# Tri-Rebel Star Flood Monster



## ambientmind (Jan 13, 2008)

*Tri-Rebel Star Flood Monster (update! now regulated!)*

I wanted to make something small with an incredible amount of output for extremely dark outdoor situations, or just to light up an entire room. I also wanted the body to be durable, inexpensive, and use an 18650 battery for runtime and current capacity. I settled on the Ultrafire C2 with the HAIII coating on it and used the Endor 7007-PWC-10-3 tri rebel star that puts out 540 lm @ 700 mA. My original plan was to use three 1050mA driver boards to power the leds, but there simply was not enough room to fit all three so it became direct drive off of the battery. Total current draw is about 2.2A, so each led is seeing approx 733mA initially. It is impossible to focus this star to a spot, but it is close. Due to the three slightly different emission points of light, there are three small holes in the spot of the beam. Overall, its a great flood light and does exactly what I need it for. It still throws about 250', but lights up an area about 150' wide at that point, great for seeing everything around you. Beamshots will come later, but for now here is the light.





The business end with glow epoxy on the surface of the star.





*
Update 4/28/08*

Using the information from this thread:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/192677
I was able to make a driver for this light with multi modes! So many thanks to netkidz! :twothumbs The hard part was making it so it one board could be stacked on top of the other, I took some pics to show what I did. I had to cut a small part off of the 1.4A board so make room for the wires. I just left out the positive battery spring that was on there before to make room for the driver in the battery tube. But now it has useful lower modes, and the high is only slightly more current than before, or its supposed to be anyway. I dont notice really any difference in brightness on high, but the low mode is nice and strobe will really drive you crazy. but now with all the P7 mods, this one is old news but i still like it! anyway, enough talk...:nana:


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## DaFABRICATA (Jan 13, 2008)

:twothumbs

VERY NICE!!!

BEAMSHOTS:thumbsup:


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## Nitroz (Jan 13, 2008)

Wow! That's a nice looking light. The photos are great also.

I look forward to the flood bemshots.


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## Brozneo (Jan 13, 2008)

DaFABRICATA said:


> :twothumbs
> 
> VERY NICE!!!
> 
> BEAMSHOTS:thumbsup:


 
+1!


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## ambientmind (Jan 13, 2008)

Thanks, I'm trying to be better about my flashlight photography! Once it gets dark, I'll take some beamshot pictures.


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## skalomax (Jan 13, 2008)

Niiice!

cant wait.


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## BassMan (Jan 13, 2008)

that is very nice....

Will there be an order list or wave or some way to get one of these ?

Grant


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## nein166 (Jan 13, 2008)

Smooth job on the GITD epoxy.
Beamshots are imperative!
How much did you take off the back of the reflector?
It looks like you raised the star up to the reflector.
Can it break down into parts for a picture?


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## ambientmind (Jan 14, 2008)

No, I will not be making any of these to sell. It was just a project I had in mind for some time. I had to take off approx 1/8" off of the back of the reflector, and yes the pill is raised in the body to focus correctly. Now for the beamshots! Sorry some are blurry, they are all hand-held.
Beam on the ground from about 3'




2 second control exposure




2 second exposure with flashlight on, about 80' to the house




For those not familiar with the C2, it compared to some others for size


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## nein166 (Jan 14, 2008)

Cool, thats a perfectly usable mod, good job focusing it. 
Other than a Milkyspit and McGizmo thats the first good multi-Rebel mod I've seen. 
And you got it done on one reflector :thumbsup:


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## ambientmind (Jan 14, 2008)

nein166 said:


> Cool, thats a perfectly usable mod, good job focusing it.
> Other than a Milkyspit and McGizmo thats the first good multi-Rebel mod I've seen.
> And you got it done on one reflector :thumbsup:


Thanks! I really appreciate that! I have a couple other multi-rebel projects I'm working on, one is for an automotive application, and one is with maglite. I'm just waiting on parts for those to be complete. My object for this one was a single reflectored, pocket sized light(even if its a big pocket) which is why I chose the large reflectored C2.


