Need help with Portable Sun V2. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: Delivery McGee
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 27, 2018, 12:22:03 am
content: Awhile back, I gutted an old car-taillight 2x6V lantern, which was kinda ... you can buy a brighter 2AA flashlight for a dollar (would make a joke but too lazy too look up conversion ratios) these days:Not mine, but mine was in similar conditionI packed it full of LEDs from cut up free Harbor Freight rectangular worklights, and made the Portable Sun No.1:In parallel, so 4.5 or 6V, I forget how many AAAs were in the original cases.No.1 Mk1 was to replace the tape and blue-tack with hot glue and run it off USB powerpacks instead of AAs.No.1 Mk2 was to run it off a pair of 6v lead-acids, each with about twice the capacity and 2/3 the size of the batteries the case was made for:5V worked fine, but I guess 6V was too much and/or one of the LEDs had a flaw and the short caused a cascading failure:Yep, that's gone poorly. The top/your left panel (edit: bottom in the above, it got flipped during the upgrade) still worked after the other two had their resistors go all crispy. Guess they were 3AAA/4.5V and the newer version was more resilient to overvoltage.I never could really grok LEDs. Ideally I'd put a car-headlight halogen bulb in the modified original reflector (hence the paired 6V batteries rather than a single big one, for the option to spap to series), but it gets way hotter than I'm comfortable with. But that's my level of electronics, I can rewire an old car just fine (nominal 12V, actually 14V), the new stuff has tighter tolerances.So basically I bodged together a thing out of scraps, it blew up, and now I need somebody more experienced to tell me what modern 6V/12V COB setup I can stuff in there to make it similarly bright. I've tried flashlight forums, but they're like audiophiles, light (heh) on details and more about how to get the most lumens out of x with y watts -- I don't care about that, I just want to use this enclosure to the fullest to avoid stepping in dog poo.Can anybody recommend a6V or 12V LEDand driversolution to be as bright or brighter than the previous 72-discrete-LED rig of the Mk2?I have an old CPU heatsink I could cut to fit between the original reflector and head-shell. I have an angle grinder and a bandsaw and all that, I can make the heatsink fit. But I'm not entirely sure how the driver and LED need to hook up to the heatsink/each other, aside from matching wire colors.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2018, 06:19:45 am
content: That was a nice classic lantern before it was all hacked up. Not the most useful as a flashlight, but a neat antique that is probably ~70 years old. If you want an LED light a modern flashlight is easier to convert and ends in a much neater result. Lots of LED driver boards out there though, and COB modules.

author: Delivery McGee
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 27, 2018, 07:09:52 am
content: I paid $12 for it, and can buy one brand-new for somewhat more (but a lot cheaper, if you consider inflation). And I still have all the original parts to put back in it if you want to buy it. This is the Jay Leno restomod thread.