# SST-50 Mag 3D with deep Rebel SMO reflector



## Der Wichtel (Jul 16, 2010)

Here is my not yet finished SST-50 light. 
I think this one will become one of my favorite lights because of its good beam characteristic. I started planing 2 months ago and today I got some free time to start building.

Here is the build log:

First I soldered some enamelled copper wires to the LED. Had to use pretty much flux











Then glued the LED to the "LED-Socket" with Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive after cleaning the remains of the flux. 










After that I put on some thermal grease and screwed the socket onto the heatsink:









soldered the driver to the LED...






Currently I'm still waiting for the batteries so that's as far as I got. Anyway, I put the heatsink into the Mag and hooked it up to the bench power supply to take some beamshots  















The beam is very clean and can throw pretty far but can also be adjusted to a useful flood. This is by far one of the best beams I've ever had. Did I already mention that I really like it? 

SST-50 @ 5A





compared to an underdrivern SST-90 with strippled original Mag reflector:

SST-90 @ 5A





Both at the same time:






Unfortunately the wires from my power supply are not long enough  so that I can't take outdoor shots. I hope the batteries will arrive soon.

EDIT:
OK, got the batteries yesterday and took some beamshots outdoors:





It's really incredible how far it throws!


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## blackdragonx1186 (Jul 16, 2010)

Awesome work, as always! I wish I wasn't so broke, because I really want a triple P7 light!


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## @cafecomfacas (Jul 16, 2010)

Great job! Cool beam!!


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## Mettee (Jul 16, 2010)

Looking good, nice heatsink. You really have to get that led low to make the rebel reflector work but its totally worth it. 

You going to offer that heatsink?


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## ^Gurthang (Jul 17, 2010)

Wich,

Oooh me like! Great heatsink design, very clever. What gauge wire used on the LED? I'm guessing you used enameled "magnet" wire.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 17, 2010)

Mettee said:


> Looking good, nice heatsink. You really have to get that led low to make the rebel reflector work but its totally worth it.
> 
> You going to offer that heatsink?



yep



^Gurthang said:


> Wich,
> 
> Oooh me like! Great heatsink design, very clever. What gauge wire used on the LED? I'm guessing you used enameled "magnet" wire.



Yes you are right. The diameter is 1mm so that should be AWG18. The advantage of these wires is that the resistance is very low compared to an equally thick wire with usual insulation. Furthermore they can be easily soldered to the LEDs. But disadvantages are low flexibility and the weak insulation layer which can be damaged. But since these are used between LED and driver there shouldn't be any problems as these aren't moved that much.


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## JamisonM (Jul 17, 2010)

Der Wichtel, I didn't something similar with one of Mac's heatsinks he offered a while ago and a hipCC. I was surprised to see that the rebel reflector focuses right at the upper edge of the heatsink's pedestal. Even driven at 2.8A, this thing is a light cannon, but I can't help but wonder how much light is being lost because of the reflector.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 17, 2010)

Here, on this pic you can see the height of the focused LED.
The deeper the focal point is the more light is being reflected which makes this reflector much better than the standard light bulb mag reflector where the focal point is in the middle of the reflector. This is ok for light bulbs since they have a 360° radiation pattern but for LEDs with max. 180° ( because they do not emit light backwards) you want a reflector with a focal point as deep as possible to collect most of the light on the reflector surface.


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## Mettee (Jul 17, 2010)

Cool, so you will be selling these, that is good to know. 

I have a few questions, Does the head screw all the way down or just enough to cover the o-ring? And I assume they are ano'd, or will be?

eta: and it looks like you left a good amount of room for heavy gauge wires, the BL heatsink I have used does not have much room for anything bigger than 24g.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 17, 2010)

the head screws almost all the way down. I wanted to have a good flood as well so the LED sits a little bit higher. There is still pretty much room that covers the o-oring.

Yes, the heatsink is anodized.


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## Mettee (Jul 17, 2010)

sweet, if you want to send me one for testing I am open to it :devil::nana:


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## Packhorse (Jul 17, 2010)

Where did you get the reflector?

