Monster 7,500 Lumens 100W LED Flashlight for under $10
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- Опубліковано 8 січ 2014
- Help support Julian's LED videos on Patreon: / julian256
I discovered that due to a lucky co-incidence of voltage and internal resistance, a 100W LED can be connected directly across the terminals of two 18V Nickel Cadmium power tool batteries. And that means you can build a 100 Watt (7,500 Lumens) flashlight for less than $10 (not including batteries).
Note: Don't try this with other battery types - you'll almost certainly fry the LED! - Наука та технологія
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I like the convenient handle, and how the whole assembly is so light and easy to carry around.
+Anthony Starfield LOL
+Anthony Starfield
I was thinking the same thing during the whole vid haha.
LMAO. And runs for one second! Great for intra-ship morse code, which i use every day!
Anthony Starfield Personally i went for the design aspects, absolutely gorgeous, altough i prefer the setup in metallic purple!
Wow, fits right into your pocket.
in russia , you are the pocket
Heres a tip. They've replaced traffic lights with leds, and the old traffic lights often have very good parabolic reflectors made of mirrored glass, (some are aluminium) and they're perfect for diy flashlights. If you put a 12v halogen bulb in one and focus it, you get a long beam like a searchlight that you can shine onto low clouds at night (don't do it near an airport).
Hats off to you. This video was very well put together. Doesn't have any extraneous talking and crazy camera jumping around. No dogs in the background barking and yelping, no 2 year olds running around in diapers, no neighbors waving hello, no diesel air horns from big rigs going off. You get the picture. Just look at almost anything on UA-cam generally, and it doesn't come close to the CLEANLINESS of this video. PROFESSIONAL. Kudos to you Julian. Effective immediately, I am personally recommending you for a raise. :) ps Keep 'em coming.
Love the video however those batteries make this flashlight much more then $10 to build.
I think it's because he already had most of the supplies and so it only cost him $10 to make it
Barnacules Nerdgasm Actually, no it doesn't. The flashlight is under $10. The power source costs more as with ANY flashlight anywhere. Your logic is like saying that utilities are part of the cost of a house or fuel is part of the cost of a car. These are OPERATING costs and in every single case, those costs scale with use.
One more time, the flashlight can be built for under $10. You could then sell it for more and make money. Operating it on the other hand, costs more.
Michael-Rainabba Richardson I don't agree. Unlike with a car, you recharge the battery. These are therefore no running costs, but part of the costs for the flashlight. If you take an LED and glue it onto a piece of metal, you cannot consider this a flashlight. Otherwise, your car headlights would also be a flashlight, as would your computer monitor, or even the lights in your house. I truly doubt you consider these "flashlights". Nickel Cadmium accumulators are rechargeable, so if you would buy a solar panel and a bit of circuitry along with the LED you would have next to no running costs, eliminating your claim to be "Operating costs", as these would not scale with use, as the maximum number of recharge cycles wouldn't be met under normal circumstances. +Glytch I doubt every maker has 2 18V Nickel Cadmium accumulators lying around, for example I do not, although I have plenty of other power sources. +Barnacules Nerdgasm Good point, and I didn't expect to see you here! You're almost at 500,000, before you know it you'll overtake Linus! :3
X-PlaneFlightsAndSims Disagreeing is your right, but it doesn't mean you're correct and demonstrating an edge case (confusingly at that) doesn't prove your point overall not make a more valid point less valid. Searched Amazon for "SureFire" (arguably the best known, high output flashlights) and the first result I found was SureFire G2X Pro Dual Output LED Flashlight, Black www.amazon.com/dp/B009F7J960/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_nyCKvbB561BYQ
Doesn't take long to see that the flashlight is $59 and a decent box of batteries is $20. The brighter the light, the greater the battery cost is relatively speaking. This hold true for rechargeables and a charger (making no assumptions about what someone has laying around).
