Possible cheap host? $1.39 ebay

got my 2 flashlights today! they sure feel like POS... the aluminum is so thin and light that it makes the host feel like it's plastic! no show stoppers though, cheap feel was expected from anything at this price

today was one of those days when I didnt bring a box of fresh AA cells to work, so i'll have to wait until home to see how the light work. i'll try to post beamshots, but not expecting much. definitely not expecting anything good in terms of run-times...

i bought a cheap laser from this guy in the bay.... looks like the same housing...

bay area lasers 50mW

NDI
Energizer
Cheapo

Shots taken at the same manual camera settings. Lights were 1m from the wall.

Of the 2 ebay lights only 1 still lives - I put Li-Ion into this host and now it's dead Before I popped it and still running on 1.5 I saw ~2x brightness of the Cheapo from ebay.

It is a lot easier to dismantle than I feared.
The glue holding the lens in place is not heat resistant, so gentle heating of the tip while pressing on the inside with a punch will have it dismantled in a min.



The driver is pretty simple and the diode does not look impressive.
Inside diameter is 17,4mm to a debt of 27mm.

Thanks for the post Toke. Got two of these today but have not messed with them yet.:beer:

Toke said:

the diode does not look impressive

Click to expand...

yea, its beam did look like something produced by a 50mA generic type LED Good job on disassembly, thanx for showing the insides!

Tailcap current is 0.6A, so either it is not a 50mA diode or the boost driver is remarkably inefficient.
Side by side it gives much more light than my Fenix EO1, so the diode is bigger, even if not too impressive.

I have just tested the driver with both a 1-10 Ohm potmeter and a 6 diode testload.
It gave a max. of 150mA on the pot and 50mA (4,5V) on the test load.
Not terrible useful to me.

I just bought 3... I will keep two as flashlights and one will become a bluray. I'm thinking a PHR @ 90mA (14450 battery and boost driver) should be something neat to give to my brother. With a small aluminum sleeve around the LD it should have enough heatsinking ability.

Mine came today; as expected you get what you pay for, there's certainly a reason these are cheap. Neither model would make much of a host (expect maybe for a rather low power build), as there just isn't the mass to dissipate much heat. As a flashlight, the output certainly isn't that impressive, but still usable.

Though while they aren't great, they are worth it as small flashlights - so I now have a couple more stashed around the house in case the power goes out

LazyBeam said:

I just bought 3... I will keep two as flashlights and one will become a bluray. I'm thinking a PHR @ 90mA (14450 battery and boost driver) should be something neat to give to my brother. With a small aluminum sleeve around the LD it should have enough heatsinking ability.

Click to expand...

It sounds like a workable idea, I am looking forward to getting near a lathe again.

Alright, so I was poking around dealextreme and I found a driver, Q5 emitter and aluminum reflector that would fit into this $1.39 host. It'll cost about $8 to upgrade the little guy to the Q5 meaning I could drive it up to 1000mA. Plus, if I get a 14mm emitter disc I can machine a proper press-fit heatsink sleeve/pill out of aluminum to get heat to the body of the flashlight. The only downside is I'll need to use 14500 batteries... and I don't have any or a charger yet.

The only real question is do I want to drive a Q5 @ 700mA or 1050mA (they have those nifty AMC7135 boards dirt cheap). The Q5 can take either current and I think it's about 180LM or 220LM, respectively... but a 14mm emitter board in a small host like this might heat up too much. Not to mention a 900mAh 14500 Li-ion may not be able to drive >1A. Still, a <$10 handfit 700mA Q5 pocket flashlight would be impressive too.

It's worth trying, even if the duty cycle is short.
I got an envelope from DX this morning, but the baggie supposed to hold the drivers only had a red and a black wire from the driver in it. :thinking:

Finished my $1.39 14500 Laser host!! It's a gift for my brother for Christmas.

I'm still waiting on the DX 14500 li-ion batteries it's going to need, but I rigged up 2X AA and it runs great.
It's an SF-AW210 405nm Diode running ~150mA/150mW through a MicroBoost... Aixiz 405AR glass
Here's the thread showing the build... http://laserpointerforums.com/f38/my-1-39-host-6x-build-59197.html#post836544