I used a deep SMO reflector from a W300 ultrafire (35mm dia) and was quite impressed.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 18, 2010)

The reflector comes with the new Luxeon Rebel based Mag-Lites:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/250681

You can contact Mag-Lite and order one seperately sometimes they will give you one for free. But you'll need the new host anyway otherwise you won't be able to screw the head all the way down

@ Mettee: I'm still waiting for the parts. The heatsink above was only a sample for testing before starting production. If they ship the parts on monday then I think I'll have them on Wednesday.


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## Al Combs (Jul 18, 2010)

Any chance you could make just the small insert the LED mounts on from copper? That would be awesome. Either way, this looks to be a popular item.:twothumbs


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 18, 2010)

Well, I thought of that but as you can see on the second picture the wires are pretty close to the edge so a non insulated socket will cause shorts very easily. Furthermore I think that the problem is not getting the heat out of the LED to the Heatsink but rather dissipating the heat from the Mag-Lite body.


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## irv_usc (Jul 19, 2010)

Is the LED pedestal self-centering?


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## ^Gurthang (Jul 19, 2010)

Wich,

Great thread and a great light. When I was deep into DIY audio I used lots of magnet wire and I'll agree, the enamel / varnish used on that sort of wire is not very forgiving around metal [scrapes & scratches]. 

I will offer a single thought, Michael Percy Audio offers both Cardas 18ga. and Kimber 20ga. single strand wire w/ a very thin teflon jacket. MUCH tougher than enamel. 

Perhaps a nice option for a DIY group buy....


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 19, 2010)

@ irv_usc: 
yes, as can be seen on the 4th picture

@Gurthang: never heard of suche wires, interesting.


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## Mettee (Jul 19, 2010)

Hey DW,

No one asked yet I dont think, and its not important to me...but will there be an SST-90 version of this? Or maybe I missed it.

Cant wait to get one and try it out. Looks like the fit and finish is outstanding.

On a side note, and to add...when I did a custom one of these for a P7 with the rebel mag reflector I used the standard version mag body. The new version(or led) body has roughly .150 thousands less thread on the head end. So I had to sink the LED deeper into the body to make it work. I think to make this heat sink work with the older style body all you will have to do is remove the lip on the heat sink and let it rest on top of the switch. Or something like that. Maybe you can offer that option DW.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 20, 2010)

Mettee said:


> Hey DW,
> 
> No one asked yet I dont think, and its not important to me...but will there be an SST-90 version of this? Or maybe I missed it.



Yes, there will be a SST-90 version. All parts just arrived 15minutes ago. Just have to check them out.



> On a side note, and to add...when I did a custom one of these for a P7 with the rebel mag reflector I used the standard version mag body. The new version(or led) body has roughly .150 thousands less thread on the head end. So I had to sink the LED deeper into the body to make it work. I think to make this heat sink work with the older style body all you will have to do is remove the lip on the heat sink and let it rest on top of the switch. Or something like that. Maybe you can offer that option DW.


That's what I thought as well so I made the lip only 1mm thick so they can be filed away easily. But that won't help very much because the new reflector is wider at lower height so they will touch the threads of the older body. Which is why Mag-Lite removed a few mm from the threads of the new bodies so that the head can be screwed all the way down.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 22, 2010)

Outdoor beamshots added


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

Der Wichtel said:


> Well, I thought of that but as you can see on the second picture the wires are pretty close to the edge so a non insulated socket will cause shorts very easily. Furthermore I think that the problem is not getting the heat out of the LED to the Heatsink but rather dissipating the heat from the Mag-Lite body.



I am with Al combs on this one, he is correct. If you make a copper insert, it'll allow higher max current than 9Amp pushed into SST-90.
One can always thermo isolate the wires with thin carpon tape. 

The CST-90 use copper star & that difference brought Max current limit to 13.5Amp from 9Amp on (SSR-90) per mfg. spec. 

