DIY thread

[H20doctor]

well i was suposed to build a light for diver dave.. but i havent had the time to do it ... so at this time no, im just gonna bring up 2 lights... But i might leave one for dave if he wants it ,

[sitkadiver]

well i was suposed to build a light for diver dave.. but i havent had the time to do it ... so at this time no, im just gonna bring up 2 lights... But i might leave one for dave if he wants it ,

He wants it.

[H20doctor]

ya i know ... he needs spear gun bands too but i couldnt find them ....

[Dusty2]

Oh my .... look what the mail man brought .. some good light crack is in the works

IMG_6743.JPG

You planning to fry the fishies underwater??? 1000lm each at 3 watts? Madness,shear madness!

[H20doctor]

im gonna push the XML chips at 4 amps , each .. LOL , most likely with also set of 6 XPG's all going into the New deathlight , Light head ..., Or i might put a SST-50 chip in the center with an aspheric , then surround it with XPG's ... Hmmmmmm , But yes a definite fish fry underwater dusty

[vlad]

Oh my .... look what the mail man brought .. some good light crack is in the works

IMG_6743.JPG

What a coincidence! I'm expecting a few of these too, though the mailman doesn't seem to be in hurry. Meanwhile, I'm playing with SST-90, which can deliver if pushed a bit. The only thing left is new reflector, which also should be arriving... eventually. Mailman, where are you?

[Dusty2]

I just finished my latest light and pressured tested it to 300 feet. Happy to say not a drop of water anywhere except on the outside.

[H20doctor]

Looks good.. I like the argo glands.. What u pay for them 14.00 ea ?

[Dusty2]

$11 bucks a piece. I found a site that was allot cheaper but you have to buy 50 at a time. :angry:

[Nwbrewer]

A while ago, April asked me if I could figure out what was wrong with her DR 10watt HID as it no longer would strike. After a little testing, the most likely suspect was a bad ballast. April didn't want to put another HID in the light, so I conspired with Airsix a bit, and we HotRoded the light with an LED.

These little DR lightheads make an awesome host for an LED, because they're nice and compact, and made of aluminum, so the whole body of the lighthead acts as a heatsink.

Initially I was going to use a cree MC-E, but these little beauties came out just in time, so I ordered one. I'm really impressed with the output from these.
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXM-L.pdf

For a driver, I ordered the one I usually use for ~3amp LED's from china, but the one they sent me was DOA. Luckily I found another source in Bellingham. He was a little more expensive, but totally worth it if I don't have to wait a month for the the parts to be shipped via carrier pigeon from hong kong. http://e-lectronics.net/3mode-driver-bo ... p-464.html I like this one, it gives 3 modes (low-med-high) and as long as you heatsink the driver it performs pretty well with dive light standard 12volt batteries.



I ordered some aluminum rod, and sent the rod and dimensions to Airsix for a little machining. He turned me out a SWEET custom heatsink for this project, complete with drilled and tapped mounting holes the fit the LED star perfectly, and slid into the lighthead with just a little friction.



I mounted the LED with a little thermal grease, look at that fit.


Then I soldered up the LED and driver, and mounted the Fraen reflector (also generously supplied by Airsix!) with a little E-6000.



After that it was just a matter of soldering it to the lightcord in the lighthead, and replacing the seals.


And the best part, the performance-
Low

Medium

High


And for comparison purposes, Vs. my 20watt SST-90 with Aspheric -(SST-90 on the left)


Vs. a 250lumen XR-E (XR-E on the left)


I can't wait to see this thing in the water, I think it's going to perform extremely well. It's not going to be a super thrower, but I think it's going to be a really nice, bright all around light.

Jake

[Dashrynn]

I have a 14 watt hid ballast that would fit in a 10 watt dive rite easily

[Nwbrewer]

I have a 14 watt hid ballast that would fit in a 10 watt dive rite easily

Yep, the 14watt HID is the same dimensions as the old 10watt, but a 14watt bulb/ballast would have been 2X the money and ~1.5 times the draw on the battery.

[Dashrynn]

I have a 14 watt hid ballast that would fit in a 10 watt dive rite easily

Yep, the 14watt HID is the same dimensions as the old 10watt, but a 14watt bulb/ballast would have been 2X the money and ~1.5 times the draw on the battery.

Out of curiosity, how much were supplies? And how many watts does the led pull? 1000 lumens I'm assuming or 900?

[Nwbrewer]

I have a 14 watt hid ballast that would fit in a 10 watt dive rite easily

Yep, the 14watt HID is the same dimensions as the old 10watt, but a 14watt bulb/ballast would have been 2X the money and ~1.5 times the draw on the battery.

