The LIGHTCANON - [flashlight]

[Enderman]

UPDATE!

 

So I finally did the measurements of the light intensity using the $40 Dr.Meter luxmeter I got from amazon

 

proof:

 

 

 

Here are the values:

37000 lux @ 4.72m =

824000lux @ 1m 

 

Max value achieved:

37800 lux @ 4.72m =

842000 lux @ 1m 

 

lux @ 1m = candlepower = candela

 

Not 1 million lux, but still pretty close  I'm satisfied with the end result

Thanks for reading The project is finished but if I take more pics/videos in the future I will make sure to post them here too!

[LukaH]

cool beans dude 

[BaileyFY]

Have you got any more plans or are you done for now?

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, BaileyFY said:

Have you got any more plans or are you done for now?

Other than possibly more night shots/videos, this flashlight is pretty much finished

 

The only upgrade I could do to it would be a professional grade lens to give a better concentrated spot, but the only place that makes professional 100mm aspheric lenses is Thorlabs, and the lens costs $1200

 

So yeah, not getting that any time soon

 

In the future I might build the "monster" liquid cooled flashlight with a big parabolic reflector instead of lenses (for better light efficiency, a lot less waste) But that will cost another several hundred dollars which I dont have right now.

[carguy86]

What led would you recomend if id want to leap for 3km (3000m) of throw?

[Enderman]

2 hours ago, Strando123 said:

What led would you recomend if id want to leap for 3km (3000m) of throw?

You're gonna need to step up to a HID + parabolic reflector for that

I haven't been able to find any LED with a higher surface brightness than the XP-G2 at 5-6amps

 

Check out the maxabeam, thats a good example of a near perfect HID+reflector combo

[pagani123]

how much did you end up spending i am thinking about doing something similar and i want to know about what you spent (plan to mount it on my dads boat we need to have  narrow spotlight mounted to the boat)

[Enderman]

22 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

how much did you end up spending i am thinking about doing something similar and i want to know about what you spent (plan to mount it on my dads boat we need to have  narrow spotlight mounted to the boat)

About $200, but half of that was the battery pack

you can get cheaper batteries with less capacity that will work just fine

the tube was about $20, $20 for the led and driver, $10 for the lens, and then about $50 left for all the wires, switch, thermometer, heatsink, and blackout material

I actually found the stock intel heatsink to be enough for cooling the LED, the large heatsink I bought was a bit overkill, so if you have a stock heatsink around you can use that

[pagani123]

11 minutes ago, Enderman said:

About $200, but half of that was the battery pack

you can get cheaper batteries with less capacity that will work just fine

the tube was about $20, $20 for the led and driver, $10 for the lens, and then about $50 left for all the wires, switch, thermometer, heatsink, and blackout material

I actually found the stock intel heatsink to be enough for cooling the LED, the large heatsink I bought was a bit overkill, so if you have a stock heatsink around you can use that

i wont be using a battery pack most likely. (i will be hooking it up to the boats power/battery)

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, Maybach123 said:

i wont be using a battery pack most likely. (i will be hooking it up to the boats power/battery)

well then you need to buy a power converter which can drop the voltage to 3.7-4.2v and handle at least 5 amps

[Enderman]

34 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

i wont be using a battery pack most likely. (i will be hooking it up to the boats power/battery)

oh and btw if youre panning to do this on a boat I would suggest going for the cree XHP-70 and a large reflector

the range wont be as far but your lumen output will be like 10x more

the xhp70 is about twice as expensive at $20 http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_114&product_id=568

5000lm at 8A

[pagani123]

3 hours ago, Enderman said:

oh and btw if youre panning to do this on a boat I would suggest going for the cree XHP-70 and a large reflector

the range wont be as far but your lumen output will be like 10x more

the xhp70 is about twice as expensive at $20 http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_114&product_id=568

5000lm at 8A

 

i was looking at the xhp70 

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

i was looking at the xhp70 

oh i also forgot to include the wavien collar in the price, that thing was like $70

but if you use a recoil-LED config with a parabolic reflector then there is no need for a collar because you already get pretty much 100% light efficiency

 

the collar only helps with aspheric lens configs

[pagani123]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

oh i also forgot to include the wavien collar in the price, that thing was like $70

but if you use a recoil-LED config with a parabolic reflector then there is no need for a collar because you already get pretty much 100% light efficiency

 

the collar only helps with aspheric lens configs

what about the cree  XLamp CXB3590 its really bright and only about a square inch. I could make a pretty good boat spotlight with 6k to 18k lumens 

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

what about the cree  XLamp CXB3590 its really bright and only about a square inch. I could make a pretty good boat spotlight with 6k to 18k lumens 

thats 25lm per mm^2

 

xhp70 is over 300lm/mm^2

 

youre going to get way farther throw with the XHP 70 unless you use a parabolic reflector which is several meters in diameter with the CBX

 

 

[pagani123]