With your two piece design, you are using Aluminum (same as Brightlumens), but the additional junction in the two piece design traps more heat, because even if you use Arctic Silver, the best commonly available thermo adhesive, it's heat transfer spec is only 7.5 vs Copper ~400, Aluminum ~250. 

I.E.,in ideal deign, you want to have a few junctions as possible.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 22, 2010)

Yes, I agree that a two part design will increase thermal resistance. But the increasing is minimal as the contact surface between socket and heatsink is bigger.

It really doesn't matter if you use copper or al in this setup as the real limiting factor is the Mag-Lite itself. The only benefit would be the thermal masse, as more power can be stored within the heatsink. So maybe you'll be able to run the light 5s longer.

My estimation for the Mag-Lite's heat dissipation is 3K/W-3.2K/W ( room temperature)

in order to cool down a SST-90 driven at 13.5A you'll need around 0.6K/W

It doesn't matter if you have 3K/W, 3.2K/W.
Increasing the surface of the head or body makes more sense in this case.

Some thing with 9A where you need around 1.8K/W-2K/W

It's just a difference of max. runtime within seconds.


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

Der Wichtel,

Did you get to see this test?
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3443534&postcount=910

The difference between the copper vs. Alum. sink on 9A SST-90 was almost 500 lumens, right from the start.

Even if you just change the inset into copper, not the whole heat sink to keep the cost down, it'll still make a huge difference, as the "insert" is the rate limiting step. You might be able to Anodize the copper if you want to it to be electrical non conductive?

I'd be def. be in. for a few of your heat sinks if made with copper insert. 
Perhaps you could offer a later copper insert upgrade version?

I've made over a dozen a SST-50/SST-90 light, they are either all copper , or copper/Alu. mag sink hybrid or Brightlumens one piece Alu. heat sink. I'd covert future builds into your heat sink with copper insert, because I want to drive them into to the 13-14 Amp zoon.


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## Mettee (Jul 22, 2010)

You can not ano copper. It would not be electrically isolated with any of the coatings that are available to my knowledge. I think the heat sink design is just what it needs to be at this point. The heat sink makes great contact far down into the mag body, and also all the way to the top. So there is total contact with wall of the mag body. With how the wires are routed it is best to have aluminum that is anodized to give you electrical isolation.

I am not saying that the copper does not work as stated, but it would make this heat sink a small amount better. You still have to contend with the outer part of the heat sink transferring heat to the outside of the light through the mag body. I think that is where DW came up with his approach to the materials used. 

Plus... this heat sink to the US will cost close to $30 USD, adding the copper part would probably make it closer to $40.

eta: I just saw the beam shots, looks like it goes out to about 250 to 300 meters  very nice. I have noticed beam with the SST-50/90 seems to be like a tunnel of light, you can really see the difference between them and other leds. The spill is very faint in comparison to the spot.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 22, 2010)

Just for your interest. 

Took my 80W Weller WS 81 solderingstation which has a flat top iron and set it to 150°C. Put it to the top where the LED usually would have sit and this is what I got:

The top temperature was 80°C and the surface which usually makes contact to the body was 74°C. So that's a temperature difference of 6K. I used cheap silicone based thermal paste which I'm usually using for experiments like this between socket and heatsink. However there is max. 1K improvement I think if better thermal grease is used.

When set to 250°C I got 102°C and 94°C respectively.

The Lambdalight measurement is interesting. I'm not sure but a Vf difference of the LEDs can cause the difference in brightness as well. It would be more clear if the current has been measured during the test.


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

Der Wichtel,

If your experiment is trying to figure out how much worse the extra junction may make yours vs. Brightlumens, I don't really think it's a big deal, it may cost you a few degrees, not a big deal. 

I am more seeing your two parts design as an Advantage, due to the flexibility it gives to potentially introduce a copper insert. 

To the US market, Because your heat sink cost more & has one extra junction, it may make it harder to compete with brightlumens one piece design if both are made out of aluminum.

