This fall I had time again to start making a second new bike light. The newest light will have a single Cree XML emitter, and a b3Flex driver. The optic shown is a Ledil Regina. I'm not certain that's what will go in, because this was originally going to be a wide dispersion bar light with a much smaller optic. But I'm starting to like the idea of using this for a helmet light, so a beam with a tighter focus would be better.
I completed this light a few weeks ago. It's a dual Cree XPG light. The driver is a Shining Beam. The optics are the Regina. This has both the tightest focus and the highest output of any of my lights as of now. It has immediately become my favorite. It is just a little heavy for a helmet light though. I want to make another dual emitter light with thinner walls to reduce the weight.
The reason that I needed thick, 0.100" walls was so I could make a shoulder cut (sorry if that's the wrong term) to hold the lens and optic retainer. The cut takes half the wall, so the remaining wall thickness is only 0.050". This is getting a bit thin, so the next build will not use this system to tie the parts together.
This picture shows more or less how the parts go together for the dual XPG light. The clear plastic stuff on the right is the switch assembly (foreground) and the current controller, or driver (backround) mounted in a Lexan block. Both the mount part of the switch assembly and the driver mount were made by me. The switch assembly takes up a lot of space, the XML light will use a NKK switch (see the first photo). A really nice feature of the NKK switch is it's rated IP67 water and dust resistant and doesn't need a large boot seal like the red one in the photo below. I really have not researched exactly what an IP67 rating means, but at least it had to meet some kind of standard and will probably be at least as waterproof as the rest of my light.
Walt
I completed this light a few weeks ago. It's a dual Cree XPG light. The driver is a Shining Beam. The optics are the Regina. This has both the tightest focus and the highest output of any of my lights as of now. It has immediately become my favorite. It is just a little heavy for a helmet light though. I want to make another dual emitter light with thinner walls to reduce the weight.
The reason that I needed thick, 0.100" walls was so I could make a shoulder cut (sorry if that's the wrong term) to hold the lens and optic retainer. The cut takes half the wall, so the remaining wall thickness is only 0.050". This is getting a bit thin, so the next build will not use this system to tie the parts together.
This picture shows more or less how the parts go together for the dual XPG light. The clear plastic stuff on the right is the switch assembly (foreground) and the current controller, or driver (backround) mounted in a Lexan block. Both the mount part of the switch assembly and the driver mount were made by me. The switch assembly takes up a lot of space, the XML light will use a NKK switch (see the first photo). A really nice feature of the NKK switch is it's rated IP67 water and dust resistant and doesn't need a large boot seal like the red one in the photo below. I really have not researched exactly what an IP67 rating means, but at least it had to meet some kind of standard and will probably be at least as waterproof as the rest of my light.
Walt