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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

The JAD V2 Kit Showcase - 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6

Joined
Feb 18, 2012
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796
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Good day ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades, friends...

I was thinking the other day, that someone needs to fill in the vacuum of Moh's departure. So I thought of a JAD kit idea, with a little twist ;) I just finished the build I came up with and am actually excited to show you guys :D

It's a heavy-duty C6, I initially dubbed it the "Dark Knight" but I think "JAD V2" would suffice better, as I'm going to offer this as a kit. Moh had much more practical naming schemes than me :p

Specifications
Build: A planned kit, to be available soon
Wavelength: mainly for high-powered 445nm builds
Output: will be available from 1.6A to 1.85A (or shoot me some ideas what currents I should offer)
Material: Cu & Al
Weight: 127.8g
Driver: fmt-drv

A Pictorial Walkthrough
I start with a CREE driver for battery contact
P1020907.jpg


Removed smd components
P1020908.jpg


A look at the fmt-drv and thinking how to fit it in this build. I soon found that it justtt snugly fits inside the C6 pill. Awesome!
P1020909.jpg


I drilled a hole through the pill so the holes properly line up with the driver board's holes, and the wires can slip through nicely
P1020910.jpg


Spread some thermal compound inside the pill, so the driver can be heatsinked directly to it.
P1020913.jpg


As usual, I heatsink the IC with a small aluminum chip (I always like to do this to ensure stability, even though this driver doesn't produce a lot of heat)
P1020915.jpg


Then I soldered the battery contact to the brass ring, tested the board for continuity for the positive and negative path to the boost driver and electrically isolated all the other areas with electrical tape:
P1020922.jpg

^**it's important that the center positive contact is soldered with a little mound like that, because some 18650 batteries like the NCR18650a have a flat top positive contact. W/o the solder mound, the NCR18650a's positive end won't make contact with the board.**

Next I solder the leads to the contact board then covered the joints with electrical tape to ensure total isolation from the neighbouring driver when pressed into the pill
P1020930.jpg

P1020931.jpg


The pill portion is done :)
P1020932.jpg


Well.. not just yet haha. As usual, I wanted more heatsinking, so I grabbed a copper RAM heatsink and ground it down half in height as well as made some space on the sides of the copper sink for wires which will be coming out of the pill
P1020936.jpg


This is how I designed the heatsink to sit on top the copper RAM heatsink so the entire pill-heatsink is thermally connected. This part, it was important that the copper sink's holes provide enough room for the wires or they'll get pinched.
P1020943.jpg


Completed Pill
P1020947.jpg


So this was an interesting bit.. I was digging through some of my old stuff and found a mini-scale! Out of curiosity, I wanted to find out the weight of the assembled pill, so i weighed it and it came out to be exactly 9.0g, which is an amazing coincidence for me because 9 has always been my favourite number. This gave me some serious goosebumps.
P1020951.jpg


Anyway this part onwards have nothing to do with the JAD kit, but I wanted to test the driver anyway so I completed the build. I tested the setup on a test load and it's driving 1.72A to the diode. All looks good
P1020953.jpg


Prepped the diode & soldered connections and of course heatshrunk the exposed wires
P1020961.jpg

P1020962.jpg


Then I prep the copper sink and module with Arctic Silver Ceramique 2, the Al heatsink will fit over the module and press into the copper sink
P1020969.jpg


Completed
P1020982.jpg


Quick Beamshot
P1020971.jpg


My Thoughts
Alright so that's a little walkthrough of my "heavy-duty" C6 build. Couple of things: unlike with a linear, I notice the driver portion of this laser barely gets warm, which is good so the sinks can absorb more heat from the diode. It's a very stable setup, I ran it for just over 3 minutes and thermal protection still didn't kick in; I wasn't willing to push it any longer. Feel-wise, this build feels more solid and heavy than a standard C6.

The Benefits of this Setup
The great thing about this setup is that it is regulated by a single boost driver and able to achieve high currents like 1.7 or 1.8A without the use of dual drivers, which take up a lot of space and are less efficient. Powered by a 18650 battery (I use an NCR18650a) it has 2.2X more battery capacity than a 2x16340 setup. Furthermore, this boost is more efficient than a linear (~80% vs ~50% efficiency), so I'm expecting close to 3x longer runtime from this heavy-duty C6 vs a linear-driven C6. Being more efficient, it also produces less heat, so I'm expecting longer duty cycles as well, which is a valuable trait for such a compact build. I will do more testing to get a feel for the duty cycle but it should fair pretty well.

I went with a CuAl module-heatsink setup, because my theory is that the copper module does an excellent job extracting heat from the diode and transferring it unto the Al heatsink; the Al heatsink then dissipates the heat quickly (quicker than copper).

So.. that's that :)

The Kit
I would like to offer this as a "JAD V2" kit, I think I will only make a few of these though, depending on interest. So you guys let me know if you'd be interested :) I plan to have a few in stock in about 1-2 weeks, but I'll start to take pre-orders now. Just PM me with your choice of current from 1.6A to 1.85A.

So yipeedeeday! I feel real great after finishing this build :D, and now I'm going to enjoy this laser for awhile, then LPM it. It should be hitting around 1.8W with a 3-element lens, but I'll get back to that

Cheers everyone :beer:
 
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Joined
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Re: 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6 - JAD V2 Kit?