I also used Brightlumen sink SST-90 for Deep rebel SMO, just grind off the skirt, then push the sink deep in. 

However, the copper insert would make your sink far superior, thus a competitive advantage that helps to justify higher price in the US market. 

just my 2 cents


PS: I did 15 Amp test on the brightlumen's sink for 30" , but didn't build a light running that high Amp. 
I would be more confident to build a SST-90 light with copper insert sink to have a 15Amp "Nuke mode". 
I.E. two modes: Low would be = 8-9Amp, High would be the Nuke Mode, 14-15 Amp for less than 1 min short burst :devil:







.
.


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## Mettee (Jul 22, 2010)

You can not use the britelumens heat sink with the rebel reflector, the entire point of DW heat sink design. And you also can not use it unless you cut off the lip and the bottom end of the heat sink. Which makes a lot less mass, and a lot less contact to the body of the mag. Another thing that the DW heat sink does that the britelumens one does not. 

On top of that, when you use the britelumens heat sink you can not use anything bigger than 24 gauge wires, they don't fit into the groves. I even contacted Jo about that but it doesn't seem he changed the design.

A junction that is screwed down is really not a concern, it is done many times. We even glue down leds. Thanks LZ for the pic.










The design is good, and it already competes with the britelumens heat sink. You dont have to grind on it. You dont have to hack up the rebel reflector any more than opening the vertex. There is room for big wires.

Britelumens heat sink- $21 plus, $6 to ship
DW heat sink- $21.xxx and change depending on the exchange, and $6 to ship.


.


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 22, 2010)

@ma_sha1:
No, I was not trying to compare BL heatsink vs mine but rather to a full copper version.

So you got 6K difference between LED pedestal and outer cover/surface with the Al heatsink. So copper may achieve 1-2k difference at best so that's just 4-5K difference to alumium. Only with unobtainium you'll get full 6K difference to Al which is still not very much.

Also keep in mind that the heatsink was 80°C hot .

So I wonder if this 4K difference in temp will really cause a 500L boost.

And now to your 15A test 

The main reason why direct driven LEDs go  is because most people use normal multimeters such as yours to test the current while building the light.

But the current you are reading is much lower compared to the current without the meter in between because of its resistance. Some people realized that and use thicker wires but you can use wires as thick as you want, the meter has an internal measuring resistor of around 0.01Ohm - 0.1Ohm ( some may be higher or lower). So the voltage drop accross these can be between 0.9V-0.09V which will cause big current differences. 

Thus always try to keep the current a few Amps lower while building your light. 

Nevertheless I will think about a copper version but I'm not sure if there could be problems while machining as it is a very soft material.

For the Al version I already had to learn that the SST-50 socket was hard to machine as the fine milling heads broke thousand times.

EDIT:
What kind of batteries are you using that can withstand 15A?


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## Norm (Jul 22, 2010)

Looking forward to this being available as a kit, looks brilliant.
Norm


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## overdog (Jul 22, 2010)

Hello Yitao,
thank you for giving some variety in the SST possibilities AND your spirit to realize it... Things get better step by step- anyone please take a look at Mr. Benz`s, Mr. BMW`s, Mr. Chrysler`s and Mr. Fiat`s work- they all have found their fans... 

...another very nice, precise and innovatively work from you!


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

Mettee said:


> You can not use the britelumens heat sink with the rebel reflector, the entire point of DW heat sink design. And you also can not use it unless you cut off the lip and the bottom end of the heat sink. Which makes a lot less mass, and a lot less contact to the body of the mag. Another thing that the DW heat sink does that the britelumens one does not.



You are wright about cutting the rim & skirt to fit rebel SMO, as seen in this light I built:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/273748

But it does not cause loss of mass (relative to other sinks), because after cutting the skirt, the heatsink is solid chunck & still tall & sit right on the switch, there's no more mass that one can fill any more. 

It does lose the 10mm contact area above the heatsink, so that's a good point. I could have filled it with a copper ring, but given that light Amp maxed out at 8.2Amp, it wasn't necessary. 