Bottom line with any electronics is that power is an operating cost. Greater portability, greater power output and longer life and smaller size make this increasingly true.
www.tumblr.com/search/intj%20meme
Michael-Rainabba Richardson Neither does your "evidence" apparently supporting your claim. I don't see how battery costs increase with the brightness increasing, as battery costs could remain equal, resulting in less runtime. Nevertheless this would NOT cause an increased costs in a charger. I don't see how claiming that a "decent box of batteries costs $20" proves your point. The question here is not what is considered an operating cost or not, but how you define flashlight. At Dictionary.com, this is defined as "a small, portable electric lamp powered by dry batteries, LEDs, or a tiny generator." Powered by dry batteries, or a generator. You see, screwing an LED onto a piece of metal DOES NOT make it a flashlight, as a Flashlight has to be powered. It may be ABLE to be powered by batteries, but IT ISN'T. Thus, I conclude that the flashlight does in fact cost more than 10$, rejecting all of your claims. It would be illogical for you to question my facts, however, without ignoring the English language.
That is one big LED. Many LED chips inside that 100w LED. The only problem is the high current draw.
My son and I did a similar project using 3s lipo packs, a lipo monitor, one of those gated toggle switches the big red flip over cover and some tubing as the handle, a chunk of extruded aluminum from an old commercial door hinge was our heat sink and led mount for the 2- 10 watt 12v leds... kydex heated and formed into a oval bowl and spray adhesive on a piece mylar space blanket material works really well as a reflector. It's not too shabby actually.. hell of a good work light . We also did a similar power source (lipo 3s for rc trucks , volt monitor and switch) and used a roll of double density warm white led 12v strip (600 leds) adhered to an old metal serving pan that's probably 14 inches in diameter. . It's truly a portable sun .. he did the bulk of the work there too.. fun little after school projects
"So, I'm just gonna do it again, with not NOT pointing directly at the lens..."
LOL! that cracked me up so much...
Why did you not check the amps and volts while ON?
Awesome build! I had no idea that LED's like that were available at such a low price point.
It is important to note, that the V-I curve of LEDs is very temperature dependent.
As your LED array (it really is an array of 100 1W LEDs in that square) heats up, the curve will shift so that the 100W LED has a lower voltage threshold, and will draw more current.
So it great that you found the sweet spot, but that sweet spot doesn't maintain itself, and that's why people use constant current drivers.
The mounting bracket is completely clever. Good video.
PC Enthusiasts be like "he forgot to put thermal paste"
lol my first thought
And a big enough heat sink!
heatpipe
You should have tested it at night time so we could see how it worked
I have to admire the fact that you take the time to convert currencies to American dollars. Thank you!
Very nice work.
I also played with my 100W LED today ...
But my LED is normally rated @ 36V but it is the absolute maximum!
The current is 8.4A! This is very much ... and of course it heats really fast :)
Using two truck batteries would give a longer service life. Forklift battery with a trolley even better..
+Sea Kayaking 2016 a portable one would be better
3:30 "Flashbang out!!!"
Floyd P Jokes on you buddy...I got tac mask on
damn.
Floyd P I was arround the corner...
EXCELLENT video Julian! i love your technical tinkering videos! Thank You for making them!!
Love the battery connectors. Will be re-using that style.
I'd only consider it "under $10" if I already had a bunch of ryobi batteries laying around. A more accurate description would be "100W flashlight for under $150".
That battery costs 60 euro's here. Everything included for under 200 bucks seems more accurate.
That's not so cheap for a 100W cob nowadays.
You can buy them cheaper completely plug&play ip65 for lower prices.
xszl
- I rebuild my Ryobi batteries for about $15 apiece, instead of about $40 new. I'm sure that buying the batteries from Hong Kong, as I do, would be just as good for doing something like this as well. ;)
So what you've effectively demonstrated is that you cannot custom-build a 100W LED flashlight for under $10. Your chosen power source cannot be bought for that price. It is also way too heavy and bulky for a flashlight, as the batteries and the heat sink you need make the contraption obviously impractical for a portable flashlight... Question.. Does the current stay constant as the batteries deplete and voltage drops? (Are constant-current drivers all that expensive?)
davidswelt You're right, the current does drop away quite quickly. I have several other videos where I use electronics to keep the current constant.
