Lumicycle Halogen to LED conversion with piccies and a step by step guide.

Hi Chuck,

I don't really get how you've wired it up – probably being dim, but I don't suppose you could perhaps scribble down a rough circuit diagram to explain pretty please? Have you configured it so that the two switch positions are on-low and on-high, so that you have to unplug the power lead to turn the light off? I have a driver but no instructions mentioning what the resistor should be connected to in order to lower the drive current. I was planning to add a second switch so that I have one for power on/off and one for current high/low. Cheers – really appreciate all the info.

Forgot to add, an alternative set-up for the resistor could be to glue it onto the switch body. That way it will be out of the way, and not 'stiffen' up the wire from the board to the switch. This method may help the wire bend easier.

Gray

so that you have to unplug the power lead to turn the light off

.

yip you do have to unplug the power lead.

One option is that at Maplin they do on-off-on switch ie centre off and either way on.

The way I have wired it is switch one way for full power and switch the other way for 1/2 power.

The resistor is wired form A on the driver board to a 'outer' tab on the switch. It does not matter which outer tab you wire it to.

I'll try and do a wiring diagram and post later.

May take a day or so.

Im really keen on getting this upgrade done (as soon as the credit card turns up..shhh dont tell Mrs B)
Im getting a bit losts now with whats being ordered.
Chucky can I email you for a definative list or do you have spares of the kit that I can get direct from you?

mail me and we will see what we can sort out.

e mails in profile

Have you sent the order in yet Chucky? 🙂

yip order is in.

Just a point, a took up the registered mail. It was about £40 but considering the shipping was free due to the size of the order and there is about 16 of us (therefore works out £2.50ish each).I thought it was prudent to be able to track the stuff.

Plus thats nearly £500 on my credit card, so I would rather have a way of making sure it arrives for obvious reasons.

CRIPES thats a large order… 😀

I know

I've got a spreadsheet and everything 😆

I hope you lot don't change your minds or i'll end up with more lights than troutie.

BTW I could not find your bare XPG's anywhere nockmeister. they seem to be all mounted on PCB's. (probably not looking in the right place)

sorry but i ended up missing them off the order

can you send me a link and i'll try and sort it by seeing if they will add it on.

sorry

Dave

Nockmeister
sorry if you are a wizz at electronics then ignore this .

but do you realise the size of bare XPGs and how difficult they will be to solder too .my advise would be to get them on 10 mm square boards and if you do want them bare then remove from board

my rainy sunday project was to remove 3 damaged leds and replace using a cobbled up reflow method I was dead nervous but had a successfull outcome

see vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3tXzrJUE0

Wo I can't wait!

Hahahaha sorry trout, i meant the monetary amount of the order, 500quid on semiconductors is quite a lot! I work in discrete semiconductors so i know all about small packages 😉

er i'm going for pcb mounted LEDs as my soldering skills are non existant!! I have a buddy who wants a couple to play with in other projects…

Chucky – if you want some money now to cover the current cost, just let me know. We can sort out tax/duty etc later.

Cheers for sorting this out 😀

Your alright woody, i'll wait till everything arrives and we now the full cost.

Thanks for the offer.

Cheers for sorting this out

My pleasure

Chucky

Leds in the post this afternoon .

cheers trout

Mr Trout, did you find the LED's center themselves on the PCB with your DIY reflow . . . just thinking from an optical alignment POV . . .

Fd

Quick q. about heatsinking – does the heatsink actually need to touch the case, or is it sufficient to just draw heat away from the back of the pcb and into the case? I ask because they had some neat little self adhesive RAM heatsinks in Maplins which look like they'd be great, but they won't touch the case.

These – http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=98850

TIA

IMHO they should touch the case. that way the heat from the LED's transfer into the heatsink and then from that into the case.

I suppose the term heatsink is not actually correct, more of a heat transfer block.

Furgusd

yes if you look real close at about 4 mins 30 you see the top of the 3 leds settle in and twist around a little though I did try and get them in the right place before I started the heatgun .

it was a worry but the optic fitted perfectly after .

