# My First mod - Triple XM-L Flood Light (Photos, poor explanation included!)



## Mattaus (May 10, 2011)

Hey all,

I got onto the forums when the need arose to create some good flood lights for an upcoming camping trip. Traditional 4WD lights were out of the question because of their high power usage and cost - we will have no way to recharge our deep cycle battery while we are gone so the lights needed to be low current draw. Also being the tight a*s I am and my love of tinkering I decided to give making one myself a go.

After a lot of discussion on these forums I finally decided to use the existing shell of an $8 150W halogen work light from my local hardware store as the base for the mod. I used this driver from DX. I replaced the C1 capacitor so that it would work with a 12V battery - this was easier than I imagined once I knew what I was doing!!!





I gutted it of all the existing electronics and then cut and bent into shape a thick aluminium bar that was then screwed and thermal glued into the body. This will form the base for mounting the LEDs and reflector and _hopefully_ allow the heat generated to be transfered to the case.





In order to make soldering the LEDs easy and to get over the hump caused by the screw being centered on the plate above, I made a smaller plate on which the LEDs were glued and soldered. This was then thermal pasted to the first aluminium plate. 





The electronics for the whole thing were made to be modular and mounted in the back of the flood light in the old wiring area (kept the wires away from the heat of the halogen globe I think). The driver connects to the LEDs via a traditional DC power pack type plug. I didn't want to hardwire the LEDs to the driver - makes it easier to swap the driver at a later stage. A switch was also added.





The original reflector was kept but had gaping holes in it from where the halogen ceramic holder went. I covered these with tin foil....better than nothing :tinfoil:
The 'flappy' things are so that it doesn't push into the wiring, but still sort of covers the remaining gap.





And the finished article. It still needs a proper power cable added but I will hopefully do that this weekend:





A bit dodgy but it works really well. Easily brighter than the 150W halogen it replaces (to my eyes anyway) and at only 29W. The pattern seems _very_ even and floody. I will be doing this again to a twin 500W work light tower soon, and will be using some 3A drivers instead....so they should be even better.

I have a control shot taken with the halogen, but am yet to take one with the LEDs for comparison. If people are interested I will try get that sooner rather than later!

Hope this interest someone lol. I learnt soooo much doing it and now I'm hookedlovecpf

I butchered the hell out of the 2 outer LEDs - I had to scrape back the contacts closer to the emitters themselves after managing to pull off the solder pads THREE TIMES. I also got thermal paste everywhere after the first attempt at putting it together. It took me 2 hours to clean up. Lessons definitely learnt.

Hopefully my next project is a bit more professional looking :thumbsup:

Cheers.

- Matt


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## CKOD (May 10, 2011)

Nice work, looks good all put back together. And it very well could be brighter then the 150W halogen, since its just a stamped metal reflector which would make for all sorts of nasty losses from the bulb shining in all directions, vs the 3 LEDs which should be pumping most their light out the front.


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## abarth_1200 (May 10, 2011)

It doesnt look like the reflector is needed with those leds, remember the old halogen bulb pumped light out 360 degrees, those LEDS throw light out at most 180 even at that I would bet that 90% of the light is going forward at about a 60 degree spread, not even hitting the reflector, try a with and without beam shot.

Great idea, I have always wanted to try this with my security lights but scared of electrocuting myself lol


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## Changchung (May 10, 2011)

Awesome...


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## Mattaus (May 10, 2011)

abarth_1200 said:


> It doesnt look like the reflector is needed with those leds, remember the old halogen bulb pumped light out 360 degrees, those LEDS throw light out at most 180 even at that I would bet that 90% of the light is going forward at about a 60 degree spread, not even hitting the reflector, try a with and without beam shot.
> 
> Great idea, I have always wanted to try this with my security lights but scared of electrocuting myself lol



I swear I replied to this but the reply has gone missing. I'd imagine a reflector is actually useless in this case as the beam angle from XM-Ls is only 125 degrees...but the reflector will reflect something I'm sure and it serves to make it look a little nicer than just bare electronics, ugly metal plates and smeared thermal glue!


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## netprince (May 11, 2011)

This is a great idea. Nice work.

BTW, where did you get the original work light? I might have to try something like this...


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## richpalm (May 11, 2011)

Hey, I like this! Got one of these years ago. So you power it with a wall wart? If batteries, what kind?

