DIY Can Light Head Size

[EGad]

I've been bored and looking at some of the amazing work that 350xfire and Packhorse have been doing building can lights so I started thinking about trying it myself. Mainly I'm trying to get back into playing with CAD after a ten year break.

I'm looking at the Luminus SST-90 for it's absurd light output, but there's a few questions that have come up.


Mainly, the reflector. The only place that seems to make one is Ledil and it's 22.6mm dia X 13.6mm high. Building around this seems to create a light head that's absurdly small. It would likely be 2" long or less (minus the cable gland) and roughly 1 3/8" in diameter. That's pretty much everything stuffed in there with about 5/8" behind the emitter for wiring and any heatsink. That seems absurdly small compared to most commercially made heads. Also the tightest angle spot they have is 12 degrees with what looks like an even light and not much of a tight hotspot. Is this thing even useful for a primary light or should I consider that more of a video flood and build a MC-E or something similar? I don't have much use for a video setup.

EDIT: Looking at the data sheet and doing some math it seems that, ignoring backscatter, at 30' you would have relative intensities of:
75% in a 8' diameter circle
50% in 12-13' circle
25% in 20' circle.
That seems a little too wide to be useful at any distance. Fortunately that's about all we get for vis, so it wouldn't be as bad as in say, gin clear Caribbean waters.

Getting to the wiring, I was figuring I'd just drive it with 5-6 of these. And power the whole thing with a custom LIon pack.

I guess what I'm asking is
1. Is that sized light head too small? What am I missing in there?
2. Would it be useful as a primary?
3. Am I wasting my time? (More than I intended.)

Basically, I was just looking for something to sketch up in CAD and possibly try to port to CAM. (Never really played with that.) I may still go for it (probably after changing the design to a Cree MC-E or similar setup) just to see if I can get a CAM program to talk to my CAD program and then take it to a friend's shop and see if it actually works on a lathe.

Any input?

Thanks,

Eric

Maybe I'll start on adesign for an MC-E or another, more popular emitter tomorrow. Any ideas?

 

[bradsab]

I'm currently building a combo dive/video light http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/do-yourself-diy/319558-need-lots-help-diy-light.html. I have the Ledil Lilly medium & wide, I'm using the wide for the video floods. They have a fairly smooth beam, no difined hot spot. The mediums have a hot spot, but with a lot of spill. No one had the narrow in stock, so I haven't tried those. I'm using the Carclo 26.5mm Optic & Holder found here Photon Fanatic Custom LED Flashlights for the dive light. It's not real tight, but there is no spill, gives a square beam. When the light is finished, I'll post some beam shots for you. DIWdiver is developing a linear driver for the sst-90. Hopefully he'll have the first one's done this weekend because I'm leaving for Cozumel next week

 

[adm3745]

I wouldn't say your wasting your time. It looks like were trying to build the same light now.

Now what are you trying to design in CAD? I have access to mastercam but I think it's overkill for these lights, especially if you make them out of delrin.

My current light uses a P7 LED direct driven with 4 18650 Li-Ions. I used a 12oz paintball CO2 canister with the top cut off for the can (see my pics). It gives you a usable 2" * 5.5" space or a battery. Probably small enough if your using the MC-E. Although I like the P7 I really want something a little brighter. It was also very hard to get it to focus well. When I take it into gin clear springs, Its awesome. I took it to a sink hole 2 weekdns ago with ~20 ft viz and my buddies 10w HID actually was doing better than mine was. I did find a fantastic reflector for my P7 but it was around 3" wide. Way o big for a goodman handle light. I'm going to try the SST-90 driven at 5 A with the Lumil reflector. Hopefully I can get in contact with DIWdiver for some drivers.

www.batterypsace.com has some great bat packs for cheap. One of the LiPo packs goes for ~43$and offers like 50 wh I believe. I'll probably be using 2 of those (one as a backup). Im throwing around the idea of switching out batteries in between dives so that I can have a really small cannister and get 3-3.5 hrs per bat.

