DIy 700 lumen batteries inside light

Whoo Whoo Fedex just called and now Troutie is up to his eyeballs in leds.

I will do my best to get them out but it will probably be sat before I can get them packed and need to cut some more Ali up .

you can Paypal (no fees please ) any time now addy in profile .

DONT FORGET YOUR ADDRESS and Stw user name

Help!! What have I done wrong… Got it all together, and the lights come on, great. But, the switch has no effect, no dimming, no off – just lights on all the time. Also, it doesnt seem very bright (though neither am I) but it is daylight so hard to say but it doesnt strike me as being anything like what it should.

I have checked all is wired up as per the diagram and it seems to be correct. Any idea what this is symptomatic of?

Sure you haven’t got a short round the switch v8, just check again.

Going to get the sort out the payments.

so is it

trout £20 ??

blackcat £9 ??

btc – yhm regarding 18650 holder
trout – if you have a another kit spare, then can you put me down for one. no worry if i’m too late.

Adam … Turn off power ….. carefully check you have no solder bridges between any of the 5 solder pads on the driver.

Try temporarily unsoldering/disconnecting the “A” lead on the driver board (or unsolder it at the switch). Reconnect power. This should guarantee full power to the Leds, if your other connections are all good, and Leds are right way round and not shorted anywhere. If it still seems dim then you could try one Led at a time.

If you get full power on both Leds with nothing attached to the “A” pad then try shorting the “A” pad/lead to battery negative (be VERY sure it’s to battery negative and not positive! POOF!). This should shut off the driver and Leds.

If this works, connect your chosen resistor between “A” and battery negative … this should go to low mode. Again be very sure you don’t connect anything between the “A” solder point and battery positive!

See how that goes … let us all know.

I’ve just taken mine apart and found that the LED -ve cable had come away from the driver, that’ll be my amazing soldering prowess me thinks 😕

Having put the cable into the driver board everything behaves as it should do, lights on, high/low beam and correct off function which is all good. Bad point is the switch is upside down so the off is up if you see what I mean. Doesnt affect function just a minor niggle.

I’ll see about getting that re done then its just wodging silicone around the driver and reflectors, leaving overnight and then final assembly tomorrow evening 😀

As a thought I guess it would be easier to silicone around the switch and power cable grommet before the driver board had been AA’d on?

If you want the switch to work the “other way up” without physically rotating the switch … find the lead at the switch whose other end connects to battery negative and move it to the opposite end of the resistor that it is connected to now!

That’ll do it!

edit: This works if the “A” lead is connected to the “middle pin” of the switch. Trying to get my head around this if you’ve connected the battery negative to the middle pin of the switch …… for now better not try this if that’s what you’ve done!

Thinking cap on ….. 🙄

OK .. assuming you’ve not done anything fancy with the switch (like used a double pole to switch the battery as well as the light levels) and you’ve used Trouties wiring and the switch does its low/high/off thing …….

….. then whichever control lead goes to the resistor can be moved to the other end of the resistor and that will reverse the order of the switch …. off/high/low in this case.

I take no credit for any “Poof”-iness that occurs here!

I thought my switch was the wrong way round so I wouldn’t worry too much, think it’s just personal preference.

TBH I’ll leave it as it is. I’m happy enough that its working properly now and I can sort things out for the second build next week.

I have found one other boob which is a difference of about 3mm between the end of the reflector and then end of the case. Short of sawing a lil bit off the end any idea’s?

Trout, payment sent for 2 kits. thanks

Stayhigh – sure, no prob

Could you elongate the holes in the L bracket so they are oblong and then you can shuffle the bracket forward a bit? Or …. if it’s the reginas sticking out … shuffle the bracket back a bit? Guess it all depends on where you drilled the holes in the case and the bracket. You may need extra washers or nuts if you originally threaded the bracket.

Its a good idea but the problem would then be filling the gap once the screws are in place to keep it weather proof. Maybe a blob of silicone?

It may not be physically possible in your situation, but I was suggesting you leave the hole in the case as it is now and alter the hole in the L bracket. Of course, you have to use a nut on the inside as I don’t think you can tap an oval hole 😆

Ahh I’m with you now. The holes in the angle heatsink have been threaded but I do have nuts that would fit them. Hang on a minute that didnt come out quite right lol.

I could superglue or araldite the nuts onto the angle maybe?

😆 I just got back from a meet up with Lipseal. He brought along his little Hammond light and it blew away my 10W overdriven halogen main beam! But you all knew it would 😆 …. I’m stonked, can’t wait to build mine!

What an excellent beam it gives out … it’s got everything I want …. good hot spot and plenty of spill. The spill upwards might need a bit of taming for road use … but plenty of time to play with it once I’ve got all the bits built up.

The heat seemed very modest considering we were just standing around pointing the beam here and there, my case is slightly smaller than lipseals as I cut mine down to 2 * 38mm to get two out of one 80mm Hammond. I was worried that it would be too much for 2 xp-g’s but I reckon it’ll be OK.

Thanks Lipseal …. I’ll be buzzing off this for days!

Stayhigh … Yep! You got it. Araldite or even try your silicon. Not sure about superglue … is it OK with the reflectors?

Trout, payment sent. Thanks

BH: Superglue not for reflectors it would be for sticking the nuts to the angle heatsink after elongating the holes.

It is an awesome bright light, had a little play in the garden and can’t wait to get out with it tomorrow night once its (finally) finished 😀

Stayhigh ….. it’s the fumes off the superglue if you use it to glue the nuts …. I may be wrong but I thought I read that they can have an effect on optics and reflectors.

Anyone know?

