DIY Lights

[Engignar]

Hey guys, it is great to see the DIY designs, always cool to see what people come up with, and for comparatively little money compared to the "OTC" lights. Just thought I would throw out there that I am an LED design engineer and work intimately with the latest and greatest LEDs out there, so if anybody has any questions or hang ups for their own DIY project I would be happy to help. I've got some of my own ghetto lights put together hastily, however I am going to save pics for when I get my not so ghetto light up and running.

 

[J-Dro]

Time to resurrect this thread to show my latest DIY concoction courtesy of the Lowe's plumbing section. This ones called the copperhead. Made from 3/4" copper pipe end caps bonded together using plumbing solder & blowtorch. This is running 2 Cree Q5 LEDs, and the copper housing acts as the heat sink. For optics, I went with one narrow beam and one medium beam to give a good mix of long throw down the trail and spill to the sides as well.

It mounts on either the helmet or the bar using mounts made for Marwi lights (found them at Jenson). I like the ability to separately aim the two lights... I like to aim the spot beam further ahead of the flood.

They are really freakin' bright and burn for 3 hours 45 mins with my 4-cell Li-Ion battery.

 

[elzoller]

gettin' better and better Jeff, cool stuff!

 

[Shaggz]

good stuff, jeff. you may have a viable side business :hmmm:

 

[euphoria]

What do you guys think about overdriving a 6volt halogen bulb with an 8.4v pack? I know I can run a 7.2 without an issue, but is 8.4 too much juice for a 6volt bulb?

 

[J-Dro]

What do you guys think about overdriving a 6volt halogen bulb with an 8.4v pack? I know I can run a 7.2 without an issue, but is 8.4 too much juice for a 6volt bulb?

I think your pushing your luck by overvolting the halogen bulb by 40%. It may work for a while, but getting bounced around on the trail would almost certainly kill the filament sooner rather then later.