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## Roboholic (Jan 15, 2008)

Why are you wanting the single reflector? I see alot of mods using smaller reflectors. Do you just not get enough throw? 

I was just wondering because I have a Barbolight that I think could be quite a bit brighter. I have never atempted a mod but that is the light that I think would be great with a two stage and newer LED.

Thanks Rob


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## Changchung (Jan 15, 2008)

Great job..:twothumbs


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## stevil86 (Jan 15, 2008)

awsome light i want one


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## stevil86 (Jan 15, 2008)

awsome light i want one:thumbsup:


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## Tubor (Jan 15, 2008)

Nice amount of light from a small form factor! I prefer flood to pin-point any day. :thumbsup:


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## LukeA (Jan 15, 2008)

Roboholic said:


> Why are you wanting the single reflector? I see alot of mods using smaller reflectors. Do you just not get enough throw?
> 
> I was just wondering because I have a Barbolight that I think could be quite a bit brighter. I have never atempted a mod but that is the light that I think would be great with a two stage and newer LED.
> 
> Thanks Rob



The large single reflector was used for simplicity. Better throw is accomplished through LEDs being one each at the focus of parabolic reflectors than with multiple LEDs not at the focus of a large reflector.


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## nutz_about_lights (Jan 16, 2008)

Wow. 3 in 1. I'm impressed! :twothumbs


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## SunnyQueensland (Feb 8, 2008)

Awesome! :thumbsup:


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## Oznog (Feb 8, 2008)

You know there's a 3-Rebel optic that has a matching 3-Rebel Star, right?
It was intended for the RGB market but surely would kick *** in the white flashlight market too!


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## TigerhawkT3 (Feb 9, 2008)

Cool mod! Where'd you stuff the current limiting resistors?


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## KrisP (Feb 9, 2008)

Great light! I've just ordered a C2, tri-rebel star and an AW 18650 cell 



Oznog said:


> You know there's a 3-Rebel optic that has a matching 3-Rebel Star, right?
> It was intended for the RGB market but surely would kick *** in the white flashlight market too!


This?


TigerhawkT3 said:


> Cool mod! Where'd you stuff the current limiting resistors?


He said it's direct drive and starts around 733mA with full charge.


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## ambientmind (Feb 9, 2008)

i know there are some optics out there, i just wanted to make something a little different than the normal lights out there. no resistors were needed, with all that current draw it all evens out off of the 18650.


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## TigerhawkT3 (Feb 9, 2008)

If it's three emitters DD of a single 18650 with no driver(s) in between, they'd have to be in parallel. If there aren't even any resistors, this mod might run into current hogging issues.


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## KrisP (Feb 9, 2008)

Do you know of a single board that will bump 3.2-4.2v up to 3 x Vf of the rebels and limit current to 700mA or so? The only thing i've found is the Shark board from SS but it requires modification to limit it to 700mA.

I would hope that these tri-rebel stars would have fairly well matched emitters anyway. I'll be sure to check the Vf of each emitter when mine arrives


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## eebowler (Feb 9, 2008)

Doesn't it look like the hotspot has a smiley face in it?


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## ambientmind (Feb 9, 2008)

eebowler said:


> Doesn't it look like the hotspot has a smiley face in it?


ha ha ha, i thought that also!


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## mcmc (Feb 10, 2008)

This is great - I've been knocking around the idea of trimming off the back of a reflector and using a cluster of rebels in it...you've brought it to reality! =)

If you moved the Endor board up or down a little, to slightly defocus, do you think the beam would smooth out a bit? I'm thinking about having an Endor mod done in an HDS and trimming the back of the reflector there too.

The current hogging issue...this is a problem with all Endor boards, no? B/c they're all parallel? Or can it be wired such that each led gets its own drive?