Rich


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## Mattaus (May 11, 2011)

Hey…not sure where you guys are located (I’m assuming USA/Canada) but I bought it from a hardware chain here in Australia called Bunnings. Similar deal to Home Depot I guess. I can’t understand how they can sell them at $8 a pop – I’d pay that for just the housing! They have twin 500W halogens on a extendible mast with tripod for $34. I will convert that as well I think….the 500W housings are bigger and better suited to the 3 XM-Ls.

As I built it primarily for camping I run it off a Gel 12V 105Ah Deep Cycle battery, but I’m sure with an AC to DC transformer (in fact maybe you could use those halogen down light transformers?) you could easily run it off mains. Might be a good way to save power for outdoor fixed flood lights?


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## Brian10962001 (May 12, 2011)

This is EXACTLY what my friends have been asking me about and I have been wanting to do! This on a 120v inverter board, or a PC power supply would be !!!!!!!!!


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## Mattaus (May 12, 2011)

Brian10962001 said:


> This is EXACTLY what my friends have been asking me about and I have been wanting to do! This on a 120v inverter board, or a PC power supply would be !!!!!!!!!



It's easy enough to do so I say go for it...


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## MikeAusC (May 15, 2011)

Mattaus said:


> . . . . I learnt soooo much doing it and now I'm hookedlovecpf . . . .



Matt - great to see that you've learnt painlessly how easy it is to become a flashaholic - fantastic outcome for a first project !


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## Mattaus (May 15, 2011)

Yeah, the GF's not too pleased though. It's not the cheapest hobby


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## richpalm (May 15, 2011)

Mattaus said:


> As I built it primarily for camping I run it off a Gel 12V 105Ah Deep Cycle battery, but I’m sure with an AC to DC transformer (in fact maybe you could use those halogen down light transformers?) you could easily run it off mains. Might be a good way to save power for outdoor fixed flood lights?



Cool! I have a bunch of Vector spotlights... I can steal a SLA out of one.

Rich


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## MikeAusC (May 15, 2011)

> . . . AC to DC transformer (in fact maybe you could use those halogen down light transformers?) . . . .



These put out AC, not DC


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## Mattaus (May 15, 2011)

MikeAusC said:


> These put out AC, not DC



Well you learn something new every day....my bad.


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## LTD (May 16, 2011)

I'm definitely going to attempt a similar project. What changes did you do to the capacitor in order to make it stand 12V?


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## Mattaus (May 16, 2011)

The small C1 capacitor with a 10uF 16V surface mount. However, for ease of use I recommend this or even better this. They're both good for 12V and even brighter with XM-Ls as they provide 3A. The LCK driver will get to you MUCH faster as well.

I bought the DX drivers a month ago and only got them this morning. I will be using them in the twin 500W housing mod...just waiting on the LEDs now.


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## LTD (May 17, 2011)

Mattaus said:


> The small C1 capacitor with a 10uF 16V surface mount. However, for ease of use I recommend this or even better this. They're both good for 12V and even brighter with XM-Ls as they provide 3A. The LCK driver will get to you MUCH faster as well.
> 
> I bought the DX drivers a month ago and only got them this morning. I will be using them in the twin 500W housing mod...just waiting on the LEDs now.


 
Thanks for advise. Guess I'll go for these drivers next time then. Dx is a little bit cheaper I think as they provide free shipping. What are the advantages with XM-Ls?


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## Mattaus (May 17, 2011)

More power per watt than any other LED out there (at least they were at the time I got into this...I'm pretty sure they still are). Good flood pattern of 125 degrees. Just all round good for this application!


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## Mattaus (May 28, 2011)

:naughty:


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## LMF5000 (Jun 8, 2011)

Looks awesome. I'm considering doing something similar myself, but using a computer heatsink and maybe a peltier cooler to handle a single (probably overdriven) XM-L. You mentioned some photos of the light output (before & after) - could you post some of them please?


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## CKOD (Jun 8, 2011)

LMF5000 said:


> Looks awesome. I'm considering doing something similar myself, but using a computer heatsink and maybe a peltier cooler to handle a single (probably overdriven) XM-L. You mentioned some photos of the light output (before & after) - could you post some of them please?



If youre going for floody light, adding another LED would probably be easier then overdriving a single, the peltier would have its own waste heat, so it wouldnt make cooling the whole assembly any easier, and you'll need to power the peltier too, might as well let that energy go towards a LED and double your output, and have the same, maybe even less total heat then the peltier+ single would have. 

If youre using a lens/reflector etc and not going for something floody, and can only accomodate a single LED, then the story changes a bit.