18 minutes ago, Enderman said:

thats 25lm per mm^2

 

xhp70 is over 300lm/mm^2

 

youre going to get way farther throw with the XHP 70 unless you use a parabolic reflector which is several meters in diameter with the CBX

 

 

oh because the cbx is more of a flood light? but i do plan on using a large reflector/lense the boat is 20 meters long and he just wanted a large spotlight light (as in large diameter of the circle of light) that he could control (i dont know exactly what he wants to do with it)

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

oh because the cbx is more of a flood light? but i do plan on using a large reflector/lense the boat is 20 meters long and he just wanted a large spotlight light (as in large diameter of the circle of light) that he could control (i dont know exactly what he wants to do with it)

yeah the cbx would be bright but make just a big flood, not a far range beam

[pagani123]

Just now, Enderman said:

yeah the cbx would be bright but make just a big flood, not a far range beam

so what led then would you recommend for a 2 foot diameter beam of light still the xhp70. (sorry i dont have much experience with custom led projects i made 1 custom lightsaber when i was younger but that was it. i also dont have much information as i am just msg my dad and i can only get a trickle of information on what he wants.  

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, Maybach123 said:

so what led then would you recommend for a 2 foot diameter beam of light still the xhp70. (sorry i dont have much experience with custom led projects i made 1 custom lightsaber when i was younger but that was it. i also dont have much information as i am just msg my dad and i can only get a trickle of information on what he wants.  

yes

 

the other LED which can do close to 4000lm and has a smaller area is the luninus SST90 but that one costs a ton of $$ and its hard to find a place that stocks the well-binned ones

 

for a 2ft beam I would highly recommend this reflector

http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/optical-mirrors/focusing-concave-mirrors/large-parabolic-reflectors/53876/

very high light efficiency, and 24" is a good size to match the LED size

 

i havent done a lot of calculations with this reflector but my raytraces show that you should be able to get at least 1km of ANSI distance, and possibly more

 

just make sure that you use a good power supply for the LED, since it requires 7v and at least 8A 

[pagani123]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

yes

 

the other LED which can do close to 4000lm and has a smaller area is the luninus SST90 but that one costs a ton of $$ and its hard to find a place that stocks the well-binned ones

 

for a 2ft beam I would highly recommend this reflector

http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/optical-mirrors/focusing-concave-mirrors/large-parabolic-reflectors/53876/

very high light efficiency, and 24" is a good size to match the LED size

 

i havent done a lot of calculations with this reflector but my raytraces show that you should be able to get at least 1km of ANSI distance, and possibly more

 

just make sure that you use a good power supply for the LED, since it requires 7v and at least 8A 

it will be running off of the wall plug in the boat so i will probably use a wallwart psu. 

[nickl]

I was looking into LED panels for this as well, and I saw this, and according to my calculations, the  XLamp® CXA1850 panel has a higher flux/mm^2 value, at about 83 lm/mm^2, while the XHP70 comes in at around 82, small difference, but with the CXA1850 putting out 9000 lm, would it be a better option, if you had the money?

Also, how did you get a 300lm/mm^2 value for the XHP70?

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, nickl said:

I was looking into LED panels for this as well, and I saw this, and according to my calculations, the  XLamp® CXA1850 panel has a higher flux/mm^2 value, at about 83 lm/mm^2, while the XHP70 comes in at around 82, small difference, but with the CXA1850 putting out 9000 lm, would it be a better option, if you had the money?

Also, how did you get a 300lm/mm^2 value for the XHP70?

the XHP70 has 4 squares that are 2x2mm each

thats a total of 16 square mm

take 5000/16=312.5

 

in the lightcanon I used the XP-G2 which is 1.25^2 = 2.25mm square

at 5A the led puts out over 1000lm so 1000/2.25 = 444 lm/mm^2

 

The only other LED that comes close to that is the SST-90 which can do about 4000lm max and has a die area of 9mm square and 4000/9 also = 444

Except I chose to not use the SST90 because it requires like 12A to get 4000lm which would reduce my battery life by over half and also require a much more expensive driver

[Prysin]

neat stuff.

 

+1 for the buildlog.

 

Now, suggestion for next one.

Build your own case. Put one of these LEDs into there, and use colour tinted akrylic to guide the light around the case. Both as outside trim and inside trim if you feel like doing so

 

 

[byalexandr]

On 9/2/2015 at 0:17 AM, Enderman said:

sort of, but instead of going for a ton of lumens im going for maximum throw

which requires a really small LED, and a very large lens

What happens if you have a really large LED and a really large lens?

[Enderman]

Just now, byalexandr said:

What happens if you have a really large LED and a really large lens?

if the proportions are the same as a small LED with small lens, then the beam distance should technically be the same

the only problem with this is that lenses are extremely accurate and focus to a single point, so even going with a slightly bigger LED would require a giant lens to keep proportions right

the only large lenses that I know of are fresnel lenses, which are flat and dont make a very nice beam since they are made of rings rather than one curved surface

 

your theory works well with reflectors though

large reflectors are easy to find and cheap, compared to large lenses which cost thousands of dollars