# New: The SSC-P4 Microblaster !



## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

*The SSC-P4 Microblaster !*

Hi guyzz,

This is about a project I started a year ago! Didn't have the time to post about this sooner.. 

As most of you meight not know, apart from the HID-love I have, I'm playing with led's as well. Led's are very usefull in smaller torches, and are becomming more efficient every year!

I was not quite happy with buying 90 lumens/watt leds and throw away much of this efficiency by using a conventional reflector setup or aspheric lenses.
Ok, aspherical lenses are great for throw, but not very practical with virtually no usable sidespill!

With my optical background, I always try to improve the optics (lenses, reflectors) used in torches today. When I saw the acryllic based TIR-optics a few years ago, I instantly knew that those were the best possible collimators for use with high power leds like luxeon and seoul. The best solution for high throw with usable sidespill. De big disatvantage is that they come in only a few sizes, and are very fragile.

So I began thinking (again..) and came up with this:







Above are the theoretics behind a glass-based TIR optic I wanted to make myself! Grabbing an emittance angle of 170 degrees and having a total efficiency of 95% !! Yep, that means 95% of the emitted led-lumens are actually converted into torchlumens!

And this is one of the results:






Above, you see a 30mm diameter version, I've made a few smaller versions as well. One of those smaller versions is working very well in my new Microblaster:






Microblaster is a SSC-P4, 3-level, reed-switch controlled, super waterproof (depth 300m) mini torch with up to 200 lumens of output at 2200 lux/1m






With a head-diameter of only 17.5mm and a reflector-diameter of 15.5mm, making my own optic was the only solution to prevent the nessessity of using low effficiency conventional reflectors for this.. OK, not quite: I machened some acryllic optics before to fit them in small lights I modded earlier:






They are based on earlier Luxeon-III emitters and still work fine. EDIT: I recently fitted the bigger one with a SSC-P4 emitter: 6500 cp (in stead of 2600 cp)

Making a glass based optic takes two full days, but it's worth the hard labour: Glass has much lower thermal expansion, can easily be coated with an antreflection-coating, and can easily be cleaned without damaging it. And, within quite a big range, I can make any size, with any collimation angle!
However, being fully glass, size is limited to about 50mm diameter, bigger will be heavy!

Beampattern:







As you can see, amost all the lumens are concentrated within the main beam, very, very little is lost towards the side!

Glass based TIR's have exactly the same throw as aspheric lenses with the same diameter, but TIR's give more usable sidespill due to the much higher efficiency!


Specs Microblaster:

Seoul SSC P4 emitter
Massive copper heatsink with embedded reed-switches, attached to reflector-head.
AW 10280 180 mAh Li-Ion cell
3-level (resistor based):
1: 50 hours 2 torchlumens/ 20cp (average output, with resistor)
2: 3 hours 20 torchlumens/210cp (average output, with resistor)
3: 15 min 200 torchlumens/2200cp (average output, direct drive, no resistor)
Water resistant up to depths of 300 meters.


I'm working on a Cree Q-5 Microblaster, more about this later..

Any questions??


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## London Lad (Jan 12, 2008)

Incredible work, well done!

How do you make the optic ?

Are you going to make some for sale ?


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## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

London Lad said:


> Incredible work, well done!
> 
> How do you make the optic ?
> 
> Are you going to make some for sale ?



Thanks,

It takes two days to make just one! So if I ever would sell them, they will be very expensive! At least $150.-.. Compare that to a $3.- acryllic based optic, which already reach up to 90% efficiency. That would be $147 for only 5% extra efficiency!
In some cases it is quite impossible to make things that come from a hobby commercially aviable.. Sorry.

It's very hard to explain how to make them: It's much more dificult than making an aspherical lens yourself.


Best,

Ra.


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## Nebula (Jan 12, 2008)

Very nice work, Ra. :thumbsup:


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## LED Zeppelin (Jan 12, 2008)

Amazing Ra! 

What a plethora of talent we have here.