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## cmacclel (Feb 10, 2008)

mcmc said:


> This is great - I've been knocking around the idea of trimming off the back of a reflector and using a cluster of rebels in it...you've brought it to reality! =)
> 
> If you moved the Endor board up or down a little, to slightly defocus, do you think the beam would smooth out a bit? I'm thinking about having an Endor mod done in an HDS and trimming the back of the reflector there too.
> 
> The current hogging issue...this is a problem with all Endor boards, no? B/c they're all parallel? Or can it be wired such that each led gets its own drive?





The Endors come from the supplier in series. The problem with running these in parallel like TigerHawk refers to is that unless each emitter's forward voltage is the same each LED is going to see a different amount of current. 

I have done this many times in the past with no problems to date but I always make sure the foreward voltage is within .1v.

Great MOD!

Mac



Mac


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## ambientmind (Feb 11, 2008)

mcmc said:


> This is great - I've been knocking around the idea of trimming off the back of a reflector and using a cluster of rebels in it...you've brought it to reality! =)
> 
> If you moved the Endor board up or down a little, to slightly defocus, do you think the beam would smooth out a bit? I'm thinking about having an Endor mod done in an HDS and trimming the back of the reflector there too.
> 
> The current hogging issue...this is a problem with all Endor boards, no? B/c they're all parallel? Or can it be wired such that each led gets its own drive?



if you move it "out of focus" it actually produces a donut beam like a single led would out of focus. where it is sitting is the best i could focus it. maybe using a diffusion film on the lens would help to smooth it out, and mac-thanks for the compliment, that means a lot coming from you! you make some amazing lights! if anyone hasn't checked them out, do it! i'm just bummed i didn't have the money for a ostar mag from him. it is a thing of beauty!


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## Icarus (Feb 16, 2008)

Nice mod! :thumbsup:

Why did you open the hole in the reflector that much? :thinking:


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## mcmc (Feb 16, 2008)

Probably to hit the focus point, as he mentioned.


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## KrisP (Mar 5, 2008)

I have all my parts now... And several questions 

The rebel star is too wide to fit into the C2 heatsink. Did you just grind it down so it would drop in? I am thinking of just using a Dremel to 'help' it fit.

Since the star is larger than the original Cree "star" it overlaps the holes for the wiring. How did you get your wiring from the underside to the top of the star?

Did you raise the star or stick it directly to the stock heatsink? Or did you just unscrew the heatsink slightly to raise it?

I'm also replacing the stock driver board with a tri-flupic so I have some modes... But now that I have all the parts, i've found the stock driver board is 18mm in diameter and the tri-flupic is 20mm in diam. This should be fun to overcome 


Thanks in advance


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## ambientmind (Mar 5, 2008)

KrisP said:


> I have all my parts now... And several questions
> 
> The rebel star is too wide to fit into the C2 heatsink. Did you just grind it down so it would drop in? I am thinking of just using a Dremel to 'help' it fit.
> 
> ...



those were all the same problems i had. its not very easy to do, it takes a little time. I think my star was just slightly too large to fit, i just nipped the corners of the "wings" of the star off, and pressure fit it in with aa underneath it for heat transfer. i had to make all new holes for the wiring to fit, i put the star in(without aa), marked where the holes would be, pulled it back out and drilled the pill. then glued the star in, wired it and used a blank 18mm driver board to connect all the wires to. your problem with the tri-flupic was why i made mine direct drive. i cant find an 18mm driver that will power all three off of an 18650. when i have some time, i'm going to try and make some sort of custom Frankenstein board to regulate this thing. i just have too many projects going right now for that. good luck, let me know how it turns out!


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## KrisP (Mar 6, 2008)

Well, I got half way through it... 

I used a Dremel to grind the star down, this took over an hour as the grinding bit was worn. Then I used a drill bit to elongate the holes in the pill that already exist and created one extra. Then used the drill bit to grind the star cutouts (where you're meant to screw it) so the wires could come up. I have one negative and 3 positives coming through, then linking the negatives on top.
I found that the battery spring has a fair bit of movement so I attached the tri-flupic on to the lip of the pill rather than inside the lip. The pill is 20mm in diam, so the board is flush with the pill.

