Flexdrive Driver Heatsink for Continuous driver duty cycle @ 1.5A

[DTR]

Funny you should ask...

I actually just received my order of V5 FlexDrives!

Now I can't speak for drlava, because I see that his order page still says 'out of stock'.

I can tell you that I paid in advance a couple of weeks ago and was promised that I would get my order first.

I should also mention, that those waiting on V5 FlexDrive kit orders with me, had their orders in a separate stack. (waiting for the drivers) Now those orders will be combined with my other others. But they all will still be built per 'date paid'...

 

[Vaporizer]

I don't own a lathe anymore either. The way this hobby is going.....well....do I need to say it? lol I'd chuck it in a drill and take a rough file then finish it up. Slide it on a bolt with brass shim stock wrapped around it, washer , nut & tighten. It will usually make it fine through a small single job. Redneck lathe?

Oh I do hope the Dr has them soon. I have some cash put back for a few flex drives. I've had a few ideas that a flex is just the answer.

 

[DTR]

I have some diodes coming tomorrow and I will finish and add this to the OP.

 

[Crazy Jay]

Finally someone with a brain providing information towards driver heat sinking!

You know a Nickel would fit if its been trimmed down a bit. Do you think the way you have the nickel set up is better than using a penny without doing anything to the pill?

 

[DTR]

I think they should do equally well in transferring the heat to the host body. I decided to stick with the nickel because it has a little more surface area to work with for drilling a hole in for the wires and mounting the driver.

 

[iFoSh]

I decided to copy you today and made a similar driver heatsink for my Mohrenberg 18500 host (the blue one you have as well). A quarter works perfect as long as you sand down the edges just a bit! I got the quarter between two fingers and let it roll on an electric sander. Thanks for the idea!! Now just have to wait a few more days on the V5's to become available again haha.

 

[Crazy Jay]

Same here.... I need a V5 myself

 

[iFoSh]

Same here.... I need a V5 myself

Jayrob got his order in so lets hope we can make our orders by this weekend sometime!

 

[DTR]

I worked on setting up my 18650 host today. A nickel will fit nicely.

Here is the pill as it is unaltered.

I take the pill and grind the lip off it. Then I flip it upside down, put the little board for the contact points in and secure it with krazy glue. You can see the pill is sitting perfectly flush with the walls of the host. I will hit the host edges down with the grinder a little bit to expose the bare metal.

Then I tested to make sure that my contact points are good.

This is how the nickel will be bonded with the host. It has enough room you could mount the Flexdrive on the inside or outside of the pill.

Here is the host with the head screwed on.

With the copper heatsink that I got Jayrob it leaves about twice the height of the flexdrive in the cavity under the heatsink.

Ground the nickel down on both sides.

Drilled a hole for the wires.

Then I ran the wires through the hole.

Then I attached the coin to the pill with thermal adhesive and pressed it tight for 15 minutes.

When it has hardened here is what you have.

Got my Flexdrive and mixed up some thermal adhesive.

After mixing I spread some on the face of the coin with a thin coat. The less the better.

Then I pressed the driver down on the adhesive and held it tightly for 15 minuets.

When it has hardened I soldered the wires in place to the battery and this is what I have.

I screwed the head on.

Then I slid the copper heatsink from Jayrob in and it fits great.

It is hard to tell but there is plenty of room still above the driver.

Popped in a diode.

Now I must have done something wrong because the flexdrive was set to the correct range. I had it in my ehgemus host set to max and it was putting out 1.5W. But for some reason I can only get 1342mW. I have blown up two pyroloads by shoving way too much current into them and for way too long. So I am waiting on an industrial strength one that can handle 3A and I have no immediate way of testing the current on a boost based drivers. I did put a lot of pressure on it when I was bonding it to the coin? I have also taken this diode out and put it in my bench supply and it is giving 1589mW set to 1.5A. If I had to guess the driver is only outputting 1.2-1.3A. I wonder if the pressure I used when bonding it to the coin could have damaged the range select solder points I did on the driver?




Anyway I still ran the test to see how long it would run with the coin mod.




Here is a 5 minute run with the smaller mass of the Cree 18650 heatsink compared to the MXDL or the Hotlights. You can see the power drops quickly in this host.

 

[Crazy Jay]

DTR, well if the diode checks out just fine then it has to be the driver. It is a small little thing so you might have damaged it as you mentioned.

Why do we only have the v5 to push 1.5 amps? Aren't there any other drivers out there? Because DrLava won't sell them individually anymore and it would be nice to have a larger size driver rather than the tiny little thing of a flex drive.

 

[DTR]

I am always suspect of the contact point soldered to the last resistor that has to be removed on the flex to get to the 1.5A range. I would bet this broke loose. There is not much for the solder to hold onto once the resistor is removed.

It is all good. I think I am going to put a 405 driven @ 700mA in there. And see how long it lasts. At least the driver will be cool.

 

[jayrob]

I've noticed that it doesn't seem to matter if that last resistor is removed or not... (just for reference)

 

[DTR]

I've noticed that it doesn't seem to matter if that last resistor is removed or not... (just for reference)

The first few I set I did not remove the resistor and they ran fine @1.5A but then I saw a post saying that I should remove and have been ever since. I wonder if it could produce more heat or something by not removing? I would think it has to do something otherwise why would the manual say to remove it?

 

[jayrob]

I never asked him about it, but I have set them both ways with no difference...

I don't think it needs to be removed, but I'll ask drlava to post here...

 

[bobhaha]

Cool, very similar concept to what I used in my 445. Except I used the LED inverted and made use of the heat sink that is built into the torch.

http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/18650-cree-host-p4-emitter-hack-mod-52000.html

 

[Crazy Jay]

Glad to hear that the driver was the problem ... well not glad that it got damaged DTR but rather that the host can still provide the ability to run this diode at high power levels.

So the resistor stays on then huh