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## Mattaus (Jun 8, 2011)

I should point out that cooling appears to be an issue now. I tested them for 4.5hrs over the weekend and they seemed to go fine, however there is a good chance that the thermal transfer from the LEDs to the case is very poor as the case was not getting very hot. So I need to add a second aluminium bar running perpendicular to the first bar to provide more contact with the case. It'll be tricky but really it's the best I can do at this stage.


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## LMF5000 (Jun 8, 2011)

CKOD said:


> If youre going for floody light, adding another LED would probably be easier then overdriving a single, the peltier would have its own waste heat, so it wouldnt make cooling the whole assembly any easier, and you'll need to power the peltier too, might as well let that energy go towards a LED and double your output, and have the same, maybe even less total heat then the peltier+ single would have.
> 
> If youre using a lens/reflector etc and not going for something floody, and can only accomodate a single LED, then the story changes a bit.


 
Thanks for the feedback. My setup will be purely experimental (for fun) to see whether I can light up a room with a single XM-L, and if it can run for a couple of hours...

The basic idea will be to drive an XM-L at something over the 3A maximum using an adjustable constant-current power supply (to eliminate the possibility of thermal runway). The peltier cooler takes 30W of power input, which based on the current Peltier efficiency of one watt transferred per one watt supplied, means that the cold side of the peltier can suck heat at a rate of 30W, and thus the hot side of the Peltier will be dissipating 30W + 30W = 60W of heat. The heat sink will be an i7 CPU heat sink, namely the XigmaTek Dark Knight, which can dissipate 130 watts with only 30 degrees of temperature rise above ambient (approx.), which should give a constant LED temperature at the base of its PCB of around 0 deg. celsius.

I will probably post a thread about it if I actually get around to it. I'm still waiting for my XM-L and power supply. I might try without the Peltier first to see how that goes


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## LMF5000 (Jun 8, 2011)

Mattaus said:


> I should point out that cooling appears to be an issue now. I tested them for 4.5hrs over the weekend and they seemed to go fine, however there is a good chance that the thermal transfer from the LEDs to the case is very poor as the case was not getting very hot. So I need to add a second aluminium bar running perpendicular to the first bar to provide more contact with the case. It'll be tricky but really it's the best I can do at this stage.


 
You seem to be gauging the cooling effect of your setup by how warm the case gets. I think a more appropriate approach would be to measure the LED temperature itself. You have a number of options, including:

1. A multimeter with a temperature probe. Stick the temperature probe as close to the middle LED as possible with thermal paste, and run it to see what temperature it reaches.

2. An infrared thermometer - problem is that this needs an unobstructed view of the LED so you'll have to remove the glass at the front (which would increase the cooling and give you less reliable results) and also you risk getting dazzled by the lights when you try and aim the thermometer at the central LED while it's on.

3. A bit complicated, but the current vs. voltage characteristics change with temperature. If you have a constant current driver (I think I read that you do), then look at the initial forward voltage when cold, and the forward voltage after 4.5 hours, and by using a couple of curves from the datasheet you might be able to estimate the junction temperature (not an easy or accurate method, but can be done with a simple voltmeter)

It's entirely possible that thermally the setup dissipates heat so well (considering it was designed for over 130 watts of halogen heat and you're only trying to dissipate 30), that it won't get warm because of that. Though this theory can be proved wrong by putting your hand on the LEDs after running and seeing whether they're hot.

You might consider soldering the aluminium bar to the shell of the light. It's bound to be better at transferring heat than thermal paste is. Only thing is that soldering aluminium requires a special flux (but you can buy that online or at a local hardware store).


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## rgbenno (Jul 6, 2011)

Hey Mattaus,

I saw your post and thought - that is exactly what I have been looking for, so I went and copied you!!! Sorry!

I put 6 XMLs in the little housing you used first time around driven by two drivers from DX. Works like a charm. 

I also spent a fair bit of time grinding a piece of aluminium to a close contact fit with the enclosure so the transfer of heat in mine seems pretty good. The housing definitely gets warm, but not hot.

I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Cheers,
Rick


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## bobclarty (Jul 6, 2011)

It's amazing how many people here want to do pretty much this exact same setup! 

What I had in mind was the DX driver you had mentioned, but power it off of mains with an AC/DC converter from DX as well. My question is though, when selecting a wall wart type device to power the 3A XM-L driver, do you need the wall wart to be pushing out 3A as well? Or if I have one that is labeled 12V @ 600mA, will the driver then bump it up to 3A? I'd post a link, but it appears that the DX site is overloaded right now. 