Julian Ilett What's happening is that the LED unit is heating up, causing greater and greater resistance and thus reducing the current. It's self-limiting. If you add a resistor to the circuit, the LED won't take such a pounding; both the LED and batteries will last longer.
davidswelt they got those batteries cheap at the thrift store. I'm pretty sure it can be under $10. and it is practical for me, after the sun goes down I need a bright flash light setup when i am working in construction because sometimes I run out of batteries for my head lamp.
markmaxy125 Yes yes, fair enough. Great to see someone _make_ stuff, whether the claims are correct or not :)
markmaxy125 heh. you tube comments. he should have realized it was just for the kicks when he started to get data sheet off eBay auction...
I think it's a good idea to use PWM to pulse the LED on a duty cycle so it doesn't get too hot while maintaining brightness :)
really cool! I love it when people can simplify technology and make it accessible to all :)
You need to put some heat sink paste between the Led and metal plate.
Alain Brunet No not really. The differences are so small you wont even notice.
3:32 Finds sweet spot, destroys earth.
For high-powered LEDs I just use a heatsink + fan for cooling. It works pretty well and might be useful for this.
Perfect flashlight for backpacking, cycling, caving, etc.
Hello +Julian llett, I have a pretty common question for you: How many mah of battery should I have in order to make this LED last at least 8 hours?
I am curious how many seconds (maybe minutes) will the led last because that a very small piece of metal... I have bought an 30W led with driver included and it only consumes like 18-19W (i don't know why, probably because it's a no-name one?) and i mounted it on a big heatsink (little bigger than a CPU one) without ventilation. In half an hour reaches maximum temperature (didn't measured it, but you can keep your hand on the heatsink for ~3-5 sec). Question: How can you calculate the heat sink size/area? According to led dataasheet?
Now I know what to do before a big storm. I need to look around for these soon.
area lamps like that would come in really handy during power outages.
Have you tested the modual to be sure all of the LEDS (all 100 of them) are matched in intensity and that they all light?
Most of these 100w leds are a scam, when you give them just enough power to start seeing the individual leds light up you notice not all of them do, or some are dimmer than others.
For that reason 20w cob led modules are often brighter because they tend to be matched and all the leds actually light up.
Brilliant demonstration and build. You might try looking for an old DELL PC in that skip. DELL made huge heat syncs for some of their comps that used a plastic duct to a fan in back of the computer case. Hmmmmm? use the duct and big fan to mount to a small amuminium box to mount your monster LED to and you may be able to get a full minute before to have a mini supernova. This would be great Light to signal airliners to land with after the BIG EMP destroys most of the unshielded electronics in the world.
Bill James Great idea - market this as an EMP-proof flashlight for use after the apocalypse! Thanks Bill
Bill James How the planes are still working if BIG EMP is used :D?
I think an old Pentium CPU heatsink with a fan would do a great job of cooling that LED, especially if a small aluminum mixxing bowl or cat dish were sandwiched between the LED and the heat sink.
+Bill James Dont forget that the LED is a semiconductor, it would be fried after nuclear EMP.......................
Ingenious connections Julian
Very creative. Thank you for the demonstration. Cheers
@z1power I've don't this in the past. I used some thermal glue to add a old CPU fan, the projectors fan will do the rest. Biggest problem is the light distribution - leds emit usually a very narrow beam so you might get a bright center and dark edges without special lenses
Ist die warmeentwicklung so groß? Wegen des Lichtkegel, bei Taschenlampen haben sie immer eine tropfen auf der LED dieser scheint zum aufteilen des lichtes zu sein um es dann über das Spiegelssystem gleichmäßig nach vorn zu werfen. Evtl kann man für einen Mittleren Preis das Teil noch verbessern. Zumal aktuelle Taschenlampen mit über 300lm noch um die 300€ Kosten. Jedoch kann man sie bestens zum fotografieren einsetzen....
Nunja, 100W sind schon einiges - wenn wir von einem Typischen LED-Wirkungsgrad von 90% und 30% output ausgehen reicht das schon als kleine Herdplatte ;)
So Linsensysteme gibts viele. Am günstigsten könnte man eventuell bei Haushaltslampen davon kommen. Ob die die hohe Lichtstärke aushalten muss sich natürlich zeigen. Wenn du dich für sowas interessierst schau mal bei "electronupdate" vorbei, der nimmt regelmäßig solche Lampen auseinander.
Cool, danke. Habe mich die letzten Tage nach LED Taschenlampen umgeschaut da sie zum fotografieren einfach genial sind.
