# 7 CREE DIY light



## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

I've recently completed my 7 CREE LED light and thought I'd post a bit of info on it here in case anyone was interested. This started out as a project to build a dive torch for deep scuba diving, but winter rolled around and the dive season ended, and I suddenly needed a decent lamp on my bike (having sold off my twin halogen at the end of last winter!).

The head is machined out of solid aluminium on my CNC mill. The electronics are custom electronics since I couldn't find anything that would drive 7 CREE LEDs at an amp or more, and since I couldn't find a MCPCB for the 7 LED optics, I also machined that as well! I then anodised it (anodising is realy easy if anyone wants to do it at home - so long as you're careful with the acid!), and stuck it on my bike using a Garmin GPS handlebar mount.

Here's a picture of it...









While it's not exactly big (it's only 61mm diameter), it could have been made smaller, but as it's designed as a dive torch, I needed to have the o-ring around the front lens. I've actually taken the housing (without LEDs) on a dive to 70m, and I'm hoping to get it tested in a pressure pot that a friend is building - ultimately I need this to be waterproof to well over 100m!

The electronics allow a high and low power setting (I haven't bothered to program a flash sequence as I don't need that for either biking to work, or offroading), and it will wind back the power if it gets hot. It also drops the power if the battery voltage gets low, and also flashes a short flash every 15 seconds to let you know it's on its way out.

There's a few more pictures on my website (www.inner-space.co.uk). There's also a shot comparing it to a couple of other lights I've got, but I might redo it at some stage as it's not that great.


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## scar (Jun 2, 2005)

WOW!! Nice job:thumbsup:


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## spookydave (Jul 12, 2006)

looks very nice. Please tell us what battery you are using and how long the burn time is.


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

spookydave said:


> looks very nice. Please tell us what battery you are using and how long the burn time is.


I've currently got it hooked up to a 4Ah 14.4v Lithium Polymer battery that I picked up off eBay for around $30 inc P&P to the UK. It comes from Hong Kong, and I suspect that it's not quite got the stated capacity, but I still get around 2 hours out of it.

Cheers
Chris


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## Katzenjammer (Jun 12, 2007)

Croist! Are you planning on flash-frying mussels underwater? 

And what about that "home-made CNC milling machine"? Enquiring minds, and all that.


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## psylux (Jan 9, 2008)

Yes, curious about the CNC machine.


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## notenoughtime (Sep 7, 2004)

I'd love to get some info on the anodizing!!??!!


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## Triple b (Dec 14, 2007)

Wow Very Nice :thumbsup:


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## presslab (Jan 5, 2007)

Looks very nice! I'm a diver as well and I've made a LED SCUBA lamp, but I've recently fried my custom driver board.  Do you have any pics of your driver?


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

The diving I do is generally pretty deep - mostly in the 60 to 85m range at the moment, and in the UK, it's generally dark. My current dive torch is a 10W HID, but most of the guys I dive with are using 18W or 21W HIDs - you can't get enough light down there! 

The mill I used is a SIEG X3 mill - they are reasonably easily available in the US and the UK, and can be converted to CNC 'reasonably easily'. I've had mine about a year, and am really impressed with it. It does a pretty good job of milling aluminium, and I don't need to do too much except change the cutters.

Here's a picture of the mill - this was taken whil milling up the next light head, which will be used as my dive torch...










Regarding anodising... It's actually pretty easy. I decided to give it a go when I called a local firm to ask how much it would cost to anodise my light, and they had a minimum order of £250!! It's probably cost me about £75 to set up - but then I already had the power supply. There is plenty of information around on doing home anodising - take a look at this link. In a nutshell, you need some battery acid, diluted 50% with distilled water, and then a power supply that can supply around 15v at an amp or two (lots of people use battery chargers). You put the part to be anodised in the bath with a cathode (another piece of aluminium) for around an hour. You then dye the work (I used clothes dye on my light!), and then boil it for 1/2 hour or so to seal in the dye. You then have something that's colourful, and also reasonably well protected from the elements... There's a little more to it than that, but not a lot - it's not very scientific and from my experience it's pretty easy for the DIYer to get pretty good results. All that siad, you are playing with sulphuric acid, and a few other chemicals that aren't especially good for you, so you do need to be pretty careful.