My goal is less for a portable unit, and more for a direct replacement for the halogen lamp for a worklight in the garage. My ballast broke so now I have a non-working one sitting around calling to me from the garage to fix it up and make her shine again!


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## yazovyet (Jul 6, 2011)

bob:
You want to power 3 XM-Ls at 3A right? Assuming you put them in series it means around 10 volts at 3A is needed for the LEDs. So the driver needs to put out 30 watts which means it needs more than 30 watts input. 600mA at 12 volts is only 7.2 watts so that's way too low, I'd recommend 12 volt 3A input or maybe even a little more, depends on how efficient the driver is and if you want to be running the power supply at nearly it's maximum rating. 

What AC/DC converters were you looking at? (I think dx is back up)


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## 350xfire (Jul 6, 2011)

I want to see some beam shots. That is cool...


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## Mattaus (Jul 7, 2011)

I'm heading to the snow in 1 weeks time (that's what we built them for) and plan on using them every night. The only reason I have not posted beam shots yet is because the deep cycle battery I have to power them does not belong to me and it's a pain in the bum to get hold of. Plus every time we have used them so far I forget all about beam shots :-(

I'll definitely get some up in the next couple of weeks.


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## bobclarty (Jul 7, 2011)

Yazovyet:
I'm actually only doing 2 XM-Ls, with the DX 6-18V 3.0A driver. I had it hooked up to this AC/DC converter that does 900mA at 10-12V so obviously not nearly the amps needed to power it fully. I was very disappointed with the output, so that would explain it. i just got all the parts in yesterday, and this being my first time to play with these things I hooked up that driver to a 12V atv battery. It was very bright for about a quarter of a second, and now it's very very dim, but it still illuminates. did I  my driver? I haven't had a chance to hook up a different one to see what works and doesn't. In the spirit of not buying things just to break them, perhaps I should ask before I just hook up random things! I have an old laptop power supply that puts out 16V at 5A, would that  my other driver as well? 

I expected to break some stuff in the process of learning how to hook things up, but I didn't expect it to happen within hours of getting it! Maybe I should just put in an order of another 10-15 XM-Ls to have plenty of backups.


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## yazovyet (Jul 7, 2011)

bob:
Could you link the driver?
The 2 XM-Ls are in series? I think i recall hearing that putting them in parallel is a bad idea but can't be sure, also if in parallel the most current they would get is 1.5A off that driver.

Lets see, that ac/dc you linked is constant current out at 10-12 volts. So it is likly doing it's best to put out as much as it can but only putting out the full 900mA at 12 volts (if it is working right) so that is around 10.8 watts. If your driver had no efficiency losses it could be putting out 6.6 volts at 1.6 amps, well below the 3 amps you're looking for. But qualitatively that would still be 'really bright', like too bright to look at the LED. 

I don't know what would cause the ATV to kill the driver, so maybe the battery is dead? or maybe something did burn out in the driver, it is hard to say/ 

In theory the 16 volt laptop PS should work with that driver.


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## MikeAusC (Jul 8, 2011)

bobclarty said:


> Yazovyet:
> I'm actually only doing 2 XM-Ls, with the DX 6-18V 3.0A driver. I had it hooked up to this AC/DC converter that does 900mA at 10-12V so obviously not nearly the amps needed to power it fully. I was very disappointed with the output, so that would explain it. i just got all the parts in yesterday, and this being my first time to play with these things I hooked up that driver to a 12V atv battery. It was very bright for about a quarter of a second, and now it's very very dim, but it still illuminates. did I  my driver? . . . .



The ACtoDC 900mA driver is a Constant CURRENT Driver. 900mA 10watt means its RATED to be CAPABLE of delivering 900mA with loads UP TO 11 volts. The current delivered above 11 volts is not guarranteed to be up to 900mA.

The "Output voltage: DC 10~12V" on the website is very misleading, but that's nothing unusual at DX. If the load you connect to it does not draw 900mA at 11 volts, the driver will continue to increase the voltage until . . . . . 

Well that depends on the design of the driver and how it's set up. I only use constant current drivers with carefully set voltage limits when powering expensive LEDs.

More than one member here claims that Constant Current drivers are bad for LEDs - they can be, if used without voltage limiting.

It's not a good idea to use a Constant Current LED Driver to feed an LED Driver which was designed to be powered by a Constant Voltage source.