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## McGizmo (Jan 12, 2008)

Cool Ra!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


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## Kiessling (Jan 12, 2008)

Very impressive !!


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## Long John (Jan 12, 2008)

Hello Ra

Amazing workmanship ...:twothumbs...:bow:

That's really an incredible light:rock:


All the best my friend

_____
Tom:wave:


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## paulr (Jan 12, 2008)

Wow, incredible work. Can you do one for the tri-star Rebel?


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## Supernam (Jan 12, 2008)

WOW! How much labor for an acrylic lens.?


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## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

paulr said:


> Wow, incredible work. Can you do one for the tri-star Rebel?



In theory, yes.. I can match them to any kind of emitter, putting three or more of them together needs some work as well, but it is possible..

And Supernam: I don't want to make acrylic based types, they can easly be damaged and have high thermal expansion.

Best,

Ra.


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## THE_dAY (Jan 12, 2008)

very nice work Ra!

i would love to see some beamshots!


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## N10 (Jan 12, 2008)

totally impressive!...


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## claustro (Jan 12, 2008)

Awesome!!
Great great work!
One question did U make the reed switch by youself?
If yes can you explane how you made it !

THX
Andrea


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## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

claustro said:


> Awesome!!
> Great great work!
> One question did U make the reed switch by youself?
> If yes can you explane how you made it !
> ...



I didn't make them myself, they are cheap and commonly aviable.

A reed-switch is a rare gas filled glass envelope with two contacts inside. It is triggered by magnetic induction (coil or magnet).

The advanages: Completely sealed, no corrosion of contacts, very high reliabillity, and very small enclosure! The reed switches in Microblaster are 5mm long and have 1.8mm diameter. They are triggered through the al-body, by a little neodymium magnet, embedded inside the white ring just below the reflector-head.


Best,

Ra.


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## JetskiMark (Jan 12, 2008)

Hello Ra,

Your previous creations were so very impressive, now this! If you could only go into production with all of them.

It would be nice if you could take some outdoor beamshots of your Microblaster compared to some production LED lights that others might already have. It would be fun to throw your 10W HID and Maxablaster into the mix as well. It would be interesting to see some close to medium range shots of your throw monsters.

Regards,
Mark


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## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

Hi Mark,

My problem is that I don't have much other lights, I'm not quite a flashlight collector.
Also, most of the lights in the US are not aviable here, and need to be shipped over a long distance, which make them more expensive..

I'll try to make some outside beamshots in the comming days..


Best,

Ra.


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## claustro (Jan 12, 2008)

Ra said:


> A reed-switch is a rare gas filled glass envelope with two contacts inside. It is triggered by magnetic induction (coil or magnet).



Thank you Ra for your answer, I know what reeds switch are I 'd like to know if you made by yourself the ring outside the body torch with the magnet which control it...I am sorry my english is very bad:bow:

Anyway you did an incredible work there :goodjob:

Andrea


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## Ra (Jan 12, 2008)

The entire light is my own design and homemade, with the help of a friend of mine, with high machening skills..


Best,

Ra.


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## Bimmerboy (Mar 31, 2008)

Super nice optic, Ra! Love the way it looks so clear too.

Curious about the problem with acrylic's thermal expansion. Is it that the LED heats the head, and the head heats the optic? What happens when acrylic expands? Does it affect focus and/or collimation?


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## AlexGT (Mar 31, 2008)

You need to go work for Surefire, You are very talented! Good work RA!

AlexGT


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## traildesaster (Apr 1, 2008)

Ra is highly overqualified for the flashlight business. It is a shame seeing my work in the light of his. *gg*

Gruß td


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## Holzleim (Jul 3, 2008)

Hi Ra,

you mentioned the following:

"Glass based TIR's have exactly the same throw as aspheric lenses with the same diameter*"

*Do you know some (perhaps simplified) mathematic relationship between the size (diameter of LED die) of the light emitting object and the size (diameter) of an asperical lens mounted in front of it regarding divergence of the resulting beam?

