Luminator 40,000 Lumen .4kW 3D Printed Flashlight Liquid Cooled

[Houdeani01]

Do you want a "lens" or a "window" (plano lens) ?

What is your budget for this part ?

I do not want to spend a lot of money on it, I want to make sure the flashlight works well first but I thought it would be cool to be able to get this down to a 30 degree beam. right now I have the 60 degree lenses on the 100watt LED's so we will see what that looks like but I would be curious to get a focus set up on this to change it from a wider to a narrower beam. At this point I am trying to get a gauge as to what my options are for different lenses, if I could get one for under $50 i would consider it.

 

[Houdeani01]

I Had a little time to start putting the Electronics in as well as getting the pump mounted so here is a few more pics for those who are interested.

 

[DrafterDan]

It's coming along nicely!

 

[Houdeani01]

It's coming along nicely!

Thanks Dan, I am getting a little bit further each night. I wanted to add some sort of details to the light so it was not all one solid color. Even though my naming skills are not that creative I had my mom cut out some vinyl decals on her cricket and I think they turned out pretty cool.

 

[HarryN]

Pretty neat light. I guess one way to enhance cooling would be to wait a few months - January in MN should just about do it.

The cooling system you are using looks a lot like the ones used as a CPU cooler. Those can handle 100 watts no problem, 200 watts - sort of. 400 watts - I guess it depends if you are ok with replacing the LEDs regularly or not.

Some of those knobs could warm up pretty fast, so just have some gloves handy.

As far as the window, I think you can purchase quartz and borosilicate glass in something close to that diameter. Plexi will at least melt and might ignite. For an initial trial, perhaps consider to just use a steel wire mesh as protection.

Great project. With the way you have designed it, it will be easy to bring power in in stages.

 

[Houdeani01]

Pretty neat light. I guess one way to enhance cooling would be to wait a few months - January in MN should just about do it.

The cooling system you are using looks a lot like the ones used as a CPU cooler. Those can handle 100 watts no problem, 200 watts - sort of. 400 watts - I guess it depends if you are ok with replacing the LEDs regularly or not.

Some of those knobs could warm up pretty fast, so just have some gloves handy.

As far as the window, I think you can purchase quartz and borosilicate glass in something close to that diameter. Plexi will at least melt and might ignite. For an initial trial, perhaps consider to just use a steel wire mesh as protection.

Great project. With the way you have designed it, it will be easy to bring power in in stages.

Yes it gets cold here in MN so that will help. You are absolutely correct that this is essentially a CPU cooling set up and I agree that it my not be sufficient for keeping up with this light but I figured I could run it for a few min at a time without issue.

The only heat problems I should have though should be contained in the head of the flashlight as it is isolated from the main control section. I am not to worried about the other parts getting hot.

The plexi is a concern I am not familiar with how much heat is given off the front of the led's, I may just leave the front piece off for initial testing. I will check the temps coming off the LED's with a heat gun before adding any lenses or front covers. With that said does anyone know what kind of heat is thrown out the front of these led's at say 6"?

 

[Houdeani01]

Started on the Boards the other night, basically I am moving the variable control to be remote and limiting its range, removing heatsings and FETs to be attached to water block. I tested all the circuitry out on one LED and everything works great. I set the upper limit for the LED to Draw 3.5A which in turn pulls about 8.5-9Amps from the battery as it has to up convert the voltage. So I would think at full power this thing is going to draw around 34-42Amps from the battery.

Board before surgery:

Board in the middle of surgery:

Board after Surgery:

IC's mounted to liquid water block for cooling from all 4 drivers one of them got a little wonky on me but I think it will still work:

 

[louieatienza]

Great so far! Any updates?

 

[Houdeani01]

Hello All, sorry for the long pause but I ran into a few issues removing the mosfets and adding them to the cooling block. I wrecked a few boards and decided to go a slightly different route. I am happy to say I got all the wiring done last night and tested it out UN-assembled and I had full control of all the lights and I had no issues. now I can only keep the bulbs on for about 2 seconds because I do not have liquid in the system but over the next week or so I am going to try and get it all put together and fill it up and see if i CAN MELT IT I hope that does not happen but having all 4 bulbs at full power I could feel the heat from my chair sitting 5-6 feet away so we will see. More to come in the next few days and I will try to get some more pictures added.

 

[DrafterDan]

Good to see that you're still on this project
Nobody said custom builds were gonna be easy

 

[Stoneking]

Cants wait to see the final outcome of this project. Good luck man, you've put so much into it.

 

[Houdeani01]

I got all the electronics done and tested the other night and the front half of the flashlight is assembled. I attached a picture testing out all the on off switches and the voltage control for each bulb below.

The gold switch in the center is the master switch it controls the main power to each of the drivers. When it is in the forward position it provides power to all the push button switches, each one of those provides power to a single driver/led combo. The corresponding knob in front of the switch controls the individual voltage for that LED. this gives you the ability to drive this flashlight from for low Lumen and power draw up to full power at .4KW. If you slide the master switch backwards it turns on 4 - 3" strips of led strip lights just as a means to be able to use this in a very low power consumption mode when only low light is needed.

I am hoping to get it fully assembled within the next few nights and fill it with liquid so I can do a full test. More to come....

 

[Houdeani01]

Finished it up the other night and ran some prelim tests. It lives and its a beast, I did not get any pictures of it working but I will try to do that tonight with some other flashlight for comparison. Everything seems to work pretty well except I need to figure out a better wiay to fill it because I do have a little bit of air in the liquid cooling system which could cause the pump to cavitate. Any way here are some pictures of the final product all assembled and ready for some more testing. I will say I fired it up in my backyard for a min and wow it lights that up pretty well with one of the LED's on but all 4 at full power is nuts. The only downside is to this flashlight is they do not make a belt holder it will fit in

 

[Houdeani01]

Ok did some backyard test tonight, first two pictures are with a Fenix E25 and I locked the AE/AF on my iPhone to take these pictures. I need to get it out in a bigger area to do some real tests but for now this is what I have. The last 4 pictures are turning the bulbs on one at a time at full power mode

Fenix E25

Luminator
1 Bulb

2 Bulbs

3 Bulbs

4 Bulbs

 

[Nichia!]

This is awesome! The most insane flashlight I ever see..

Just look at the size of this thing you must have a giant pocket to edc this monster! lol

 

[Zandar]

Great to see how well this light works, please make me one!

 

[Stoneking]

Great to see how well this light works, please make me one!

Amazing!! I'll take one as well.

 

[scintillator]

Incredible flashlight,do you actually hold the light when it is on?

 

[Houdeani01]

Thanks everyone it has been a really fun build with a mix of emotions in there but in the end I am happy with how it turned out. I made it so you could hold it while it's in use, with that said it is not lite. I have not weighed it but if I had to guess I would say it's at least 10lbs.

I am going out to a farm to test it out in a field tomorrow night outside of town so I can really see how it works. One thing I would love to figure out and I am all ears to hear from you guys is what can I do to get this to be a more focused beam of light. I was looking at fractal lenses but not sure if that's the way to go or not. If you have any ideas let me know.

 

[Houdeani01]

Amazing!! I'll take one as well.

Not sure you guys would want one if you knew how much I put into it. Also if I was going to ever make these I would consider finding better drivers than what I am using. I have also thought about version 2 of this and think it will use multiple Cree Xhp70.2 to make it a bit smaller but I would keep the same look. Also I am not an optics guy but I would love to make this adjustable from a flood to a narrow beam.