Ultimate Night Vision Headlamp - 500+ lumens with only 8 watts

Step 10 Strain relief the wiring

one of the keys to durable electronics is STRAIN RELIEF. any wire that gets bent or pulled will rapidly break if it does not have a good strain relief. there is a certain art to making a good strain relief!

first, i covered my entire wiring with a sheath from a 3/16" rope. if you've used very durable wire to begin with this may be overkill.

next, i made a strain relief where the wiring attaches to the headlamp, so that it won't get tangled or ripped when the lamp angle is changed, or the battery is dropped.

make an overhand knot in the wire, then glue it to the base plate. the knot gives much better grip to the sheath and the glue.

Comments

[ac-dc]

The design is flawed. That heatsink is not even half the size it needs to be for good LED lifespan and brightness. 

Literally, it is barely adequate for a single 3W LED.  I have built plenty of LED lights for years and speak from a great deal of experience in light longevity and the effects of overheating.

[roddersau]

I intend to build this headlamp for night fishing and so I will have even lower airflow as I will be standing relatively stationary on a pier over the fishing location... So I would like some guidance on the required size of the heatsink you are suggesting? Would doubling the heatsink fin length (overall thickness dimension) of the heatsink serve the purpose..IOW I am trying to avoid making the length an width too big and clumsy on the headband.......ac-dc or Dan, Do either of you have a formula for calculating the size of heatsink required for safe - adequate cooling for the number of LED's used?

[thepierce]

I want to build on this design but am unclear as to the size of a proper heatsink. I want to use the following:

• LED Type : Luxeon K2
• # of LEDs : 4 (+$21.00)
• Color : Cyan
• Drive Current : 1000mA
• BuckPuck Options : Dimming w/ Pot.
• Power-Supply : 12vdc2.5a

How large of a Heat sink will I need?

Thanks in advance.

[bananafred]

Have you designed bike lights? The ambient temperature is lower and airflow is higher. This could make up for the smaller heatsink than would normally be used.

[ac-dc]

Yes, I often use a self-built bike light, mounted on the bike, and a self-built headlamp I use more often off the bike, but on it too.

Actually ambient temperature could easily be higher or the same, unless you live on an climate controlled planet?

Keep in mind also that you aren't always riding the bike, sometimes you need to stop or slow down but would still need to see, and even when you are riding it is still a small heatsink for the low volume of airflow you'd achieve.

I agree in some uses the light won't overheat, but my point was it will overheat in others.  I don't feel any light that requires you keep moving to not overheat is a good design although others may feel differently.

[erckgillis]

Let shrink wrap and techFlex the exposed wiring, if epoxy is used for a Weatherproof lamp then any exposed wiring would benefit from proper shrink wrap, tech flex and then the wire covering, this enables us to not use the "messy" knots and hot glue/epoxy for our 'neat' cables...

see http://www.instructables.com/id/E4IY4TQD5QEPD7R06P/

[dan]

sure, that will work well. i usually try to find ways to use common materials to replace specialized ones when i can. for example the use of standard rope sheath to replace tech-flex. there's lots of ways to strain-relief wiring, and the hot-glue puddle works as well as most of them.