THE TRIGON
This lamp is the last new design that I will be producing, I therefore feel it appropriate that before describing the lamp I run through the history of the project.
I started this about 18 months or more ago, and it has been an intensive learning curve, but a very interesting and absorbing time.
The main issue when I started with my lamp building was getting rid of the heat generated by the LEDs.
Initial thoughts were of getting aluminium extensions manufactured that would replace the Oldham bezel assembly, but with a forward thread to take this, in event a sort of aluminium extension. This would hopefully provide adequate external heatsinking as well as more interior room. The blow was the cost of having these made, this caused me to look in other directions.
After a lot of experimentation I developed a thermodynamic solution that produced the now familiar Oldham headset with the Hex nut front extension and the ‘Darth Vader helmet’ heatsink cowl. I fitted this with a cast aluminium reflector that had 3 borings for the LEDs. 2 Cree Q5 XR-E emitters were fitted, 1 working of the first switch position, the other 2 of the other, so it was either 1 or 2.
Testing indoors over about half and hour indicated a maximum internal temperature of 32 degrees centigrade, underground it barely got warm, a sure indication the system was capable of supporting a lot more. It was a good lamp, underground I met a chap with a standard Scurion who readily admitted my lamp was brighter.
My next experiment was to produce a similar lamp that had a 5 bore cast reflector and would power either the one, or 4 Crees at full power. This must have been producing between 900 and 1000 lumens yet running it indoors it never went above 72 degrees centigrade!
I also began to appreciate that testing indoors for temperature is no indication of the heat retained in the lamp underground.
From the start I underestimated the effectiveness of the system, it is now my contention that this system will give up heat better than a lamp made entirely of aluminium.
Next I devised electronics that would bring the 5th Q5 on line, the result was the first of the MagnumStars.
Since then the centre Q5 has been replaced with an MC-E quad die, 3 of the Q5s replaced by R5s and the electronics revised.
Now right from the beginning I have been desirous of producing a powerful lamp, but a lot smaller and lighter than the MagnumStar. Obviously with the systems ability to get rid of the heat produced there was considerable scope for reducing the heatsink area, dumping the front extension, and still being able to support several high power LEDs. The result was my Unistar lamp
With Crees announcement of the R5 XP-G series I saw a new window of opportunity with regard to my lamps. This emitter produces a lot more light than the old Q5 XR-E but a lot less heat, it also has a lower forward voltage. One of these can be driven at up to 1.5 amps to produce an output of 460 lumens.
After upgrading the Unistar to take of these as its second emitter, and the MagnumStar with 3 of these in the outer ring, I turned my attention to a new lamp.
The mission was to use the Unistar headset platform to utilise this new technology to as to produce a lamp small and lighter than the MagumStar as I feel many would gladly dump some of the MagnumStars output for a reduction in weight and size.
A noticeable feature of this lamp is the ‘binocular’ reflector; this provides excellent optics for the 2 XP-Gs behind it. There is a third emitter in the form of the ubiquitous Q5 XR-E behind a 12mm reflector that gives a good compromise between throw and spill.
Unlike the Unistar the lamp runs on my 8V battery series so can be connected to either a 4 cell helmet pack, a 4 cell belt mount pack, or the blue10 cell belt pack.
The Oldham switch has been modified to give a third position, but unlike the MagnumStar is free to rotate in either direction just like the original Oldham. I will explain how this works later.
Obviously, whichever circuit comes on line first is arbitrary, so for the sake of argument say it’s the single Q5. This can be run through several modes by flicking it on and off. The driver is the very tough and reliable DX ‘sandwich’ driver, it has low, medium and max settings, and also unfortunately the unwanted strobe and SOS. This driver on max pushes the Q5 at about 1050 mA to produce about 250 lumens, a lot of multimode drivers that work at this voltage range only push 850 mA be warned.
Rotating further in either direction brings the 2 X XP-Gs on line in addition to the Cree Q5 at any of the different mode settings, the R5s are series wired and run at about 550 mA to produce about 420 lumens.
Rotating the switch slightly further a slight resistance will be felt, at this point the lamp will flare up into Turbo mode as the R5s are now drawing 1.46 amps to produce an output of 920 lumens.
With the Q5 on max this gives a total output of about 1170 lumens, this is a spectacular beam from the excellent optics.
My original plan was to use 3 R5s with one bare up against the glass, but I dumped the idea in favour of the above.
Looking at the above switch options it can be seen that the lamp has 9 different modes in 3 groups, disregarding the strobe and SOS features.
The lamp will be offered on its own for a mix and match, or as a package.
The package will consist of:
The lamp
Either a 4 cell helmet pack with attachment shock cord, or 4 cell belt pack.
A balance charger with 220V AC/12V DC adaptor
An adaptor lead for connecting the battery pack to the charger.
An electronic battery test voltmeter.
For £150 or less.
Pictures show the lamp and the LED module. The drivers are heatsunk to the back of the copper mounting plate, the control circuits are designed to tuck in at the side of the lamp. The obvious resistor is a voltage step down for the sub miniature relay coils. The little black thingy is the Turbo Drive microswitch, it fits in top left between the leg of the thermal conductor and the headset rim.
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-52718[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-52718[/linkphoto][/link]
The different modes on the XP-Gs is achieved by switching different micro controller control resistors. Its a lot in a small space and needed careful planning.
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-52719[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-52719[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-52720[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-52720[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-52721[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-52721[/linkphoto][/link]
Test
Temperature, inside lamp tested outdoors, ambient 18 degrees Centigrade. Maxed out at 50 degrees C after 20 minutes.
I cannot get a table of figures to upload but her are some samples using a 4 cell battery pack.
If you set to the single Q5, medium will give 20 hours, full 9.6.
Power mode with the Q5 on low is economical power and gives 11.6 hours, this with Q5 on max 4.8 hours.
Turbo with Q5 on max, the full power gives 2.7 hours, still enough for a blazing walk through a slate mine.
My avatar is a poor likeness.