Very nice build man! I feel so good that I get to see my driver in a build already ^_^

+1 when I can :beer:
 

sinner

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Re: 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6 - JAD V2 Kit?

Definitely a great driver that makes a C6 build look so much better, and offcourse the building demo sorta tutorial is greatly appreciated.. Keep up the good work RE.
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
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Re: 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6 - The JAD V2 Kit

Thanks foulmist & sinner :)

And um... doh! I think I posted this in the wrong section, I totally missed the "445nm Section" when I first saw "Blue... section"..

Could a mod move this to the "445nm Section" please? It'll be more appropriate there :)
 
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Really nice process there Ryan, very sturdy imo..

What is the "fmt-drv" that you are using, is that a driver of your own design?

I could be wrong here, but I believe a nickel should weigh 4.9-5.2g, so I would be very surprised if that pill + the desoldered board + the copper tab + the wires weighed less than two nickels. Your scale might be inaccurate :)
 
Joined
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Re: 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6 - The JAD V2 Kit

Thanks foulmist & sinner :)

And um... doh! I think I posted this in the wrong section, I totally missed the "445nm Section" when I first saw "Blue... section"..

Could a mod move this to the "445nm Section" please? It'll be more appropriate there :)

i think the tutorial section is even more suitable :beer:
 
Joined
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Messages
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Re: 1x18650 Heavy-Duty C6 - The JAD V2 Kit

Really nice process there Ryan, very sturdy imo..

What is the "fmt-drv" that you are using, is that a driver of your own design?

I could be wrong here, but I believe a nickel should weigh 4.9-5.2g, so I would be very surprised if that pill + the desoldered board + the copper tab + the wires weighed less than two nickels. Your scale might be inaccurate :)

Sinner's right.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised, because the entire pill is aluminum, and aluminum is a very light metal. The whole pill by itself weighs only 3.3g. The drivers are 0.6g each. So the copper tab accounts for 50% of the total weight and the other half is the pill + wires + drivers. Sounds about right.

i think the tutorial section is even more suitable :beer:

True say! Either or is fine with me =)
 
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Looks good Ryan! :beer:

heh, :thanks:

I have one of those... from DX xP

Is this 1cell custom?

You have one of those...? The cree driver I'm guessing. lol DX trolls me hardcore.. I paid for two 5-packs and received two in quantity instead >.<

And yes, this setup runs off a single 18650 battery. Its cheaper than two 16340s and has over twice the capacity which is why I love it, the runtimes are amazing. I still have yet to charge my NCR18650a.. It's at 3.73V now and full discharge is about 3.3V. I haven't been conservative either. :D
 
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Nice work Ryan! Would you ever or would anyone consider doing a video tutorial from start to finish? It would be great to see an explanation of the proper way to use the test load and take measurements on the multimeter as well as the process of soldiering and using the thermal paste etc for the more visually inclined learner... Just an idea, but it would be great to see someone do a total start to finish video tutorial, I think it would really help people like myself that aren't as technically minded when it comes to electronics to see things rather than just read the theoretical descriptions.

I guess it's just a general idea, don't feel you need to do this yourself if you don't want I guess it's just a general request or suggestion for anyone who would consider doing a video tutorial, to my knowledge I don't think there is a total start to finish video documentation of all the steps that I have been able to find.

I'm still a little confused myself on why you need to do a test load if you have a reliable driver, and some other steps like making sure to isolate parts of the pill electrically, and a lot of the steps I have not seen done visually such as using thermal paste, soldiering of the driver, the LD etc. but have read the description of rather than seeing it done..

I obviously have lots of questions about building, I don't even know where to begin with them. :D:beer:

An instructional DVD or something similar could even be a marketable item on LPF...
 
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Thanks hak! :)

@EMF, I still use a testload because I want to get the exact current the driver is driving the diode. Ie. I bought these drivers rated at 1.75A but they tested 1.72A on my testload. Also, I get to choose how much voltage the load will pull, using the diode settings on the testload, useful for violet builds. I also electrically isolate all the positive contacts so they don't short circuit against the pill or other negative electrical components, just something I do in case :)

Don't worry, I'll be selling this kit soon so you don't have to know every little detail of what to do, it'll be as easy as solder on your diode and enjoy your very long-runtime C6 :)
 
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Thanks hak! :)

@EMF, I still use a testload because I want to get the exact current the driver is driving the diode. Ie. I bought these drivers rated at 1.75A but they tested 1.72A on my testload. Also, I get to choose how much voltage the load will pull, using the diode settings on the testload, useful for violet builds. I also electrically isolate all the positive contacts so they don't short circuit against the pill or other negative electrical components, just something I do in case :)

Don't worry, I'll be selling this kit soon so you don't have to know every little detail of what to do, it'll be as easy as solder on your diode and enjoy your very long-runtime C6 :)

they actually read 1.75A on one of my multimeters and 1.72A on the other. I can't tell which is the correct reading so I assume the higher for safety reasons ;)
 
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Thanks for the help on some of the steps Ryan, I appreciate that!

I'm sure I will have a lot more follow up questions at some point. :)

Keep up the good work!
 




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