Just a quick note that say that I’ve not forgotten all you lovely guys and gals (assuming there are gals on here that is!). I’m up to my eyes building more drivers – I’m going to finish off my current stock of PCBs which will cover the 50 I have on order (including yours, Troutie) and leave me maybe 20 for the next batch of kits. I’ll try and sort these out tomorrow – I’ve got the bits in but not even opened the box yet!

For those asking about battery holders, I’ve not yet ordered from Digikey, that will probably be over the weekend so I’ll collate all requests and add them to my order.

I’m also putting together another batch of PCBs – I’ve changed the design slightly for various reasons and the next board will be roughly 22mm square so slightly larger than the old design. Power and LED terminals will be on opposite sides and it will have the dimming resistor built in but with the shutdown control still accessible so all you will need to do is wire the switch directly to the PCB. I’m also doing a smaller version which will allow me to cost-reduce the 670mA version of the driver and size-reduce the 330mA one for anyone still using those.

Am I too late to bolt on to the 18650 cell holder bulk purchase?

If so could I have

2x 4×18650 holder – BK-18650-PC8-ND
2x 2×18650 holder – BK-18650-PC4-ND

can paypal over monies as soon as required

cheers

Trout: due to my hamfistedness I’ve managed to blow one of my LED’s. If you have one going spare from your last shipment can I put my name on it please and if so how much is it?

BCT,

Can I add to your order.

2x 4×18650 holder – BK-18650-PC8-ND
2x 2×18650 holder – BK-18650-PC4-ND

Many thanks.

Just thought I’d get the 666 one 😈 thanks for the links BH look interesting.

I’m also putting together another batch of PCBs – I’ve changed the design slightly for various reasons and the next board will be roughly 22mm square so slightly larger than the old design.

BCT,

It would be way better if you could keep one of the dimensions under 20 mm. All these lights use 20mm stars, optics, and case so its a pain to fit anything bigger.

BCT – Any news on the lumi can drivers? 🙂

cant you just glue a bigger driver to the top of the case?

+1 for under 20mm for one dimension of the driver, Stephen. I can just fit your current driver vertically in the Hammond case and save a lot of space.

All major components of this build fit together so well ….. Case is internal 20mm, stars 20mm, Led plate easy available as 20mm angle or channel … your driver 19mm.

Payment sent trout, thanks for your work.

I’ll have a look in to it and see what I think. Problem is that the existing board is really a little on the small side to give enough heat dissipation for the driver. There is a newer, cheaper version of the driver chip out but it needs to run cooler. The plan was to increase the PCB area to see if that was enough and if not then at least the existing driver will run a little cooler.

As a reference, the IC manufacturer uses a 25mm square PCB as their reference for heat dissipation so I would still be under that even at 22 x 22.

Would something like 24 x 20 be any better?

BCT I think even 30×20 would be better than 24×24, as it would mean people could still vertically mount the pcbs in the good old Hammond case.

Still got problems – can’t get mine working. Light not coming on at all now: dimsnatled it, checked for shorts (visually only, havent got a multimeter), re-did all the solders, tried disconnecting the control wire…al to no avail. As the lights did come on previously, I presume the LEDs are OK as are the connections to them – so i think there must be a problem with the driver or the 3-way switch. Once I get a multimeter what else can I can do to check where the fault lies? Anyone suggest a fault finding routine?

Agree with Jazid …. 24 x 20 …. 30 x 20 even! OK 24 x 20 better 😉

First stop is to check power is getting to the components on the board – don’t check the input pads as dry joints can still read as there could be a connection to the solder but not to the actual PCB.

Locate components R2 and C2. The end of C2 where it is labelled is 0V. The end of R2 where that is marked (and also the unmarked end of C2) is positive. Check there is power there – it should be whatever your input voltage is.

One way to test the LEDs is to get a PP3 battery – preferably not a rechargable – and simply connect this across the LEDs. This is safe, especially for short periods, as PP3s can’t give out a lot of current so you won’t blow the LEDs. Don’t try this with other batteries – the only reason this works is the limited ability of the PP3 to supply power.

Next, turn your multimeter to current, 1A or higher range, and connect it across the outputs of the driver. Note that many meters need you to change where the probes plug in for the higher current ranges. With power applied to the driver this should read around 0.98A.

Last thing I can think of is to short the driver output and measure the voltage across R2. This should be 0.1V.

By the way, don’t assume the LEDs are wired OK just because they worked once. IMS PCBs are fairly tricky to solder to as the metal draws the heat away and makes dry joints very easy to achieve. I’d recommend anyone soldering these to do so before attaching the LED to any additional heatsink. I also find it works well to pre-solder the pad, tin the wire and then attach the two by melting the solder already on the pad and applying the wire to it. Keep the wire supported until the solder is hardened – this can be longer than you expect, not only does IMS take a lot of heat to get it up to soldering temperature, it also retains that heat well.

Adam … if you’ve disconnected the lead to the “A” control pad then it’s unlikely to be your 3 way switch. You can be doubly sure that it’s got nothing to do with the switch by just connecting up the power to PWR + and -, and your Leds (or led) to LED + and -, and leave the switch and it’s leads out of the circuit while you fault find.

EDIT: Stephen beat me to it!

Trout- payment sent!

Hey,

Trout – Sorry to be a pain but how much do I owe for 4 LED’s and 4 Reflectors through paypal?

Thanks

Elliot

BCT, I’m after a driver for do a Lumi conversion with my own heatsink. Keeping one dimension below 22mm would be ideal, as otherwise you run out of depth in the can. Loads of space the other way – even 30×20 would be fine.