The heatsink needs to be in contact with the rear of the LED board and the case, you are trying to get heat away from the LED's and out of the case, not into the air in the case . . . given the cheap ebay heatsink, why do anything else . . .

Ref wiring diag, here's one for what is being discussed I believe . . . it's critical you don't screw up and mix up the connections – applying the wrong voltage to the wrong connection will fry the unit . . .

Also for people doing this it's worthwhile considering some constructions tips . . . insulating the regulator is probably best done using some heatshrink tubing . . . you can get it on ebay, you're looking for something like 20mm diameter with a 2:1 shrink ratio . . . or 25mm with 3:1 . . . would be worth someone buying a metre or so and chopping it down for others, you only need say 30mm length . . . very neat and very strong compared to insulating tape for example which is really pretty useless . . . ideal for rattling around in the back of the can . . .

Cheers all

there is also the option with a 3 pos switch to short direct the neg to A missing out the resistor as a soft off too

cheers fergusd

saves me doing one.

and a good tip about the heatsink. it is a much better solution than insulation tape.

I just didn't have the right size.

Yup,I didn't include the soft off option as the standard lumi switch is only 2 pos 😉 . . . bargain basement mode 😉

This guy sells heatshrink at semi decent prices for smallish quantities . . .

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/19-1mm-BLACK-HEATSHRINK-TUBING-HEAT-SHRINK-per-metre_W0QQitemZ380117023272QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Cars_Parts_Vehicles_Terminals_Cabling_ET?hash=item5880bd7a28#ht_941wt_1167

Fd

Thanks very much FergusD and Chucky. I received a couple of drivers from that nice chap on eBay yesterday, and the instructions (plus the circuit diagram above) make everything clear. I think I might run the 5W driver with a 100k resistor switchable in. That way I can run with a low mode of about 330mA and a high of 970mA. I figure that I'll mostly use this unit for road commuting. In traffic around town the low setting should be enough, but once I get out onto the country lanes with lots of airflow then I can opt for uber-bright. Might convert a second head unit later for offroad use. I also saw those RAM heat sinks and similar in Maplin. I'm wondering if it might be possible to mount something like that on the outside of the can, though obviously the heat sinks have flat bottoms, so would need some careful mounting to make sure that the heat flows nicely.

If you want to mount a heatsink on the outside of the can, have a look on eBay for RC car motor heatsinks, one of them – I think the 520 size – is an exact match for the lumicycle halogen case. It's a semi-cylindrical finned thing. I stuck mine on with heat transfer tape and it warms up fast, which suggests that it's working and dissipating heat.

It is all about heat transfer – there's no point in sticking a heat sink inside the can unless it can transfer the heat into the lamp body and simply having an interference fit between the LEDs and the lamp isn't good enough, you need some sort of heat transfer medium as well.

Sorry if that's all blindingly obvious, but if the heat has no way of getting to the outside world, then it will slowly bake your expensive LEDs. The heatsink is just increasing the effective surface area to lose heat from, but if it's simply heating the air inside the can, it's not going to be very effective.

Something like this btw

That looks ace! Might order one and give it a go. Cheers BWD.

No worries. My only concern would be landing on top of it on my chin, but it hasn't happened yet, touch wood 😕

I don't reckon the chances of that are very high. I'm pretty sure that I've never had any kind of face-to-bars impact. I reckon that'd be quite hard to do unless the bars snapped or something. Also, I'm hoping that my light will look a bit like a robotic baby hedgehog with the sun shining out of its a$$!

squeeky you ned to order these

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut781

Choose 3 way narrow for XPG

and

http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=Cree (plus) XPG

for some reason it won't put the plus sign in the link

choose R4 from the first pull down and cutter-XPGMR11T from the 2nd pull down.

Looking to order these, but slightly confused as to what I'm supposed to be ordering.

The cart shows the narrow optic which is correct, but I seem to have one cree xlamp xpg led at 5.95, the XPGWHT-L1-0000-00G51 R4 Bin and the Cutter-XPGMR11T.

Am I correct in thinking I will get a triple XPG mounted on a board?

