DIY 100W Led Flashlight

Hi,
Want a powerful and "good loking" flashlight? Than this project is for you!

Watch the video with all the details obout this amazing project.
In the second part there is also the "how it is made" part. So help yourself in making it by watching the video and folowing the instructables steps.

Step 1: Housing and Parts

To make this light you will need:
-Housing:
Here I will let you use some of your ideas. The housing can be in defferent shapes. Of chourse you can copy mine if you want. I used an aluminum pipe. And a central aluminum core as a heatsink. The important thing is the LED chip is cooled. Thats' why i mounted it on such a big piece of metal. So feel free to use my ideas about housing that are quite detailed in the video. The front and rear cover are 3d printed from ABS as well as the handle.
I will not include the 3d files here because they are made for this exact pipe dimensions and they are easy to design if you have a 3dprinter and design software.
-100W led chip + reflector + lense
-100W led driver - search for step up constant voltage led driver
-Lipo battery (I have used 4S 3300mAh)
-some small electronics (switch, potentiometer, resistors)

Step 2: Mounting the Led

Mount the led on a heat sink using thermal paste and screws.
Glue the reflector and led lens on the led with epoxy glue.
Solder wires on the led that will go to the led driver.

Advice: If your heat sink is not big enough you can add active cooling with a fan. Connect the fan directly to the battery source after the on/off switch.

Step 3: Led Driver

Choose a Led step up DC DC driver that can hold at least 100W of power.
If you want to have a dimmer option than use the attached photo to make the driver dimmable.
After you upgrade it. Make sure you set up the maximum voltage on the trimmer. The maximum voltage must be as specified by the led chip supplier. Also! note that the led chip may drain more than 100W at the maximum voltage. So check the current too. And Set the maximum voltage a bit lower if needed so you do not exceed 100W at fully opened dimmer and fully charged battery.
Or, eventually you can also choose a constant current driver and set up the current.

Connect the driver's input to the battery after the on/off switch. And the output directly to the LED chip.

Step 4: Fit In, Connect

Fit the driver in the tube or your own designed housing.
Leave some space for the battery.
Mount the dimmer potentiometer.
Add an on/off switch to the housing and connect it in series with the battery's positive source wire.

Advice: Since lithium batteries must not be discharged under around 3V per cell. Add an lipo checker buzzer inside the tube so it will buzz a sound when your battery is empty. Choose the 2 wire 4S one and connect it after the on/off switch. You can find those online cheap. This is the one i have used: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobby-king-battery-monitor-4s.html

Step 5: Finish

Fit the battery in the tube, close the tube or your custom housing with 3d printed covers.
That's all. Some more assembly details are in the introduction video.

Turn it up and have fun!

Comments

[AlexE80]

This is awesome thanks! I am however a bit curious about the dimmer. My amateur research suggests adjusting amps for dimming is better on high power LED's? https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/221332/adding-a-dimming-knob-to-a-step-up-power-supply By adjusting voltage are you at risk of over-drawing amps? Would a constant current regulator be better? (you seem to hint at that). I guess I'm debating between your cool potentiometer addition to a constant voltage regulator and replacing the current trimpot on a constant current regulator. Thanks!

[michaEL_don]

Mhmmm... I did the same way but after connecting to the power supply one of the capacitors blow up! The input +/- was correct, so I start to wonder what did I done wrong...? :/

[michaEL_don]

The only thing that is coming to my mind, is that i connected those 2 pins, during removal the blue potentiometer. When I check it with the multimeter, those 2 pins are connected and I am not sure if there were at the beggining.

[fotovidx]

Hmm, I double checked now how mine is made and looks, like your wiring is ok, so i have no idea at the moment what could cause it to blow up if your input connection was done right.

[michaEL_don]

Hi,

When you add a dimmer option - on attached photo you change the way you attach the blue potentiometer. When it was attach on the DC-DC driver, the gold pin (to regulate) was on the right. After - on the left. Is that correct?

[fotovidx]

Yes, correct.

[fotovidx]

Thank you!

[VirenderG1]

Nice

[gm280]

WOW. Since wattage is voltage times amperage, I can only imaging the battery life isn't very long. If you are powering this with even a 12 volt source, that is well over 8 amps. I can't see any battery delivering that much current for long. Nice project, but it has to eat the power supply up quickly.

[sam maghsoodloo]

8amps is nothing for a 4s lipo. I use 4s lipo packs made for high discharge on my drones and they can deliver a peak of well over 100 amps, and never really dip below 30 amps during the whole flight. 8amps is actually so low, he shouldn't be using a lipo, he should have used a Li-ion pack instead so that he'd have more power density. A 18650 array would be perfect for something like this, and you could get cells with their own discharge protection. This design in the video seems to use only the low voltage alarm as battery protection, so if you leave the light on the battery could destroy the lipo and possibly start a fire.

[logical]

Not sure why you're mixing up volts (1 cell=3.7-4.2v) with amps. It doesn't matter if you you using 12S packs, the capacity is defined by amp hours so if the current draw is 8 amps, no matter how many cells, a 3.3Ah (3300mAh) pack is always going to last less than 30 mins which isn't very long. It's basic math. If you want an hours use, then either you drop the demand to the capacity of the pack (3.3 amps in this case) or you choose an 8000mAh pack. Doesn't matter how many cells you chuck at it unless you plan to use a buck/boost converter to drop the voltage to that required of the device, in this case, an led. Voltage MUST be matched to the device while current consumption and/or pack capacity decides running time. If you want more, you multiply the packs and connect in parallel or choose a higher capacity pack. Yes, it is true that a 3.3Ah pack can handle many times that figure such as tens to hundreds of amps but running time could be as little as minutes for small packs. We use 6S and 12S packs at 3,000-8,000mAh yet doing hard 3D will flatten them in less than 6 minutes, usually 3 to 4 mins the way my son flies it. Need to understand the relationship between volts, amps and capacity in amp/hours.

[fotovidx]

I used lipo because I have a lot of them at home from my rc models. When they become lazy for the models they are perfect for projects like this one. And yes, for now this light only has a low battery alarm, but I am allready planning to add a BMS that will have a low voltage shut off.

Regarding over discharge it cannot cause fire, but it damages the cells. So you need to stop using them. If you charge such cells that's what can cause fire.

[fotovidx]

It has a 4S Lipo battery so around 15V. On full power te battery lasts about 20-25min, but if you use it at about 80% than it lasts way longer.