Next is to use an old magnifying glass as a lens and away we go!
Power LEDs require constant current control. means as it gets hot it will change its internal resistance and what that means is you have to reduce the power or else it will get damaged. that's the reason it gets hot and changes the color. make it short your led will get damaged after you leave it for a while. I liked the way you assembled good job.
I have a 50 watt LED spotlight, and to be able to keep it turned on forever, it has a huge more than 2 kilo chunk of metal body as a heat sink.
Currently we have LED Spotlight at 150Watt but a very light Heat sink :)
If you used an old PC CPU heatsink you would be able to run it for longer.
I use a Mac heat sink which is large and it seems to be able to be kept on for a while with a fan without getting too warm
Twenty Five pounds for that damn power source?? For twenty -five ill fill up me petrol can, get me a big stick, and some rags and burn a fucking torch all night long
TheBlackSheep haha this comment
Take car with this. The current and the DC voltage is a bit on the high speed to touch the terminals directly. The cable size and point of contact could cause a deep penetrating burn when you touch the wires together if the cable is small. The voltage is high enough to feel in the right, (or wrong conditions). Check with someone about a switch for this in place of the touching wires. Cover wiring and terminations. Yes I now it’s not a touch and die but it’s better to air on the side of caution when putting batteries in series and making a video of it. Thanks for the information on the LED nicely done.
I just looked on Ebay and you can get a 100W LED & a driver for $16 & free shipping. That's pretty sweet. I think I'll need to pick one up just because.
Interesting build there Julian, I've got a couple of those 100W LEDs too. Just waiting for a project to come to mind to use them on :)
I was considering getting a couple of the lenses you can buy from eBay for these LEDs just to focus the light a little better. Have you tried the lenses?
Cheers mate
John
Thanks John. Not properly yet - but I've got the reflector and lens somewhere - so I'll do a follow-up video at some point.
Iv one of these and there evil and realy bright!! Iv got it in my workshed and it lights my work area up!! Bloody gets that hot you need a good heatsink and fan!! Iv put a thick lense on it too. Even thow you don't need it hahaha 👍😉
... and you didn't show us the results outside at night!???
didn't bother to tell us run time either :(
Very cool. Thanks Douglas
having a need for bright spotlights (flood lights) for video filming etc I have used the same idea with smaller cheaper MN1604, 6LR61, PP3 type 9Volt block batteries coupled in Series which also gives 36v DC. By keeping the LED in the original fittings for heat dispensation these have also worked for reasonably long periods.
Usually the casings of LED flood lighting has a container attached for the LED driver to convert voltage from mains power to 36v to run the LED. by removing the transformer and mains cable, then fitting the batteries, this makes the lamp completely compact and mobile I also fitted an on off switch through the hole where the power cable attached to the lamp. works great.
I have also noticed that when the light stops working the batteries still have power in them so they can be used for other lower power devices such as smoke detectors, etc. this concept also works with 10W 20W and 50W LEDs.
An alternative would be to fit switch from mains to DC so that voltage would either come from the mains through the transformer or direct from the batteries.
so if you can buy a LED flood light for $9 and spend a dollar on 4 batteries you still meet the aim of this video without burning yourself or setting fire to anything.
cool video, I don't think the title is quite fair though because the batteries alone cost more than that. I understand that you can use them for other purposes but I don't think that if you mad this to use regularly you aren't going to want to take the batteries out of your drill all the time. I also wish you would've done something about a reflector and lense, switch, heatsink, etc to make it more usable because I want to make one to acutally use frequently and would like an example.
I'm planning to improve the original design (and blow the $10 budget) with a bigger heatsink (maybe from a CPU), a fan (24v type running at 36v) and a reflector and lens.
Julian Ilett
You should limit the power of the fan, 24V fans are only the noisy types. Use a 12V silent model and reduce power with a resistor. A CPU heatsink is a very good idea; commercial generic electronics heatsinks are bulky and expensive.
A power resistor for the LED is a must; the dropoff with just batteries is too steep. A 1 Ohm/20W and 10 LiPo cells in series (or 20 cells, 2×10) salvaged from laptop batteries should work nicely.