I left my AA at home, so i'll glue the star, solder the positive wires on and drill the reflector out tomorrow... Hopefully it works 


Thanks for your help!


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## KrisP (Mar 7, 2008)

I finished it and it works, but my reflector issue is much worse than yours. I have a BIG dark spot in the middle of the beam which I could only reduce slightly by unscrewing the pill to raise it. I ordered a 36mm x 40mm FL aspheric from surplus shed to see what that does. It will be well out of focus so it should just be a wide beam of light, like when you screw an aspheric Mag head all the way down. I guess i'll see in a couple of weeks when it arrives  I'm just using it without any reflector for the moment because the beam bothered me so much.


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## LiteFan (Mar 7, 2008)

Cool Mod


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## ambientmind (Mar 8, 2008)

KrisP said:


> I finished it and it works, but my reflector issue is much worse than yours. I have a BIG dark spot in the middle of the beam which I could only reduce slightly by unscrewing the pill to raise it. I ordered a 36mm x 40mm FL aspheric from surplus shed to see what that does. It will be well out of focus so it should just be a wide beam of light, like when you screw an aspheric Mag head all the way down. I guess i'll see in a couple of weeks when it arrives  I'm just using it without any reflector for the moment because the beam bothered me so much.


how is it with the flupic in there? i'm curious as to what effect this has on current and runtime. any idea what youre getting to each emitter?


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## KrisP (Mar 9, 2008)

Unfortunately, I can't measure the individual current draw... The star was hard enough to solder to the first time, i'd rather not do it again. The total current draw, at the tailcap, on the highest setting is about 2.1A. The circuit didn't like me measuring the output, it would power up for about 3 seconds and then turn off. It works fine with the tailcap on though. It also wouldn't let me change modes while measuring the current either.

I have the flupic set up so it turns on in HIGH, then second function is set to the lowest possible output. The low level is more than enough to see around my shed. I'd love to know what the current draw of LOW is.


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## ambientmind (Mar 9, 2008)

KrisP said:


> Unfortunately, I can't measure the individual current draw... The star was hard enough to solder to the first time, i'd rather not do it again. The total current draw, at the tailcap, on the highest setting is about 2.1A. The circuit didn't like me measuring the output, it would power up for about 3 seconds and then turn off. It works fine with the tailcap on though. It also wouldn't let me change modes while measuring the current either.
> 
> I have the flupic set up so it turns on in HIGH, then second function is set to the lowest possible output. The low level is more than enough to see around my shed. I'd love to know what the current draw of LOW is.



very cool! :thumbsup: i only wish we could convince on of the geniuses on here to build us a smaller board with something like 3 levels on it to fit in this light and drive the leds at ~1000mA, ~200mA, and ~30mA. that would be great!


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## KrisP (Mar 9, 2008)

As far as I can see, a Shark/Remora (~196mA/490mA/980mA) or Maxflex(user configurable) would work if the LEDs were wired in series. Now that I think about it, I don't understand why I didn't do that 

Maxflex is 20mm too 
Shark is 19mm. Hmmm... Neither fit.


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## ambientmind (Mar 10, 2008)

KrisP said:


> As far as I can see, a Shark/Remora (~196mA/490mA/980mA) or Maxflex(user configurable) would work if the LEDs were wired in series. Now that I think about it, I don't understand why I didn't do that
> 
> Maxflex is 20mm too
> Shark is 19mm. Hmmm... Neither fit.



i'm not too familiar with those boards, but would they be able to drive 3 leds in series off of only 3.7V? i thought the input voltage needed to be higher than the total vf of the leds in order to drive them in series.