I don't currently have any photos of my anodising setup, but it's in a 5 gallon coolbox. When I anodise the next light, I'll take some photos...

Cheers
Chris


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

presslab said:


> Looks very nice! I'm a diver as well and I've made a LED SCUBA lamp, but I've recently fried my custom driver board.  Do you have any pics of your driver?


This is the only picture I've currently got of the driver electronics...










It's not especially close up, but it should give you the idea... Here's another picture of the electronics installed in the housing - I milled the housing to be a close fit to the electronics so that the aluminium would be nearly touching the parts that carry the most power to help them move the heat to the outside of the case.










Cheers
Chris


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## knobs (Oct 13, 2005)

Interesting to read that you're using a garmin vista handlebar mount. I thought I was the only one doing that! I had two of the bar mounts and three of the vista battery covers floating around, so that's been my mounting system for about a year and a half. The mount serves a dual day/night duty.


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

knobs said:


> Interesting to read that you're using a garmin vista handlebar mount...


I ended up with a spare mount after my Vista CX came off the bars while belting down a steep rocky track. It rather unfortunately went straight through the front spokes and was impressively cut in half!

It is however perfect for the job - getting a decent bar mount was the thing that took me the longest to work out, so I was pretty happy when I came across this...

Cheers
Chris


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## crisillo (Jul 3, 2004)

amazing work, Chris!

don't feel obliged to reply, but about how much did the components cost you?


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

crisillo said:


> amazing work, Chris!
> 
> don't feel obliged to reply, but about how much did the components cost you?


All up, I think it probably cost around £120... That's ignoring the costs of setting up the anodizing and buying a couple of cutters for the mill etc etc...

At a guess, the main component costs were -:

Aluminium ~£10-£15
LEDS ~£35
Battery ~£20
Electronics ~£25
Bits and pieces ~£20

This is a bit of a guess, but it's probably not too far off the mark. Given this was originally a dive torch project, similar torches sell for upward of £500, so even taking into account the tooling, etc, it's still not too bad.

Chris


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## crisillo (Jul 3, 2004)

wow... that's a pretty good deal... (although your ability and time to put it together and give it that great finish, shouldn't be ignored  )


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## msxtr (Dec 10, 2006)

Hi, each day I hallucinate more :eekster: :eekster: :eekster: 

Super great job!!!!

Now, beamshots, please :smilewinkgrin: 

Greetins - Saludos

msxtr


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

msxtr said:


> Now, beamshots, please :smilewinkgrin:


Hi,
There are some beamshots on my website (www.inner-space.co.uk). The photos aren't actually that good, so I might do some more sometime if I can find a better place to do it other than my back garden! Anyway, they still provide an idea of what the light is like compared to my 10W HID dive torch (which I'd always thought was reasonably good until I started this project!!).

This photo shows the output from this light, but if you look at the link above, it allows you to see the comparisson, which is actually much more informative.










Chris


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## utabintarbo (Jun 29, 2007)

Two words: *HOLY CRAP!* 

:thumbsup:


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## StevelKnivel (Jun 23, 2007)

Awesome light! Would you be able or willing to produce a batch of your boost drivers? I would be very interested in getting a few of them for some multi-LED projects I'm currently working on!


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## TheFunkyMonkey (Sep 18, 2007)

ditto here.

I was thinking of using the very same optic with a cchipo from Taskled, also contemplating doing an MR11 Rebal Penta.


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## spookydave (Jul 12, 2006)

you otta hook up a cheepo spray mist system on your mill. They really do help and don't make the mess of flood coolent. The air also helps blow the chips away too.


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## cytoe (Jan 20, 2004)

*optics?*

Sweet light. looks like you are using POLYMER OPTICS. Is that the 6 or 25 deg model?