The cheapest source I've found for Delrin is on onlinemetals.com. You can get lucky on ebay once and awhile. Cable Glands and Latches and wire can be found at oxycheq.com . Click on torches and DIY parts list. Hopefully some of that helped. IF you alreay knew most of I apologize.

 

[adm3745]

 

[EGad]

Oh, I'm mainly drawing up the head to practice CAD. I used to be pretty good at drafting 10 years ago, but now everything's 3D so I'm trying to get used to the new functions and trying to knock out the cobwebs. I've got a friend who's family owns a large machine shop nearby, so I'm thinking about cleaning up my sketches into a usable design and possibly running it through a CAM program to see if I can get a toolpath out of it. I used to play around in CAD a lot when I was in high school, but after a decade I seem to be at square one. I'm really just doing this as a mental exercise to get my drafting back up to snuff and also to teach myself some basic engineering (all my friends went to college and became engineers while I was in the Air Force, now I know why they had to study for 4-5 years to learn this stuff.)

Basically, I'm just trying to learn new things, and rather than just draft up designs for stuff that won't serve any purpose, I figured I'd use my electronics experience to maybe make something useful if I ever decide to actually throw a blank on a lathe. I'm planning on designing a head and can on a computer and taking it all the way to NC code just to do it. If I can end up with usable parts, maybe I'll run a few off and build the lights just for the learning experience.

I'm also considering a head that will support different emitter/reflector combos, held in place by different IDs and custom heatsink plugs in the rear, so that I can have a standard design that I can upgrade when new emitters hit the market.

I guess it all comes down to insomnia and needing something to do when there's no more curling on TV.

Eric

 

[Jimmer]

Egad, what CAD program are you using? I'm quite profficient with Solidworks, and if that is what you are using, I can do my best via emails or PM to help you figure things out.

Jim

 

[adm3745]

It definately is amazing how much power these programs have. I am a 3rd yr Aerospace Engineering student down here in Florida. Not sure which programs you have available to you, but I use proEngineer. It is an amazing piece of software. It makes it extremely simple to import your drawings into a CAm software (we use Mastercam) and get a toolpath. The book that you can get with it is really well written and makes learning or relearning easy.

Definately make a couple though. I don't like paper projects too much so even if its useless to me, I still like to build it so I can see the proof of my design.

 

[Jimmer]

I don't have much experience with ProE, but I know exactly what you mean. Virtually all the "name brand" CAD programs these days have really excellent integration with CAM software. Can't really go wrong with any of them!

It definately is amazing how much power these programs have. I am a 3rd yr Aerospace Engineering student down here in Florida. Not sure which programs you have available to you, but I use proEngineer. It is an amazing piece of software. It makes it extremely simple to import your drawings into a CAm software (we use Mastercam) and get a toolpath. The book that you can get with it is really well written and makes learning or relearning easy.

Definately make a couple though. I don't like paper projects too much so even if its useless to me, I still like to build it so I can see the proof of my design.

 

[EGad]

The CAD is coming back to me fairly easily. I'm drawing in 2D and will just rotate it around the X axis to get a 3D product. The thing that's jumping out at me is most light heads are 2-3" diameter and 3-4" long. The optics for the SST-90 are all under an inch diameter and well under an inch long. Such a small form factor is really confusing me, as it would create a tiny little head that would be dwarfed by a goodman handle unless I had a massive amount of extra material on the head. It's currently about 35mm OD X 46mm long. Should I continue making this thing absurdly small or increase the OD and length to make the size a bit bigger, but have a lot of extra material on it?

 

[adm3745]

the reflector is close to 10w Head with an MR11 housing. Those heads to me look like 1.5-2" in diamter and around 4" Long. The LED Heads are alot smaller because a driver + LED is really small.

My Light Head will probably be around 1.75" x 3" . I don't mind the small size. It would be nice to find a bigger reflector for it though. IF you want to make something bigger make an array of 3 SST-90's