Piggy,

I would not have understood those schematics if my life depended on it. I may understand like 5-10% if I really looked hard. Thank goddess for cheap drivers out there where you can buy 1-2 of them.

I'm replying to this because I saw your post in my CPF thread and checked out your link here. BTW nice lights.

I've got a ghetto looking light that is all exposed here but pumps out eye protection needing ~800lms. http://www.flickr.com/photos/49184877@N00/page3/ This is my flickr page.


To anyone else wanting to build something like this but does not know much how to do this I am more then willing to help out. I would consider myself a 'noob' at electronics. But I have advanced a bit from blank_stare to uber_noob to noob right now so I see things from a newbies view when building stuff. If this noob here can build a light that crazy running off 6xAA (granted I'm pushing the cells hard but the driver only allows for up to 9v and 6xAA NIMH = 8.6v hot off the charger) so can you. I'm planning on reviewing what I used and seeing what I can downgrade a bit should someone not have the luxury of having a certian item to still be able to make the light. I'll tell you right off the bat Arctic Alumina Adhesive is EXPENSIVE and you'll not likely find that in any local shop other then online. We're talking like ~$10USD for 5mL. A work around this is to use CPU thermo adhesive which you can find in any computer/electronics shop. I'm sure you can get them in a small paste tube for ~$2-4. If you ask really nicely to the computer repair/building department at your local computer store the tech guys may have some CPU paste which they may give you about a Q-tips amount or if you're really lucky I remember when I was building my own computers the CPU boxes came with a little syringe of thermopaste. Obviously to the techs in a computer store they won't use that small unit and put it aside or throw it out. That is your bonus and homework to check out these stores and ask for that. You may want to explain you're building a high powered LED light which being in a computer store would not make you sound/look funny. You can also get a small 486 CPU heatsink (comes with a fan you won't need but keep it for future projects or give to a friend or me ) at the shop which would be a good gesture if the techs gave you the small bit of thermo paste on a qtip/paper or one of those small one time use thermopaste syringe.

I went to www.dealextreme.com (I have no affilations or get kick backs for mentioning thier site. Just a happy customer) and got 90% of all my parts. You can get pretyy much all you need off DX's site. I just specified 20mm optics because I wanted to put them into a 1in aluminum tubing later (A la SirAchealot style).

Type 'circuit board' at DX and get the 3.6-9v regulator. They have two units there. One has 5-modes (no memory so it does not remember the last mode you're in) and the other is a 4pack of 3.6-9v @ 800mA but only one mode which powers the LED at 80% full power (thus the 800mA rating. It's a good balance of thermo to light output). If you get a 4 pack to make 2 lights or say one light you can have 2-3 units to cheaply cut your teeth into the project. Check my site. It will tell you the right way of which is positive and which is negative. I plan on making a simple how to page soon as many popele have asked me how I made my stuff. THe good thing about riding at night with the ghetto exposed light setup is that people go by the crazy lighting you have first and give a positive comment then some run of the mouth negative comment about how the unit looks like I get a lot of during the day.