Yep the Cutter-XPGMR11T is triple XPG mounted on a MR11 PCB

Er yeah the Cutter shopping cart is crap…I'm sure what u have ordered will be XPGx3 If u amend the XPG bin qty to 3, the total shoots up to 90 odd dollars..GULP!

Thanks for that, I thought I was being a bit dim there for a moment. 😳 I have ordered only one!

Woohoo! My LEDs and optics arrived from Oz today. I ordered XP-G optics, but they are listed on the invoice as XR-E ones, so I guess there are still no XP-G-specific ones. Ah well, I got a narrow and a medium so I'll just try both and see how they work.

let us know how the build goes gray

and piccies

I certainly will, though I'm waiting for a couple of bits to arrive from Maplin (three way switch, thermal tape, resistors) before I can make a start, and I'm off on holiday for a week from Tuesday, so it may not be until nearly Christmas by the time I get a chance.

Do you use anything to hold the feet of the optic to the LED PCB? If the wires etc. from behind are nice and springy and a tightish fit then I can imagine it might all sit happily in place of its own accord, but I was wondering about a little blob of silicone or something else (reversible, to enable optic swapping) on each foot to hold the LED board in where it's supposed to be relative to the optic.

I don't use anything. As the bezel on the lumi can hold it in place. but i think a couple of small blobs of silicon won't hurt.

I file the legs down a little so that they are not quite as deep as the LED PCB (you will notice they protude out the back of the PCB) . . . then use some rubber rienforced superglue to hold them in place on the PCB . . . you don't need to but it makes handling easier . . . it's always possible to remove it if required . . . only the smallest quantity is required . . .

I've been playing with the 970mA driver for a standard can conversion using XP-G triples . . .

The current regulator itself doesn't overheat at 970mA with an 11cell NiMh and running long term . . . good news as it's mentioned it may need heat sinking . . . but I've been struggling to get the 1/2 power mode working with the suggested resistor values . . . more experimentation needed . . .

Also waiting on some hedgehog heatsinks arriving from the US which I think will give a 1000 lumen helmet mount hog lamp . . . I think with the extra heatsink it will be fine in moving air . . .

Fd

All the bits have now arrived. Hope to get the light done sometime next week…

Just completed my Lumi can conversion:

Comparison to my previous helmet light, a Hope HID (first picture)


(apologies for the shakey camera work)

I used the MR11 triple MCPCB with XPG-R4 LEDs from Cutter (I used R4s cos R5s were out of stock) and a Ledil XRE optic also from Cutter.

Note to Gray above, XPG optics are available but just not from Cutter yet. The Ledil site lists them and has links to datasheets etc. Problem is getting hold of them. I spoke to a couple of UK agents and they would have to order minimum quantities etc.

The LEDs are driven by a bFlex driver, again from Cutter, it's dearer than the ones listed on Ebay but much more versatile and programmable.

I also used the RC traction control hub as in the original post for the internal heatsink, which worked well.

I had also hit upon the RC motor heatsink idea and bought one from the States on Ebay, however BWDs suggestion was much neater so I used that instead (thanks BWD). I haven't yet had it running for more than 5-10 mins or so at full tilt (1000mA), however so far it doesn't seem to be getting red hot.

I can also recommend the heatshrink idea for sealing the driver board, much easier than insulation tape.

Other tips you might want to consider:
– to increase the amount of space inside the can I sourced an alternative toggle switch from Farnell, order code 957-5731. This is a momentary on and has a much smaller switch body. Also, I removed the plastic spacer so it sat flush with the inside of the can. You still need a spacer on the outside if you use the weather proof switch cover, I used a small length of Camelbac hose to provide a decent seal.
– This isn't necessary but I changed the power connection to a three pin Brad Harrison/Woodhead type as used on the original Hope, then made up a short adaptor lead from the Lumi connector to a three pin. This means I can use either the Lumi battery or the Hope one. This connector is also smaller than the original Lumi one helping to save space.

Thanks to all who have posted, this has been a very interesting (and so far successful) project. I'm currently waiting on a custom CNC housing to be made (should be done Monday) so I can fit all the components to make a x7 XPG R5 bar light (that's nearly 2500 lumens folks!)

Cheers

poisonspider