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



## Houdeani01 (Sep 20, 2018)

Hello All, I am new to this forum but I absolutely love LED's and make all kinds of random things with them. For this project which is a work in progress I have seen many people make the super bright lights on a chunk of aluminum or a board but I have not seen anyone put this in a flashlight. Thus I started designing parts and printing, with the goal of building a liquid cooled flashlight that houses 4 - 100Watt LED's that you can fully control the brightness. I am currently building this and wanted to post it out here to get any feedback or advise that people may have as I assemble this thing. The flashlight is 6" in diameter at each end and tapers to 2.25" in the center and is around 40" long so yes its huge. It will house master control for the lights as well as individual control for each 100watt LED as well as brightness control for each LED. It will also house a full liquid cooling system made up of powerful 80mm fan, reservoir, radiator and 40mm cooling blocks for LED's and drivers. This flashlight at full power should draw around 45amps and will be powered by a 6S 10,000 mAh lipo. More details to come but here are some pics and please if you have any questions comments or advice please send them my way this is the first flashlight I have ever built.


Full Flashlight:









Front:








Electronics Bay:











Middle Section:





Rear Battery and Radiator Housing:


----------



## PolarLi (Sep 20, 2018)

Welcome to the forum, and that's a first post I like!
At the moment, I can't see the pictures, so I can't comment that much on the project yet.


----------



## JoeRodge (Sep 20, 2018)

If you can't post images yet post the link and a mod can fix it for you. Got us excited


----------



## DIWdiver (Sep 20, 2018)

You can't post pics directly. You have to host them somewhere else, and post a link. If you want them to show up directly, rather than as a link, click the 'Insert Image' button and paste the link in the box that comes up. Please do, I'd love to see what you are working on! 

By the way, I think your math is off a bit. 6S lipo would be nominally 22.2V, and at that voltage, 400W would only take 18A. If you are well under 50% efficiency, you should rethink your configuration.

Oh, and don't forget the rules state that images in posts cannot be larger than 800x800 pixels. If you want to post bigger ones, post the link only. You can also do both.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

Sorry guys they were links but I put them in wrong, here is the 3d Model

Full Flashlight:








Front:








Electronics Bay:








Middle Section:





Rear Battery and Radiator Housing:


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

I have the head mostly complete all the LED's are in and the aluminum waterblocks are installed. I also added some strip led's around the sides so I can get some low level light when its turned on in low mode. Here are some pics of the business end of the flashlight.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

I have also printed off most of the other parts and assembled some of the pieces, I am still waiting for my boost converters so I can start on the electronics bay. For now I thought you might want to see a few more pictures of the flashlight that are real items rather than 3d models. I am still a little unsure on the cooling system and if it will be able to keep up but I guess we will see on that. I am also open for any feedback or thoughts you may have based on the items so far. I guess I can always reprint stuff if people have some better ideas. Oh and as for the amp dray you are correct it would be less if I had a 33volt power supply but I have to boost the voltage and that costs amperage, I also have fans and pumps to run. Over all I am not sure it will draw that much power but I am building/wiring it to handle 60amps just to be safe.





























Ok so those were the rough prints, after some sand paper and elbow grease, and some paint (still needs the clear coat but I am letting the color harden for a few more days);








I also wanted to see the electronics so I just gave them some power to see what the controls will look like. There will essential be 4 sets of what you see, one set every 30 degrees to control each LED. Added a pic of the battery too because... well its huge;


----------



## DrafterDan (Sep 21, 2018)

This is certainly fascinating, and a heck of a first flashlight post here! 

So this will require a remote pack for battery and H2o reservoir?
Makes me think of the belt-pack lightsabers in the Knights of Old Republic star wars era.

My concern on this is that even with a water cooling system, I don't see much in the way of a heat sink, like you're relying almost exclusively on the water. Those LEDs are going to generate a huge amount of heat.


----------



## archimedes (Sep 21, 2018)

Thanks for sharing your build thread here.

The photos are amazing ....