6:10 Why did you not get a shock when pressing the wire to the battery? I don't understand electronics that well.
+Luke Anthony Because the resistance of the finger is much more bigger than the resistance of the wire, so the most of electricity goes through the wire.
Thom ah, so it takes the path of least resistance, like lightning?
Luke Anthony Yes. Like water.
+Luke Anthony electricity has 2 paths. 1 is the path of least resistance. The other is that it tries to neutral out. So the batteries positive side has a difference of potential vs's the low side. Since his finger is a totally DIFFERENT source and difference of potential, it wouldn't be an issue. Also voltage has no reason to go through him, as the batteries don't want to go through him to get to their positive. Another note is that you don't feel electricity unless it has amps. Now the light does want 3 amps, and if he were to touch one side of the wire with a his tongue, and then the other side with his tongue, he would risk a lot of damage. (as in using his tongue as part of the wire.
+TheSkepticSkwerl this isn't true. 3 amps is enough to kill, it depends more on the voltage and amperage.
you only need .2 amps to kill somebody.
Very interesting project, and very,very cool too! Maybe something will come of this. A handheld torch like this would light up the neighborhood like Vegas! Thanks for the video. Cheers.
Incredible... This give me so many ideas.
Woow 2.6M
Just so you know: Its now at 3.8M
You won't get 20,000 hours out of your flashlight unless you carefully control the heat and current of your LED. Then again, you are not going to run it for that long anyhow. It's the internal resistance of the batteries in series with the resistance of the LED that limits the current. Heftier batteries would have less resistance and be worse for LED lifetime.
Xxx
Very clever setup......you're on to something.
Best thing to drive this would be to build a constant current power souce. For these power levels it would only cost a few dollars extra. A good thing would also be to use a CPU cooler for a computer to cool the LED.
But that wont be as simple as this one - of course. I like how it just flashed out the camera :)
XD it killed the camera!!! thats awesome!!!
how the hell did I land here... I was watching plane videos xD
Pretty neat, thought it was actually cool :)
Greetings from Oklahoma, USA
i looked into one of these leds and now I'm permanently blind thank you very much.
You sir have the world's weirdest thumbs.
At least mine are opposable
One of my friends has thumbs like this, everytime I met with him I was just unable to stop staring on his hands. his thumbs was just like two small hammers. Of coarse he knew wery well where we are lookin and by luck and possibly some wisdom of his he was never angry about it.
HAHA 👅
Julian Ilett That is a fantastic comeback! Sorry, but your thumbs don't appear weird to me. Your last name, on the other hand, well, let's just say I could do a lot with it if I let myself. Great maker video BTW, appreciated.
Guess you have never seen NighthawkInLight's "thumbs" :D
No heatsink or active cooling? So you can only run it for a few seconds, not very practical.
It's not supposed to be, this is more a proof of concept more than anything.
People have already made flashlights using 100W LED's but they become far more expensive because they want a practical solution that lasts a decent length of time.
They're not expensive at all. The LED's are cheap, use scrap components like CPU heatsinks. This light is basically worthless if you can only turn it on for a few seconds. Seriously, a kit is like $20.00 plus the LED.
Joshua Smellie man
nox.
Not worthless if you're using it as a camera flash! haha
Hey... That's pretty cool. Good job, well done !
I used to use those same LED's for indoor growing.. 3000k is a fall light spectrum. 6500k would be spring or summer. I would power them with simple cellphone chargers. They worked great!
for 20 s.... What's the point?
The world's least practical $60 flashlight.
Very well done.
Bill
Very clever. I wonder if a computer heat sink with a fan might make a good heat sink for that light. I really like the way you made the terminal connectors with the copper wire. Very clever indeed.
not 10$ ... youve got 2 50$ batteries... and a dollar of wood... and 5 or so dollars of other materials. change the title.
Learn to read. He clearly stated in the description that $10 is "not including batteries".
If you watched the whole video, you'd have heard the $10 disclaimer @ 5m37s.
terratec1001 for people to have to wait till 5 minutes in and give him a view to find out it isnt a 10$ build is called bait and switch.
lazzer408 i said nothing of the description. i said for him to change the title.
readyrepairs i agree with readyrepairs, misleading title, should've put(excluding batteries)
i hate false advertisements
no current limit?
he is using the internal resistance of the batteries as the current limiter :D
yeah its pure gamble whether its too little or not (except if you find some datasheet for that model with the internal resistance included)
very clever setup
Very cool, J. Thanks.
