rhd
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I don't know if this is a build tutorial, seller props, or just me wanting to show everyone what I created this evening 
A little while back I had Ray J Neal create some custom heatsinks for me. Since we were shipping stuff up to the great white north anyway, I let him talk me into grabbing this one-off beauty of a host as well. I'm thrilled that I did! He gave me an awesome deal on it (and threw in a whole bunch of extras too - great guy to deal with)
I say one-off, because I don't think Ray is selling this as a regular host, and there were a few excentricities (like the need to thermal epoxy the heatsink in place). But the product itself was awesome. The heatsink was beautifully machined.
Here's the fun part - I really wanted to DIY this thing into a 1600 mW beast, and I wanted to do it "indie" style
So no $46 for dual flexdrives, no super expensive batteries. What was the plan?
- 1600 mA of current
- Dual parallel LM 1117 drivers, at 800mA of current each
- 2x 16340s (OR) 3x 10440s
I wasn't sure it could be done. For one, to get my resistor combination of 1.5 Ohms, I happened to need 3x resistors. Multiplied by 2, this meant 6 resistors. Where to fit them? In the pill!
Six (6) resistors fit just about perfectly inside the pill. I needed a few extra holes on the top of it (for 4x resistor lead wires, plus 2x power leads). Thank god for flaminpyro's thin silicon wire!
With resistors securely hidden away, and both ends of the pill reattached, I thermal epoxied the LM 1117s to the top of the pill (an American penny - thanks Ray!) and soldered the resistor leads to the ICs.
Then I added a cap and diode to the combined parallel output of the drivers.
A quick check with my test load to make sure the current was set.
This part was a bit different because of the host design. An outer crown went on first. I added some low-tech electrical tape to make sure none of the components would touch the heatsink once installed. (though by my measurements they wouldn't have anyway - but better to play it safe)
Some thermal epoxy to keep the HS in place, and viola, final product!
Here it is compared to my "Guerilla 445" and a typical SurvivalLaser. I don't know if this comes across in the photo, but the "Indie Bullet" is brighter.
Batteries:
The host will fit either 3x10440s or 2x16340s. Of course it will also take 1x18650, but my driver setup won't run on 1 cell. I found that once wired to a real 445nm diode (final setup), the 2x16340s only supplied around 800mA TOTAL (ie, both drivers, final parallel build). No good. However, 3x10440s (not even freshly charged), gave an actual current (again, wired as final setup with 445nm diode) of ~1400 mA.
Why only 1400 instead of 1600 mA? I wouldn't have *expected* a ton more from 10440s, however, I was actually SEEING more on the test load setup. I may have had a test load that didn't give a good enough representation of what a real diode would be like.
It's also quite possible that freshly charged 10440s willgive me the full 1600mA instead of just 1400mA. Either way, a powerful laser.
Total cost of driver: $2.50 plus wire, solder, and sweat
A little while back I had Ray J Neal create some custom heatsinks for me. Since we were shipping stuff up to the great white north anyway, I let him talk me into grabbing this one-off beauty of a host as well. I'm thrilled that I did! He gave me an awesome deal on it (and threw in a whole bunch of extras too - great guy to deal with)
I say one-off, because I don't think Ray is selling this as a regular host, and there were a few excentricities (like the need to thermal epoxy the heatsink in place). But the product itself was awesome. The heatsink was beautifully machined.
Here's the fun part - I really wanted to DIY this thing into a 1600 mW beast, and I wanted to do it "indie" style
So no $46 for dual flexdrives, no super expensive batteries. What was the plan?
- 1600 mA of current
- Dual parallel LM 1117 drivers, at 800mA of current each
- 2x 16340s (OR) 3x 10440s
I wasn't sure it could be done. For one, to get my resistor combination of 1.5 Ohms, I happened to need 3x resistors. Multiplied by 2, this meant 6 resistors. Where to fit them? In the pill!
Six (6) resistors fit just about perfectly inside the pill. I needed a few extra holes on the top of it (for 4x resistor lead wires, plus 2x power leads). Thank god for flaminpyro's thin silicon wire!
With resistors securely hidden away, and both ends of the pill reattached, I thermal epoxied the LM 1117s to the top of the pill (an American penny - thanks Ray!) and soldered the resistor leads to the ICs.
Then I added a cap and diode to the combined parallel output of the drivers.
A quick check with my test load to make sure the current was set.
This part was a bit different because of the host design. An outer crown went on first. I added some low-tech electrical tape to make sure none of the components would touch the heatsink once installed. (though by my measurements they wouldn't have anyway - but better to play it safe)
Some thermal epoxy to keep the HS in place, and viola, final product!
Here it is compared to my "Guerilla 445" and a typical SurvivalLaser. I don't know if this comes across in the photo, but the "Indie Bullet" is brighter.
Batteries:
The host will fit either 3x10440s or 2x16340s. Of course it will also take 1x18650, but my driver setup won't run on 1 cell. I found that once wired to a real 445nm diode (final setup), the 2x16340s only supplied around 800mA TOTAL (ie, both drivers, final parallel build). No good. However, 3x10440s (not even freshly charged), gave an actual current (again, wired as final setup with 445nm diode) of ~1400 mA.
Why only 1400 instead of 1600 mA? I wouldn't have *expected* a ton more from 10440s, however, I was actually SEEING more on the test load setup. I may have had a test load that didn't give a good enough representation of what a real diode would be like.
It's also quite possible that freshly charged 10440s willgive me the full 1600mA instead of just 1400mA. Either way, a powerful laser.
Total cost of driver: $2.50 plus wire, solder, and sweat
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