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

DrafterDan said:


> This is certainly fascinating, and a heck of a first flashlight post here!
> 
> So this will require a remote pack for battery and H2o reservoir?
> Makes me think of the belt-pack lightsabers in the Knights of Old Republic star wars era.
> ...




Battery pack goes in the rear of the flashlight and the reservoir goes in the middle section. so this is 100% self contained there will be no wires connecting outside of the housing. As for the heat you may be right I know they generate a lot of heat as I use them in many other application but I will have a large amount of liquid in there and my friend is a thermodynamics engineer and he thinks this will keep it cool for a little while anyway. There is no heat sink bcause this is an aluminum waterblock with internal fins that pulls all heat into the liquid and the LED's are clued to the water blocks using thermal adhesive. 

The other way I look at it with this battery if I run the light at full power I am only going to get 15 min or so of run time so really this just has to keep them cool for 15 min . If not I will melt the head and then go tun an aluminum one on my dads lathe but for now this was easier. However if you think I am way off here (which I could be) please let me know and give me some feedback on what you would change, I am open to make changes


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

DrafterDan said:


> This is certainly fascinating, and a heck of a first flashlight post here!
> 
> So this will require a remote pack for battery and H2o reservoir?
> Makes me think of the belt-pack lightsabers in the Knights of Old Republic star wars era.
> ...



Oh and here is the radiator that goes in the rear to take heat away from the liquid.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

archimedes said:


> Thanks for sharing your build thread here.
> 
> The photos are amazing ....



Thanks I really hope it turns out well and more importantly everything works. I will keep posting as I make progress.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 21, 2018)

DrafterDan said:


> This is certainly fascinating, and a heck of a first flashlight post here!
> 
> So this will require a remote pack for battery and H2o reservoir?
> Makes me think of the belt-pack lightsabers in the Knights of Old Republic star wars era.
> ...



This will be a fully self contained Flashlight with no external connections. The reservoir which will be filled with a coolant will go in the middle section and the Battery goes in the rear section and all parts are contained within the housing. The fan and radiator pictured below go in the rear of the flashlight. The liquid cooling setup is very efficient more so than a finned heatsink, the waterblock essential has fins in it that transfer the heat from the LED to the liquid. This is then pumped through the radiator which has a fan sucking cool air and and blowing it across the fins of the radiator to cool the liquid. I know this will cool the lights the question is will it cool them enough. 

My thought is that at full power with a 10,000 mAh battery I am only going to get 15-20min of run time so as long as it does not get to hot in that time we should be good. Worst case scenario I melt the head and then I machine it out of aluminum. With that said I am open for an advise you have for altering this set up.


----------



## PolarLi (Sep 22, 2018)

Now that's a unique design, in a good way. The cooling system will probably run somewhat hot for the "longer" runs. One way to keep it under control if necessary is to add the option of running pump and cooling fans without the LEDs on. That would bring down the coolant temperature pretty fast, so you would get another run after few minutes, Instead of just letting it sit, waiting maybe an hour for the water to cool by itself.


----------



## DIWdiver (Sep 22, 2018)

Wow, that's a monster!

Does the radiator have any specs that suggest it is adequate (or not)? You're going to have something in the range of 250W to dissipate at full power.

Is the tubing rated for elevated temps? Some types get pretty soft at 70C.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 23, 2018)

PolarLi said:


> Now that's a unique design, in a good way. The cooling system will probably run somewhat hot for the "longer" runs. One way to keep it under control if necessary is to add the option of running pump and cooling fans without the LEDs on. That would bring down the coolant temperature pretty fast, so you would get another run after few minutes, Instead of just letting it sit, waiting maybe an hour for the water to cool by itself.



Yes I agree I do have the electronics set up so that I can run the pump and fan with the LED’s off. I really should add a temp sensor to this to keep a closer eye on it.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 23, 2018)

DIWdiver said:


> Wow, that's a monster!
> 
> Does the radiator have any specs that suggest it is adequate (or not)? You're going to have something in the range of 250W to dissipate at full power.
> 
> Is the tubing rated for elevated temps? Some types get pretty soft at 70C.



