andrewb
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- Joined
- Sep 7, 2011
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Hello!
Welcome to my review of a second vintage build I've put together, using a solid copper host from the 1930's made by the Rayovac company, and a copper heatsink made by Jeff K (aka Flaminpyro). This review follows my first vintage build review, of a host made by the Bond company, which can be seen here:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f52/review-vintage-all-copper-bond-build-1-pic-heavy-86239.html
THE HOST:
The original host is shown here, as I received it. The color on these old hosts is sometimes kinda cool (and almost worth keeping), but the grease, paint, and grime that is also present kind of takes away from it all, and justifies a good cleaning.
Identical to the Bond host in my previous review, I clean and restore these copper hosts using a three-step process, using the following products:
Here is what the host body looked like after stripping and rust-remover treatment, prior to hand-polishing.
And following a hand-polishing with the Mothers Mag Polish, it looked like this. (Much better!)
Gotta love the 'Solid Copper' emblem.
One more pic.
Like the Bond host, I called upon Jeff 'Flaminpyro' K to fabricate a heatsink for this build as well, for which he provided the following pics. Here's the raw sink on the lathe, after the center hole was drilled.
After finishing the face, it looked like this.
The sink was a little bigger than the Bond sink (on the right), but both had the same basic design, with a pocket milled out on the back for the driver.
One thing about this host was that it had a bezel ring, which normally held the glass lens in the host. However it was pretty beat up, and in pretty bad shape compared to the rest of the host, so much so that it just didn't look right. Fortunately the host still looks good without it, however this caused a problem in that there would be nothing to hold the sink in the host. Jeff is skilled enough however that he made the sink exactly the right size such that it could be held in snugly by friction alone (but can still be removed if needed). A small lip made it such that you could bottom-out the sink in the host, and it fit perfectly, and all you would see from the front was the sink face, which blended in perfectly with the host threads.
Another issue with the host, also like the Bond host, was that the bulb socket protruded into the back of the sink, which interfered with the diode. Unlike the Bond host however, I didn't have to use a used bulb base as the battery contact, as there was already a metal strip inside the battery compartment that served as the contact, which was riveted to the wall that holds the bulb socket. Thus I only had to grind down the bulb socket (for the negative terminal), and one of the rivets could be used as the positive terminal, as they are electrically connected to the battery contact. Here are the before and after pictures.
The next step was to wire up the driver (after pressing the 9mm diode module into the sink.) This is a Lazeerer X-drive from DTR, set to 2.2A.
I also polished the sink face to a mirror finish, using the Enkay Polishing Kit shown in the Bond review.
And here's the finished product.
After adding batteries (in the same 6x 14500 configuration as the Bond build), here's a shot, with light.
It peaks at just about 2.8W on the LPM with a G2 lens, and levels off at a steady 2.6W. (With a basically continuous duty cycle, due to the excellent heat dissipation of the massive sink, and copper body.)
And what review would be complete without at least one beamshot.
This was another fun build, and thanks again to Flaminpyro for the heatsink work.
(Also, thanks to rhd and zRaffleticket for their Ancient Light/Vintage light builds, which provided the inspiration for this build, as well as the Bond build.)
Thanks for reading!
-Andy
PS - This build will be for sale, but hasn't been posted to the Buy/Sell/Trade section yet, as I'm waiting on some copper focus rings from Jeff, which I'm having made (so it can truly be a 100% copper build). PM for details if interested.
Welcome to my review of a second vintage build I've put together, using a solid copper host from the 1930's made by the Rayovac company, and a copper heatsink made by Jeff K (aka Flaminpyro). This review follows my first vintage build review, of a host made by the Bond company, which can be seen here:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f52/review-vintage-all-copper-bond-build-1-pic-heavy-86239.html
THE HOST:
The original host is shown here, as I received it. The color on these old hosts is sometimes kinda cool (and almost worth keeping), but the grease, paint, and grime that is also present kind of takes away from it all, and justifies a good cleaning.
Identical to the Bond host in my previous review, I clean and restore these copper hosts using a three-step process, using the following products:
Here is what the host body looked like after stripping and rust-remover treatment, prior to hand-polishing.
And following a hand-polishing with the Mothers Mag Polish, it looked like this. (Much better!)
Gotta love the 'Solid Copper' emblem.
One more pic.
Like the Bond host, I called upon Jeff 'Flaminpyro' K to fabricate a heatsink for this build as well, for which he provided the following pics. Here's the raw sink on the lathe, after the center hole was drilled.
After finishing the face, it looked like this.
The sink was a little bigger than the Bond sink (on the right), but both had the same basic design, with a pocket milled out on the back for the driver.
One thing about this host was that it had a bezel ring, which normally held the glass lens in the host. However it was pretty beat up, and in pretty bad shape compared to the rest of the host, so much so that it just didn't look right. Fortunately the host still looks good without it, however this caused a problem in that there would be nothing to hold the sink in the host. Jeff is skilled enough however that he made the sink exactly the right size such that it could be held in snugly by friction alone (but can still be removed if needed). A small lip made it such that you could bottom-out the sink in the host, and it fit perfectly, and all you would see from the front was the sink face, which blended in perfectly with the host threads.
Another issue with the host, also like the Bond host, was that the bulb socket protruded into the back of the sink, which interfered with the diode. Unlike the Bond host however, I didn't have to use a used bulb base as the battery contact, as there was already a metal strip inside the battery compartment that served as the contact, which was riveted to the wall that holds the bulb socket. Thus I only had to grind down the bulb socket (for the negative terminal), and one of the rivets could be used as the positive terminal, as they are electrically connected to the battery contact. Here are the before and after pictures.
The next step was to wire up the driver (after pressing the 9mm diode module into the sink.) This is a Lazeerer X-drive from DTR, set to 2.2A.
I also polished the sink face to a mirror finish, using the Enkay Polishing Kit shown in the Bond review.
And here's the finished product.
After adding batteries (in the same 6x 14500 configuration as the Bond build), here's a shot, with light.
It peaks at just about 2.8W on the LPM with a G2 lens, and levels off at a steady 2.6W. (With a basically continuous duty cycle, due to the excellent heat dissipation of the massive sink, and copper body.)
And what review would be complete without at least one beamshot.
This was another fun build, and thanks again to Flaminpyro for the heatsink work.
(Also, thanks to rhd and zRaffleticket for their Ancient Light/Vintage light builds, which provided the inspiration for this build, as well as the Bond build.)
Thanks for reading!
-Andy
PS - This build will be for sale, but hasn't been posted to the Buy/Sell/Trade section yet, as I'm waiting on some copper focus rings from Jeff, which I'm having made (so it can truly be a 100% copper build).
PM for details if interested.
