming you would desolder the bare emitter off the star, and solder the new ones on? Or can the AAA be pried off without damaging the stars that much?
I used AAA for my first version but will probably mount the stars with set screws for v2 so I don't have to break the AAA bond.
I did mount one of the stars poorly on the first try and was able to pry the star off the cured AAA without damaging it (a sharp chisel broke the bond fairly easily).
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Severum
I was slammed at work when I last responded.