Radiator has some specs on it fin density is 18 fins per inch but I am not sure if that is good enough for this or not. It would be really hard to get a bigger one in this form factor so I decided to give it a try. I think the tubing should be fine it has a pretty thick wall and is fairly ridged and I am clamping at all fittings. But the cooling system is a concern of mine as well.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 23, 2018)

I have a question for those that have built something like this before. Essentially I am going to have 4 boost controllers one for each led. My original plan was to have the main power switch go on but then you would need to turn on each of the push button switches for each led in order to see the lcd screen and turn on each led. I am now wondering if when the main power goes on if I should feed power to the boost controllers so I can get voltage read outs at each lcd. Then from there the push buttons would turn the led’s on and off but you would never loose power to the lcd readouts until main power was off. The drawback here is all 4 boost controllers would have power but not really much current being drawn. Any suggestions or thoughts?


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 24, 2018)

One more question for everyone I am planning to put on a circular piece of 1/8” plexiglass on the front to protect the LED’s. It would be cool to get a lease of sorts for the end but it’s 158mm in Diameter. Anyone have any thoughts on where I could get a lens around that size or make one?


----------



## archimedes (Sep 24, 2018)

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

What is your budget for this part ?


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 24, 2018)

archimedes said:


> 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 (Sep 28, 2018)

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 (Sep 28, 2018)

It's coming along nicely!


----------



## Houdeani01 (Sep 30, 2018)

DrafterDan said:


> 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 (Oct 1, 2018)

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 (Oct 2, 2018)

HarryN said:


> 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.
> 
> ...



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 (Oct 4, 2018)

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 (Nov 23, 2018)

Great so far! Any updates?


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 3, 2019)

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 (Jul 5, 2019)

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


----------



## Stoneking (Jul 6, 2019)

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


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 8, 2019)

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 (Jul 15, 2019)

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 (Jul 16, 2019)

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! (Jul 16, 2019)

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 (Jul 16, 2019)

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


----------



## Stoneking (Jul 16, 2019)

Zandar said:


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



Amazing!! I’ll take one as well.


----------



## scintillator (Jul 16, 2019)

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


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 16, 2019)

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 (Jul 17, 2019)

Stoneking said:


> 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.


----------



## scintillator (Jul 17, 2019)

No expert here but all the zoomie to flood flashlights I have seen only have one LED in the middle of lens.
Problem is you would need about a 6" lens for your monster light
Great job on that by the way.


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 17, 2019)

scintillator said:


> No expert here but all the zoomie to flood flashlights I have seen only have one LED in the middle of lens.
> Problem is you would need about a 6" lens for your monster light
> Great job on that by the way.



yup your right and a 6” lease is not super cheap so I would like to understand if it would even work before I bought one.


----------



## scintillator (Jul 18, 2019)

I have no idea of what the design details would be for your light,but i would guess a 400 meter focal length Fresnel Lens

for starters might be printable for testing.

*https://www.thingiverse.com/make:385094

*


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 23, 2019)

scintillator said:


> I have no idea of what the design details would be for your light,but i would guess a 400 meter focal length Fresnel Lens
> 
> for starters might be printable for testing.
> 
> ...




That is pretty cool but I think these lights would melt any plastic lens I put in front of them. I think I am going to order a basic fresnel lens and see what I can come up with.


----------



## Vee33 (Jul 26, 2019)

Houdeani01 said:


> That is pretty cool but I think these lights would melt any plan I put in front of them. I think I am going to order a basic fresnel lens and see what I can come up with.



How much of an improvement do you expect this to make? Any worry about it melting?


----------



## Houdeani01 (Jul 31, 2019)

No clue I know nothing about lenses and focusing light. I would like to be able to direct the light a bit more and throw the light further beyond that this is new territory for me. I ordered a 150mm lens and am currently printing a lens holder for the flash light that should allow me to move the lens closer and farther away from the flashlight. I have attached some pics of the 3D model I will post more once I get this all completed.




Lens Fully assembled the blue part turns



This is the bottom of the lens and it screws on the head of the Flashlight



This is a view without the outside shell



Here is the inside mech that makes the lens move up and down



another top view of the sled that holds the lens


----------