Mettee said:


> On top of that, when you use the britelumens heat sink you can not use anything bigger than 24 gauge wires, they don't fit into the groves. I even contacted Jo about that but it doesn't seem he changed the design.



This is not True for all wires. With Teflon wires, bright lumens sink can fit
20 AWG silver coated copper. I used 20AWG Teflon wires in the build mentioned above.


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

Der Wichtel said:


> @ma_sha1:
> So I wonder if this 4K difference in temp will really cause a 500L boost.



Those are OTF facts from BigC, hard to argue with facts, right?
4K is either not the real reason or not the total reason. 



Der Wichtel said:


> @ma_sha1:
> 
> And now to your 15A test
> 
> ...



I had a clamp meter before this & didn't like it. This is the same meter that BigC uses, I decided to get it to correlated with his measurements, because he has correlated this meter with Fluke & was getting identical readings. 

Mag Body/residue resistance in switch etc is about 0.05 Ohm, 
So, this meter when hooked direct to led, simulate direct drive very well,
as the internal resistance is then replaced by flashlight body resistance. 



Der Wichtel said:


> @ma_sha1:
> Nevertheless I will think about a copper version but I'm not sure if there could be problems while machining as it is a very soft material.
> 
> For the Al version I already had to learn that the SST-50 socket was hard to machine as the fine milling heads broke thousand times.
> ...



Count me in for a few, if you manage to make the copper sinks!

Those batteries are 26650 Lifep04, two together = 6.67V
rated max current 14Amp spec.
rated continues current 7.5A spec. 

I am thinking using your driver with the two Lifep04 for low,
then Copper sink DD for hi, DPDT switch to toggle between the two.

What's your buck driver's minimum input volt? 
Would it work if battery volt drops to 4.5-5.5v input range?


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## overdog (Jul 22, 2010)

Hello ma_sha,
...after a hard working day I look forward to take a look in this forum, my new hobby- one question- I always love to read your new postings about SST emitters, you for sure have most experience to my mind, you posts look like you build lights out of nothing like Mc Guiver (moviestar- Mc Guiver: build anything out of nothing), - but why do you spend your time to write posts like the last ones- make it better and post it with your own B/S/T thread... I am sure, you have the power!


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 22, 2010)

Sure these values are facts but like I said before without the current those values can not be compared. 

It's like cottoncandy. You have one smaller than the other one but you want the one with most sugar. Without knowing of each density you don't know which one has more sugar. where the amount of sugar is the lightoutput and the sugar density the different Vf respectivelylovecpf 
It's getting interesting.
Only BigC can tell now ... ( can you write him a pm? It's getting late here)



The min. voltage is 6V and don't forget the voltage drop across the wire and within the battery under load.


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## ma_sha1 (Jul 22, 2010)

overdog said:


> Hello ma_sha,
> ...after a hard working day I look forward to take a look in this forum, my new hobby- one question- I always love to read your new postings about SST emitters, you for sure have most experience to my mind, you posts look like you build lights out of nothing like Mc Guiver (moviestar- Mc Guiver: build anything out of nothing), - but why do you spend your time to write posts like the last ones- make it better and post it with your own B/S/T thread... I am sure, you have the power!



Thanks man, you have some crazy build your self!

I was thinking about the "Nuke Mode" SST-90 for a while, that's why I first went search for battery solution & got those high current Lifepo4 batteries. It isn't on top of my priority, so I prefer just buy a copper sink, otherwise, I could probably hand make a copper sink, won't happen right away, as I have a big secret project under way, if successful, the impact would be far greater than the SST-90 Nuke, too many ideas & too little time :devil:

I am taking your advise & will leave this thread alone


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## FBsLights (Jul 23, 2010)

These look good. Any idea when they might be available?

FB


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## Der Wichtel (Jul 24, 2010)

they are already available
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3461444


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## ti-force (Jul 25, 2010)

ma_sha1 said:


> Der Wichtel,
> 
> Did you get to see this test?
> https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3443534&postcount=910
> ...





ma_sha1 said:


> Those are OTF facts from BigC, hard to argue with facts, right?