I'm asking this because I'm planning to do LED based lamp with a big asperical lens (> 10cm) and want to estimate what tightness (beam divergence) can be achieved with such a setup. 

Did you calculate what opening angle the beam of your Maxablaster and your 10W HID has?

Best Regards and Thanks in advance,

Holzleim


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## IMSabbel (Jul 3, 2008)

Something about the OP:

If the fitting for the led is indeed cyclindrical, this will NOT result in a >90% efficiency.
Typical reflectivities are normal incidence only. 
This space for the led makes is seem like >75% of the light will hit the walls at angles >20%.
Especially the stuff hitting the sidewalls with reflected with a high probability.


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## LuxLuthor (Jan 7, 2009)

Just saw this thread after DM51 gave a link to it from this other topic. Another reason that Ra represents the Egyptian God, Ra so well. Amazing.

Now....on to look at some of the SF versions using TIR.


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## AnAppleSnail (Sep 15, 2009)

IMSabbel said:


> Something about the OP:
> 
> If the fitting for the led is indeed cyclindrical, this will NOT result in a >90% efficiency.
> Typical reflectivities are normal incidence only.
> ...


My extremely limited understanding is that much of the light hits the 'top' of the cylinder, forming the center beam of light. Of course my last 'optics' class was a section within polymer science, so I'm quite ignorant here!


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## bshanahan14rulz (Sep 15, 2009)

IMSabbel said:


> Something about the OP:
> 
> If the fitting for the led is indeed cyclindrical, this will NOT result in a >90% efficiency.
> Typical reflectivities are normal incidence only.
> ...



I dunno, the picture makes sense to me.. perhaps some problems towards the corners of the cylinder, but I think the idea is that the cylinder refracts light so that it hits the sides at a not-so-steep angle so that it gets reflected out instead of refracted out the sides.

Besides, aren't most TIRs similar in design?


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## Ra (Oct 31, 2009)

bshanahan14rulz said:


> Besides, aren't most TIRs similar in design?



Yep, they are.. They are based on the optical law of 100% internal reflection.
If you do a lightbox test, comparing TIR's with conventional reflectors, you will notice a mere +20% increase on torchlumens using TIR's..

Regards,

Ra.


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## AlexGT (Oct 31, 2009)

Have you considered making one for the new XP-G or SST's?

AlexGT


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## Ra (Oct 31, 2009)

AlexGT said:


> Have you considered making one for the new XP-G or SST's?
> 
> AlexGT



No, not yet.. Other projects (telescopes) keep me from making flashlights, but chances are I'll look into this matter in a few months or so..

Regards,

Ra.


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## 1 what (Oct 31, 2009)

Hi Ra,
Very very nice:thumbsup:


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## Th232 (Oct 31, 2009)

Can't speak for others, but if you did design one for an XP-G it's quite possible that I'd be up for one depending on how tight you can make the beam.


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## ledsmoke (Jan 5, 2010)

*Re: The SSC-P4 Microblaster !*



Ra said:


> 1: 50 hours 2 torchlumens/ 20cp (average output, with resistor)
> 2: 3 hours 20 torchlumens/210cp (average output, with resistor)
> 3: 15 min 200 torchlumens/2200cp (average output, direct drive, no resistor)
> Water resistant up to depths of 300 meters.



Hi Ra, this is truly awesome work.
I've been thinking along the exact same trails as you have about the optics, and recently i thought about using reed switches for dimming since it, as you so elegantly point out, is a 100% mechanically isolated way of controlling the dimming.

Btw. Just left this pic 'cause its beautiful work. So crispy clear... 

And then i find this 2 year old post with all the stuff in the same post. Breathtaking and exiting.

Just wanted you to know you get two thumbs up and a lot of thoughts going here. This stuff is why we have the lovecpf smilie for sure.


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## Krane (Mar 27, 2016)

*Re: The SSC-P4 Microblaster !*

Poofed


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