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## KrisP (Mar 10, 2008)

They're boost boards so they boost a low input voltage to a high output voltage 

I've used the Shark/Remora combo for 9AA(10.8v) to run 4 Seouls(~14v) and 2 Li-ion(7.4v) to run 3 Cree Q2(~11.1v). The Sandwich Shoppe sells the Shark & Remora separately or pre-connected. It's not cheap at $50 pre-connectd though. It can accept an input voltage for 2.7-20v. 

I haven't used the Maxflex because TaskLED won't ship directly to Australia as they have an authorised Australian distributor who is unreliable and charges far too much  This board seems to have quite a few more features though and is just one board rather than 2 board joined.

Regarding your question about 3 LEDs from one Li-ion... The Shark manufacturer recommends that the input voltage (at it's minimum) should be at least 1/3 of the total Vf output. So in theory, you're on the border or slightly below.


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## KrisP (Mar 18, 2008)

The aspheric lens came... It would fit on top but it was too close to being in focus so I had 3 little square waffles and some light spill around each one. So I decided to grind the lip off the aspheric so that the lens would drop down into the head. This worked and made the beam out of focus. 
Then I had to work out how to hold the lens insie the head... I could have glued it in, but I wanted to be able to remove it so I made up some spacers out of black plastic. So the lens sits in the head, there's a rubber o-ring on the top of the lens, then two plastic spacers on top then the bezel is screwed on. It's average work but the lens is now secure 

The light...











My hand isn't that red. I had the camera on auto so for some reason I look red instead of white 





This is on my ceiling in daylight. Camera all auto settings and both, the light and camera, in my hands.






My miserable attempt at outdoor beam shots... These were the closest to what it actually looked like. Low is useful in a pitch black room, but not much use outside with ambient light.

Control. Canon A95 - ISO-200, F2.8, Shutter 3.2s:





Lowest mode of tri-flupic: (I have no idea why the sky changed brightness as all setting were exactly the same)





Highest mode of tri-flupic:


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## KrisP (Mar 19, 2008)

I changed the flupic mode and was able to get some measurements... At level 1 of the flupic, it draws 19mA overall, that's the low pic above. At level 5 it draws about 510mA and at level 10, the high pic above, it draws 2.0A. The battery voltage was down to 3.8v, so the LEDs are no longer drawing 2.1A.


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## diff_lock2 (Mar 19, 2008)

2A on the rebels? I thought the tri rebel was in series. Or is this draw on the cells?


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## KrisP (Mar 19, 2008)

I removed the series links so that the individual LEDs could be run by the tri-flupic. The 2A draw is at the battery.


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## ambientmind (Mar 20, 2008)

KrisP said:


> The aspheric lens came... It would fit on top but it was too close to being in focus so I had 3 little square waffles and some light spill around each one. So I decided to grind the lip off the aspheric so that the lens would drop down into the head. This worked and made the beam out of focus.
> Then I had to work out how to hold the lens insie the head... I could have glued it in, but I wanted to be able to remove it so I made up some spacers out of black plastic. So the lens sits in the head, there's a rubber o-ring on the top of the lens, then two plastic spacers on top then the bezel is screwed on. It's average work but the lens is now secure
> 
> The light...
> ...


Very very cool! I like it a lot, i've always wondered what this would look like with an aspheric, and now I know! Great job! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## KrisP (Mar 20, 2008)

Thanks  

It's amazing how much light comes from such a little light!


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## wquiles (Mar 20, 2008)

Nitroz said:


> Wow! That's a nice looking light. The photos are great also.


+1

Will


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## ambientmind (Apr 28, 2008)

updated first post!


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## toby_pra (Apr 28, 2008)

wuhuu this looks really nice!

Is that an aspheric lens?


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## ambientmind (Apr 28, 2008)

toby_pra said:


> wuhuu this looks really nice!
> 
> Is that an aspheric lens?



not on mine, but KrisP built one with a triflupic and an aspheric.


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## toby_pra (Apr 29, 2008)

thanks for the informations...:naughty:


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