I questioned whether those results would mislead people or not. I posted in that thread hoping to help people understand that those are *two different lights*. What I mean is, the lights have the same *type* of components, but not the *exact same* components. I'm afraid that comparison was flawed from the beginning. There are far too many variables to call that a fair comparison.

Both lights are using the same emitter type, and both emitters have the same flux binning, but to be fair (and to eliminate variables), the exact same emitter needs to be used during testing for each heatsink type. Let me show you what I mean, and this is only taking into consideration the differences between one emitter and another, again the same type and flux bin, but two different emitters.

The minimum luminous flux for an SST-90 at 3.15A is 1000 emitter lumens, while the maximum is 1200 emitter lumens at 3.15A. That alone is a possible 200 lumen difference between two emitters that have the exact same flux bin, and the difference could possibly be greater than the datasheet specifies. Let's say the emitter in the aluminum heatsink light is on the low side of the luminous flux rating, and the emitter in the copper version is on the high side of the luminous flux rating; that could easily explain the majority of difference in output.

Look at the 1 sec reading. The fact that the copper version is almost 300 OTF lumens higher at 1 second should throw up a red flag instantly. There's no way almost 300 OTF lumens is being lost due to aluminum vs copper within 1 sec of turn-on. Now figure in driver variables, switch variables, human error etc., etc., and you can see how the results are not a fair comparison of aluminum vs copper, and that's not even taking into consideration that the guy at Lambdalights did other modifications to improve the output of the copper version for BigC (see this post)

BigC is currently working on a light for a true comparison test, and if he uses the exact same light, * swapping only the emitter between the two heatsinks* for the test, then the results will be more accurate. I feel like the copper will prove to be advantageous in reducing OTF losses due to heat after possibly a few seconds, but it just isn't feasible that an increase in OTF lumens could be seen at 1 second due to the use of a copper heatsink.


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## ti-force (Aug 7, 2010)

ma_sha1 said:


> After reading BigC's post about copper vs Alu. heat sink SST-90, I was not convinced copper be that much brighter at turn on.
> http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...&postcount=910
> 
> So here it s, the curiosity got the better of me, I bought BigC's Copper version of Vera2000 to test against my SST-90 Brihtlumen Alu. sink SST-90 Mag 1.5D
> ...



Still not a fair comparison of copper vs aluminum, but it shows how variables can make a difference.

Quote taken from post # 1082 in BigC's thread.


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## Raoul_Duke (Oct 2, 2010)

How do you guys know when to turn off the light when the cells are depleated?
I take it the LED/ Driver will continue to pull the 2 x li-ion cells past 2.5V each Under load?
 Total LED Newb...:candle:


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## Der Wichtel (Oct 2, 2010)

What I'm doing is to estimate the runtime

h = batteryvoltage * batterycapacity / ( max. outputpower)

for SST-50 22W
for SST-90 35W

So having the runtime you roughly know how long/much you can use your light and after some use I just check the batteryvoltage. If the voltage is under 3.4V I usually recharge them. This works for me quite well


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## bigchelis (Oct 2, 2010)

Im gonna change my handle to bigCopper now:naughty::naughty::naughty:


The CBT-90 and Quad SST-90 emitters all have copper stars. Huge copper stars to boot. 

The new Tripple XP-G R5's by lux-RC are also using copper stars.
http://www.lux-rc.com/view.php?p=content/showcase/L30/LED_engines

Comming soon the Oveready tripples will also switch over to copper only. Yes, they got the copper bug now:thumbsup: Scott (millky) and AaronM also are copper guys too( just look at those masterpieces below)

My personal Milky or SSR-90 type lights = all copper and heavy!

Im sticking with copper now, but I wish that DW made those heatsinks in aluminum and copper for the crazies like me. I just like the feel and heft that copper brings to the table. It makes my E-series lights feel expensive.


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