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## 350xfire (Jul 8, 2011)

I just hooked up one of those XML 6-18v drivers to am XML and my variable poser supply and poofed the led. The power supply was divering 3.1A at 4.2 volts. Since I using a 7.4v battery pack I started taking the voltage up and all of the sudden the led died! Funny thing is that voltage and voltage did not seem to go up.. Typically with a driver you see voltage go up and amps go down. I wonder if this DX driver is crap because someone on DX put review with same problem!!


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## bobclarty (Jul 9, 2011)

I finished my work light last night. It's not pretty, but it works! It's powered by a 12V 18Ah SLA battery, I'll worry about getting one that's powered off mains power later then, once I have a little more experience. Here are a couple pics of my setup:







The heat sink is just an old CPU heat sink, and you can see my method of attaching it to the housing was 2 screws. I also screwed the emitters into place to get them nice and tight against the heat sink and to make sure they don't go anywhere. 

The backside:





Beamshots:

Control





High:





Low:





For comparison purposes, this is an unmodified 3D Mag LED, the one with the Rebel emitter:





From the front:






All the "beamshots" (or are they floodshots in this case?) are taken at ISO 400, 1/4 second shutter speed, f3.5 aperture, and auto white balance. Those were the settings that I felt best portray how it actually looks in my back yard.

I didn't close the front glass because I am quite concerned about the heat buildup if I do. So my next portion of this build will have to be something to fix the heat problem, such as a small fan on the back. Can I just connect it in parallel to battery as well, or will the mess up the lights? Maybe then I'll also put the reflector back in to make it look a little prettier.


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## MikeAusC (Jul 10, 2011)

350xfire said:


> I just hooked up one of those XML 6-18v drivers to am XML and my variable poser supply and poofed the led. The power supply was divering 3.1A at 4.2 volts. Since I using a 7.4v battery pack I started taking the voltage up and all of the sudden the led died! Funny thing is that voltage and voltage did not seem to go up.. Typically with a driver you see voltage go up and amps go down. I wonder if this DX driver is crap because someone on DX put review with same problem!!



Inverters can provide all sorts of weird outputs when their input voltage is below their specified input voltage.


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## Kyle21 (Jul 10, 2011)

Mattaus said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I got onto the forums when the need arose to create some good flood lights for an upcoming camping trip. Traditional 4WD lights were out of the question because of their high power usage and cost - we will have no way to recharge our deep cycle battery while we are gone so the lights needed to be low current draw. Also being the tight a*s I am and my love of tinkering I decided to give making one myself a go.
> 
> ...


 

Ok. I am all new to all of this but really want to make a few of these and put them on my boat. Do you have a parts list of everything you have there besides the light so i can order it up and start building?

Images removed. Waste of space. Please read the thread through for your answers


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## Mattaus (Jul 11, 2011)

Man this is my thread and I'm not getting notified of posts. What gives?

Kyle...it's pretty simple. There are multiple places top buy drivers and LEDs from, but to save time I suggest getting them all from LCK-LED:

XM-L on 16mm PCB

3A 5.5V - 12V Driver

Thermal paste (deal extreme)

...and that's about it.

You'll need wire, the housing, a switch (I just used a double throw, 2 pole dip switch) and a decent heat sink to keep them cool. The heatsinking in my lights *is not sufficient* but I have not bothered to fix that as they are about to be used in the snow so over heating is not an issue short term. When I get back I will fix them up no doubt.

Keep in mind you will not be able to run more than 3 of these LED's in series with one driver board. Check this thread for a discussion on what I've done wrong and suggested solutions.

Hope some of that is helpful to you.

Cheers.


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## Mattaus (Jul 26, 2011)

Hey hey...finally got back from the trip these were built for. Gutted to say that they were never used for their intended purpose but that was down to laziness and not the fault of the lights. They did come in handy BIG time however. Any below are the beam shots as promised. Apologies for the crap-ness of them. I rushed it and took them hand held and didn't think anything of it until I reviewed them the next day. For the record all photos at F3.3 with 1 second exposures. 

The first is the control shot with the lights off.




The second shot is on low.




The third shot is on high - the cabin is about 40/45m away.




Final shot is both lights on the tripod running together.




The goal was to light the general area with the 2 lights on the tripod and then side/backlight the area with the small floodlight detailed in the original post. We could EASILY have ridden under this light but were too knackered/wet/cold/hungry/tired/sore to bother after 8hours on the slopes dodging d*ck heads who crash into you from behind, dislocate your shoulder and then ride off with out even checking to see if you're OK...


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