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## TheFunkyMonkey (Sep 18, 2007)

Optics here
http://www.polymer-optics.co.uk

Cutter also sell them


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## Citizen Kane (Aug 12, 2007)

Thats superb
Questions so many questions
Is the NC conversion to the mill your own, I cant see a stepper on the z axis, is this just a 2 axis machine, how does it work with leads screws can you only mill in one direction or climb mill as well, what about the backlash. 
Is it easy for the private individual to get hold of sulphuric acid.


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## ChrisJackson (Mar 4, 2007)

Hopefully this answers the current questions...



StevelKnivel said:


> Would you be able or willing to produce a batch of your boost drivers?.


I have spare boards - I got the PBCs made in China and they made a reasonable batch for me. That said, I'm still messing around with the electronics - there's quite a lot of power going through what is a small board, and I want to make sure it's at least reasonably reliable before I do too much with it. Feel free to PM me though if you are interested and we can discuss it.



TheFunkyMonkey said:


> I was thinking of using the very same optic with a cchipo from Taskled.


I looked at this - I would definately have preferred to use someone elses electronics, although that said, I like the option of being able to customise the user interface as I like. The problem with the cchipo is it's pretty big - I don't think it's really designed for portable use and it's nearly as big as my complete light head. The other problem with this optic is finding an MCPCB - with 7 LEDS in such a tight area, mounting them isn't easy and you need to find some sort of solution to move the heat out as there's quite a lot of it!



cytoe said:


> looks like you are using POLYMER OPTICS. Is that the 6 or 25 deg model?


I currently use the 6 deg model, but I've also got one of the 25 deg optics which I thought might have been better for the bike light. However, having got it working, I think the 6 deg is actually quite a broad beam, but I haven't had the chance to take it out in the woods yet.



Citizen Kane said:


> Is the NC conversion to the mill your own, I cant see a stepper on the z axis, is this just a 2 axis machine, how does it work with leads screws can you only mill in one direction or climb mill as well, what about the backlash.
> Is it easy for the private individual to get hold of sulphuric acid.


No - I started to build up the motor mounts, but then thought better of it and bought the mounts and leadscrews. I then picked up most of the other bits (motors, drivers PC interface card) off eBay, and hooked it all up. It's not overly difficult to do, but it takes time and some care. I've just designed a better PC interface card and am waiting on the PCBs. This will then allow me to automatically control the spindle as well, which is useful for milling semi-unattended.

The Z axis motor is inside the column along with the electronics and power supply - X and Y are a lot smaller motors than the Z as I wanted to remove the gas strut that came with the mill to reduce the effort required to move the Z axis. The problem with it is it reduces the Z-axis travel. Backlash isn't too brilliant - about 0.1mm, but the CNC software can take that out and with careful programming it does pretty good job.

I bought 25 litres of battery acid from www.countybatteryservices.co.uk. Battery acid is around 50% sulphuric acid, so you need to water it down with 50% distilled water to make the correct solution, but it was easy to get.

Cheers
Chris


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## Pau-i-amor (Sep 18, 2008)

Hi Chris,

I'm looking for the "6 degree, 7 leds cluster" for a CREE leds. Part. N. 134.

Could you tell me who sell on-line this optics?

Excuse my bad english knowledge.

Pau


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## cytoe (Jan 20, 2004)

*polymer optics here*

http://www.futureelectronics.com/


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## bikerjay (Sep 16, 2007)

*one word for this.....*

Impressive


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## Pau-i-amor (Sep 18, 2008)

cytoe said:


> http://www.futureelectronics.com/


Hy, Cytoe.

Thank you for your rapid answer!

I just visited futurelectronics.com. They sell a 7 led optics like I need. But they sell the Luxeon''s version. I'm looking for the CREE led's version. (Part N. 134).  

Best regards.

Pau


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## HuffyPuffy (Jun 9, 2008)

That is an amazing light and very well thought out! Now I am gonna have to start saving my pennies for a Seig x2 and a cnc conversion kit :thumbsup: 

I am seriously impressed by people like you that can put the whole thing together from the ground up, and build something as good or better than most companies can.


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