The "I probably shouldn't do this" Flashlight Build

For any of you flashaholics out there...

I'm going to start my slow build here for anyone who wants to play along, it is my first build so be patient with me.

It's starting off life as a JohnLite, unknown model but I do know it's older (it was free so of course I'm going to use it)

I have already taken the liberty of tearing it apart as the battery was completely flat.



Pictured for size with a dolla bill and my current weaponlight, Olight M22 Warrior.



It started off life equipped with:

1- 35w H4 Halogen bulb
1- 3w generic star LED (attached armature)
1- 3mm blinking red LED (attached armature)
1- 1.5w Halogen "bean" light (tube light)
10- Poorly set up, 5mm LEDs (bezel)
1- 8Ah AGM battery


My plans are to build a fully digital, uselessly bright, nonsensical and otherwise whimsical light including:

Control:
1- ATmega328 controller
4- TLC5940 led controllers
1- Rotary Encoder for 5-100% full brightness control per sector
1- illuminated toggle switch=doom (potentially might use to overdrive everything forward facing to +20% as it will be fairly well sinked)
1- illuminated rotary switch for pre-selected output levels


Lighting:
3- CREE XML U2 @3A (forward firing)
3- Ledil LENINA reflectors (S,M,W for full spectrum lighting)
14- CREE XPG R2 @1.5A (forward firing)
14- CARLCO TIR Optics (undecided on beam type, most likely 8 NARROW, 4 MED, 2 diffused WIDE)
1- TASKled HyperBoost (XPG string)
1- TASKled H6CC (XML string)

48- 5630 .5w LEDs (tube light, =16 "pixels",4 per side)
48- 5050 RGB LEDs (tube light w/full 12 bit PWM modulation for 68.7 billion colors for 16 "pixels", 4 per side)

2x3-CREE XPG R2@1.5A (attached armature)
2- CAT4101 (XPG string, attached armature)
2- CARLCO 3UP Narrow/Wide
6- RGB LEDs (attached armature)

Power:
1- BioEnno 15Ah LiFePO4 pack to power the whole shebang.

As it sits, with everything at 100%, I will be sucking down tremendous amounts of power so I may need to scale back once everything comes to full term.

Rough estimates puts it at (assuming 70% eff of lm/watt and optics)

~7440lm forward firing (almost 100w coming from the front)
~650lm tube lighting (24w not including RGB)
~1200lm attached armature (28w)

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This build has been brought to you by eBay, and the deals that I've found there...



185 XPGs on reel- $30
20 XMLs on reel- $20

Being the only one to view the auction when they should have been going from 3.75/6 per... priceless.

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I will be building everything by hand so it will take a little while to make progress on it... but I do have a test PCB that I will be making this weekend to test the capabilities of the TLC for dissipating the power from the .5w 5630s and pattern selection. It will be my first double sided PCB so hopefully it turns out usable



(poor layout, I know, but I'm not worried about production value at this point)

If it fails, I'll just end up using 1 LM317 CC per string of 5630s and work from there.
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Input, critique, comments, encouragement... are all welcome.

And no, this will not be used to blind motorists, or signal astronauts... just for fun.

BUT! Just don't ask why I'm doing this... I'm still trying to figure that one out.

 

I'll follow along.........more for support than help, as I am electrically challenged

 

Subbed!

 

This should be nuts. Like.

 

2 six pack job here....

 

Got bored today and decided to make a quick model of how everything is going to fit together.




Main base plate for the XMLs will be a 6"x.25" aluminum plate and sheathed with .125 copper for evacuating heat.

It will be held concentrically by a small chamfer on the back of the plate and a bolt connected to the back of the original reflector; that plate will also house the driving circuitry to provide some heat sinking for them as well because the H6CC at 3A and the HyperBoost at 1.5 will be consuming almost 9+ amps The drivers will be fairly close to their limits but I've calculated that as the battery drains, the H6CC's efficiency will outweigh the losses from the booster as it creeps away from optimal.

The XPG ring will be .125 aluminum epoxied onto the main reflector.

Right now the CARLCO optics are a little more than .250" away from the glass which I think will work nicely if I'm planning on using a few wide angle lens'. The LENINA will be closer to .125" away from the glass and at the angles provided for the CARLCOs, they won't get in the way. Of course, making a rough digital model vs. in hand parts are two completely different things.

I've decided that I'm also going to use a thermistor on both the XML and XPG plates that will act as a current limit should anything get to hot from being overdriven just as a safety precaution; it's not as if I don't have enough to throw away, but still...

 

Thanks for the encouragement fellas!

??

 

Just as a quick update...

Just using the protoboard I managed to fry a TLC just using 1 string of the 5730s... Doh.

SO, I've got a few spare SuperTex CL7s laying around that are going to be used for those particular strings.

Finally got my 5050 RGBS in too so now I'll be able to get to fixing my PCB and working on layout with actual physical dimensions. How nifty.

Hopefully I'll have a running "pixel" to show by the end of the weekend.