Sorry Julian, but this is sensless since there is no current limitation in the circuit. Even in short turn-on intervalls, the led can (and will) take damage due to the hughe amount of current.
Ex0r LED damage hasn't been a problem. But because there's no current control, LED brightness does drop off quite noticeably as the batteries become discharged.
Can you measure the current?
I did measure the current with fully charged batteries - between 2.5 and 3 amps.
okay. The internal battery resistance is high enough to keep the led away from Ptot. Thanks for sharing!
relation ship tip: girls like it when u find the sweet spot
Measuring most power sources when they are off a load won't really tell you it's voltage. This is why your batteries are >18v when you read them.
The other thing is that all cells have an internal series resistance. In the case of the LED flash light this resistance will limit the current through the LED. Your batteries are an array of cells in various serial/parallel configurations and also have an internal series resistance. To find this resistance, you'd have to look up the data sheet for the cells.
Excellent hook, and I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't his ebay store.
id love to see that with some form of reflector added - the throw on the beam would be amazing
Makes an awesome mountain bike headlamp.
Nice vid. It seems led drivers are more for efficient use of power than for led protection. I run the xml t-6 leds direct from 18650 lithium cells with no problems. And four t-6 in series can be run direct on automobile power with a 1 ohm resistor.
Lol, I say Lol at the twin drill battery packs!!! Bravooo!
In your opinion, what is the brightest led chip at the moment? I am wanting to make a spotlight for my farm. I don't mind the size and will need to cool it (either air or water or both)
I'm just not sure what led to use
Hi Julia, I just wonder what would be the cheapest way to power this LED from mains.
Is there a cheap driver for such purpose?
Julian that is just awesome, thanks for sharing and also pointing us to where to buy the LED bulb, thanks and hope to se more of your videos!! (Y) (Y)
Thanks Emmanuel - I appreciate your support
Its the simplest set up but the guy is a smart sun of a gun!
Do we get to see a test run of it outdoors at night? I'm curious to see how much it lights up the surroundings.
thanks for the video !! can i ask something ? is there any way to control the brightness of the LED panel with a dimmer switch ?
You need to add heat sink compound in-between the back of the LED and your heat-sink. Not many people have two 18v rechargeable batteries available unfortunately.
Before you continue with 10$ LED flashlight measure the current. If u can, use the clamp ammeter so you don't introduce additional resistance. Also make a heat sink much bigger or bigger ventilated one and measure the current when the LED gets warmer because LED voltage is getting lower with heat.
The coin battery doesn't work just because it has close voltage, but because it has high internal resistance which limits the current, most batteries don't have high resistance.
LED drivers are there for a reason, just build a cheap linear one and put it on heat sink. I am using linear driver which has 0.3V drop on it for a 12V system, but i have it to regulate the current.
All good points. During testing I saw quite a high current initially (over 3A), but this quickly fell and 'settled' at around 2.5A. A lot will depend on the condition of the batteries.
The CR2032 coin cell has an internal resistance around 20Ω so it does play a part, but put a red LED on it and the initial current will be around 100mA - see "Some thoughts on throwies" at Evil Mad Scientist.
Very educational... Thank you!!!
Nicely done
Very Nice build! Question: Is the heat sink you made adequate for the LED module to operate it for extended time periods? I'd like to make one.
would be interesting if the current would rise too high after long usage.
for everyone who wants to rebild this: a cheap constant current boost converter is not that expensive and should drive the led without frying it ;)
Your video inspired me to finish my own project:
Very bright DIY 100W Flashlight (8500Lm)
GREAT WORK MATE!
how long time keep on light with this passive disipation?
Very useful for me thanks so much !
Energy saving LED light source
Could you please post the LED product link the in description?
that's a sick led !
Have you done any issues with heat dissipation?
Hello Julian i build a 10 watt version and i moutend the led on a pretty big heatsink with thermal paste but the top of the led is getting so warm that it is too warm for my finger is this normal?
Thanks!