Out of curiosity, how much were supplies? And how many watts does the led pull? 1000 lumens I'm assuming or 900?

It's around $50 to put together. The LED is ~10, the Driver is around ~15, and the reflector is ~10. The heatsink was expensive to do just one, but if you were doing a bunch that price goes down.

On high it's pulling 1.12 amps from a 12v pack. I don't have a lumen meter. Maybe I'll take it over to DiveX and see if they'll test it for me?

[H20doctor]

what i need to know is .. what the shiny stuff on the garage door ?

[Nwbrewer]

what i need to know is .. what the shiny stuff on the garage door ?

Bubble wrap insulation. It was there when I moved in. I think it's supposed to keep the garage warmer.

[spatman]

what i need to know is .. what the shiny stuff on the garage door ?

Bubble wrap insulation. It was there when I moved in. I think it's supposed to keep the garage warmer.

soundproofing, maybe?

[Nwbrewer]

what i need to know is .. what the shiny stuff on the garage door ?

Bubble wrap insulation. It was there when I moved in. I think it's supposed to keep the garage warmer.

soundproofing, maybe?

The previous owner was a weird dude. He had the whole house wired with some sort of bizarre computer network, like he was running a telemarketing business out of the house. There's also a few spots in the garage floor where you can see where some sort of machinery was bolted down. No idea what he was doing in there though, they were long gone by the time I bought the place.

[airsix]

And for the record, the high cost of the heatsink Jake referred to was material cost not labor. He paid for a chunk of aluminum rod and had it shipped to me. That cost will be distributed over several future NWbrewer/Airsix projects though because we only used 10% of the material.

[Nwbrewer]

And for the record, the high cost of the heatsink Jake referred to was material cost not labor. He paid for a chunk of aluminum rod and had it shipped to me. That cost will be distributed over several future NWbrewer/Airsix projects though because we only used 10% of the material.

Not to mention that 1/2 the cost of that was shipping because we're talking such a small scale. Ben we need to talk about a test tube design....

[Dusty2]

A couple more days and the super scuba cart will be here!!

I have been thinking about buying a cart of some sort for along time but with the reserved parking we had at Port Townsend I didn't feel I could justify the cost for the limited use I would get from it. This year though they changed my mind for me. The salmon club in PT decided that they were only going to allow people using the boat launch to use the lot soooo. I liked some of the dock carts and garden carts I have seen. After looking at several I found that most were $250 or more + shipping so I have been working with a guy in Texas on designing a cart just for diving gear. It ended up being allot more pricey and involved than we predicted but I think it will be just the ticket for getting this old foggy to the water without risk of heart attack. This is what the base frame looks like. The rear handle is detachable and the front holds two tanks. It will have 16" spoke wheels. I will be adding the wheels and axles and the rubbermaid storage bin when it gets here hopefully this weekend. I'll post when I get it together.

It's hell admitting your getting old and it's expensive too!

[Dusty2]

I just finished my latest light and pressured tested it to 300 feet. Happy to say not a drop of water anywhere except on the outside.

This light and one other (in black of course) are headed for advanced tri-mix deep cave dives this week. Hopefully I'll have some good reports back by the first of the month!

0171net.JPG (24.42 KiB) Viewed 1874 times

[vlad]

Just finished another of those "PVC Production" dive lights. This time it was one based on SST-90. DealExtreme started to sell them sometime ago, but it took me half a year to finish the light based in this LED.

The stock driver that they are selling wasn't very impressive as is, it only drove the LED to 5 and something amp. According to specs the LED can do 9, so I was trying to push it a bit. I could make it run at almost 9 amp, but decided to drop the amperage to about 7-7.5 due to excessive heat and better battery runtime. This means the light is using about 25-30 watt. Still, the driver doesn't want to run at full power right away. I have to switch to medium setting and warm it up for 20-30 sec, then it will run at high.

Then I was trying all kind or reflectors and none of them could produce good concentrated beam or wouldn't fit the head. The final version still doesn't produce as small spot as I'd like, but I don't have the patience any longer to wait for another shipment from those DealExtreme guys. It took them month to ship my last order, plus two weeks for delivery. Urgh!

To deal with the heat, I filled the head with mineral oil, which worked surpassingly good but made the spot a bit larger. Oh well. As part of the battery run test, I kept the light on the air for half an hour without any issues. It got hot, but still okay to touch. The rest of the run was performed in the bucket with water. The light ran for 3 hours and 20 min, which is quite good.

Here are a few pictures of the light and the comparison of the beam with SSC P7 and 5*Cree R2 lights. I plan to dive with it this weekend.

[Nwbrewer]

Nice work Vlad, what reflector and driver did you wind up with?

[airsix]

Very cool!