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Triple Cree XR-E bike light / head light

5K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  James@GearReview 
#1 ·
Finally taken some pics of my new triple Cree light:




one with the lenses out

...the lens holders had to be cut down slightly to fit 3 in the tin.

and finally showing the separate electronics - still a work in progress


Lenses are Cree 8 degree.
Heatsink is a Zalman ZM-NB32K
Housing is a cut down Schwarzkopf Mess Up Gum tin
Stuck together with Arctic Silver epoxy
Driver is a Taskled Fatman
Separate electronics on stripboard is a LM2951 and a PIC12f683, running pushbutton level control and low voltage flash / auto shutdown for 1 or 2 cell LiIon batteries.

The plan is to use this as a helmet / head light initially. I'll be building up a quad with higher bin LEDs when those become available to take over those duties, at which point it will become a bike mounted light (I'll also put in a buck driver to use with 4 cell LiIon batteries for that).
 
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#4 ·
Low_Rider said:
Nice work Chris!

It's cool to see someone playing around with their own microcontroller / UI. Have you decided on a mounting system for your light and a housing for your controller / Fatman driver?
Good to see somebody paying attention - the two areas I haven't actually sorted yet! Currently I'm running a zip tie through the mounting slot on the heatsink, which seems to work OK (along with a bit of foam padding) for attaching to a helmet. Will probably drill through that bit to screw on a standard mount of another light when I get round to trying it on the bike. The electronics are going in a plastic puncture repair kit case, as that's what I have hanging around the right size, but that's a very temporary measure, as I'll be making up a proper surface mount board to shrink it all (that or reprogramming a Maxflex / bFlex with my own UI to get rid of the separate board - but that's another story!)
 
#9 ·
I've got a perspex lens sealed into the lid - not that obvious in the photos, though you can just see a little reflection in it in the top two. I'm aware from previous projects that this will scratch up, but it has the advantage of being cheap and easy to replace with a new one when that happens, and the lenses underneath stay pristine.
 
#11 ·
Perhaps several layers of "tear-off" sheets similar to faceshields in racing.

I live by the ocean but needed a blast cabinet for sandblasting stuff, all the commercially available ones are steel and would rust so I built one of wood and fiberglass with the whole inside lined in aluminum. I had only a plexiglass (thick perspex to you down under or across the pond) to fashion a view window from, any media would frost that tout suite. A solution was found in plastic sheeting that comes in rolls at office supply distributers, used for making clear covers for older desktop publishing on those spiral-ring machines.
The stuff is pretty thin and very tough, I just mount a sheet about 11x 22 inside the box up tight against the plexiglass, lasts for many hours and the plexi stays clear.

FWIW I used the blast cabinet to strip a Jamis Dakar from its loathesome yellow powdercoat to chrome-like polished finish. Don't attempt that unless you have enormous amounts of time you don't mind wasting. Powder coat is some tough *** ****,at least against glass beads.

I didn't use aluminum oxide for, ummm, obvious reasons.
 
#12 ·
batvette said:
FWIW I used the blast cabinet to strip a Jamis Dakar from its loathesome yellow powdercoat to chrome-like polished finish. Don't attempt that unless you have enormous amounts of time you don't mind wasting. Powder coat is some tough *** ****,at least against glass beads.

I didn't use aluminum oxide for, ummm, obvious reasons.
I tried to use glass beads to strip some anodizing off of aluminum once. Took forever! I switched to walnut shells and it came off like butter. Once the anodizing was off, I swapped back to glass beads for that satin finish.
 
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