Flashlights: Information and Interest Check

[mundaire]

The 6 & 4.5 volt ones will be easier to convert, as depending on the LED emitter used you can simply use an appropriate resistance in series to limit the current so as the LED doesn't get fried. It will not be as efficient as using a proper driver circuit but it will work.

For the 3 volt light you will need a buck/ boost driver circuit (to step up the current to minimum required levels) or you can even build one yourself. There are many circuit diagrams online for home made "joule thief" drivers using a single 1.5 volt AA cell to power LED emitters. If you locate one for 3 volt 2xAA, do post it here/ PM me, I'd like to build one too but don't know much more than class 8 hobby electronics so designing one is beyond my abilities.

You can of course buy ready made driver boards, LED emitters, reflectors - pretty much all you need for a home built LED conversion from fasttech, dx, tinydeal etc.

The easiest conversion would probably be to pick up some of those cheap Chinese drop in conversions from ebay, they are sold in different sizes to directly replace the most popular incandescent flashlight bulbs. From what I hear, their light output isn't that great though.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[Mark]

Recently I ordered one of these from Amazon:



For slightly less than $4 including shipping these are pretty amazing, they use an AA battery and easily shine 50meters. The interesting thing is instead of a round spot the light is square in shape. I've ordered several as Christmas gifts. They are not of the highest quality but for the price they are a great value.

[mundaire]

Mark, in the past I've bought several of those (at least they looked the same) and you are right about them being good out to 50+ meters. The square spot is because the zoom function uses the lens to project the emitter further out and the emitter die is squarish with two of the corners sort of 'chipped out'. This magnified image of the emitter is what you are seeing.

IIRC the ones with high/ low/ strobe settings were $10 shipped to India, worth every penny IMHO!

Cheers!

Sent from my ST27i using Tapatalk

[goodboy_mentor]

If you locate one for 3 volt 2xAA, do post it here/ PM me, I'd like to build one too but don't know much more than class 8 hobby electronics so designing one is beyond my abilities.

Yes will post the complete details here. Will be doing this up-gradation of torches to LED preferably by DIY route but it may take some time since preoccupied with some other work at the moment.