Mini flashlight

A slew of power outages motivated the lion kingdom to think more seriously about a flashlight instead of a phone or a $1 thing from 10 years ago. The last proper flashlight in this apartment came 20 years ago. There's a lot of nostalgia these days for vintage lanterns with big old lantern batteries.

The $6.69 zinc carbon battery pictured is now $5.50, which gives an idea of why housing inflation has to be so high in an inflation targeting system.

The full vintage experience is a bit too large but it does need a pivoting lightbulb. There would be 2 lights with the same pivoting lightbulb idea. 1 is a replacement for a manes voltage light, based on the big jim 100. It straps on to a big 12V lipo. It doesn't have the red light. It has a 9W LED lightbulb. It needs a battery level, SEPIC converter, & brownout protection. A heat sink has to bolt on to the light bulb.

1 is a pocket flashlight replacement. It needs long term standby batteries, so 6V nimh regulated down to 3.3. It has a spot beam.

The lightbulbs go from straight up to straight down with a friction mechanism. They both need to stand vertically. A folding thing comes to mind, akin to the folding nose cone already made.

Project Logs

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Mini flashlight 3
lion mclionhead • 12/07/2023 at 07:45 • 0 comments

The friction joint was having a hard time, so there was another redesign with a bigger pressure point.
Like version 2, this held better in the beginning.
The mane limitation is going to be the passive spring. It really needs a butterfly nut for the user to manetain. Butterfly nuts have proven successful for tensioning larger arms but aren't made in a small enough size for this one.
The real star of this design is the battery lid.
It's finally easy to remove, tool less, & assertivelyclicks closed.
A new dream came along to make the height telescoping. Paperclips have become a lion favorite for making 2 parts slide next to each other & stay in position.
The flashlight collection is ready for the summer's rolling blackouts.
Mini flashlight 2
lion mclionhead • 08/20/2023 at 06:41 • 0 comments

The home made flashlight worked so well, an unexpected use case presented itself, manely setting it in random locations & using the single joint to aim it at a different location. Sales pitches always show flashlights right next to the work piece, but this is not the mane use case.

The immediate task was coming up with a better, fully variable joint.

The spring idea works, but the search continues for a friction material. Ordinary O rings would cause the PLA to warp. It needs a big old disc. Non slip furniture pads are expensive. Any flexible rubber sheet just bunches up. Maybe an o-ring constrained in an oval shape could apply the friction in a straight line without deforming the PLA.

There could be a 2nd joint but it doesn't need it. The total length seems to be very close to ideal. The top segment could get longer, with an increase in size of the bottom joint to create more friction. Placement of the electronicals seems to be good enough. It might be better to have the switch face sideways & be recessed. The light should be right on the front, but the battery farstener is in the way. The battery farstener should face sideways. The wires have to be flush.

Finally uncovered some rubber washers in the plumbing section that did the trick.

The washer worked perfectly. The only issue might be the feel of the 1 PLA side grinding, but the savings in using 1 washer outweigh the feel.

The rear screw was a fail. It would require a bigger enclosure than the vertical screw. The light ended up going right on the edge where the bottom is lower.

The 1980's battery holder is the worst. The batteries slip out on their own but are impossible to get out on purpose.
Mini flashlight
lion mclionhead • 08/16/2023 at 00:14 • 0 comments

After years of maglites, $1 flashlights, $1.25 flashlights, custom LED lights, phone lights that all came up short in some way, it was time to try another custom solution.

25 years ago, it was acceptable to burn $20 on a gigantic maglite. They were substantial aluminum, D cell eating beasts. Halogen was the best anyone had. Maglite had a $50 halogen version with a metal reflector. Flashlight hacking peaked when the lion kingdom hacked a $20 maglite with a plastic reflector to use a halogen bulb & 5 D's to make the voltage it required. This melted the reflector & the bulbs burned out quickly, but it scared away all the zombies. Today, flashlights are much more expensive but a lot less substantial. A crummy AA burning LED is now $20.

The mane requirements in a flashlight today are a long storage life, reliable electronicals, constant voltage, pivoting light, ability to stand up on its own & point down, compact size. Low capacity NiMH's have been the only thing capable of a long storage life. Alkalines & carbon zincs all corrode. Lipos all puff.

These dollar store flashlights ended up being a very good source of parts. 10 garbage bags are a deal in countries where free grocery bags are illegal.

They contained a very bright & even LED reflector assembly.

Really expensive caliper batteries.

They showed farsteners are fair game for battery doors.

The dollar store flashlight provided a decent LED & reflector. 4 AA's would provide a constant 3V. The best battery placement was finally determined to be flat on the very bottom. A lot of agony went into the battery placement. None of the commercial gooseneck lights with vertical AA's stand on their own. They rely on magnetic bases.

The mane unknowns were the ratcheting mechanism & the heat sink. It definitely needs a heat sink. A buck converter & switch would stick on the battery compartment somewhere to make it bottom heavy.

Helas, a 3D printed flashlight using dollar store parts looks exactly like a dollar store flashlight.

The mane thing lions would now change is making the ratchet a fully variable angle, but as it is, it's lightyears beyond what lions had before. The ratchet has slight maneuvering ability. The mane problem with the ratchet is the lack of precision in 3D printing. A fully variable one would need some kind of rubber.

The hard parts were the wiring & creating the heat sink. The brightness can be painful, but lions have never used anything but maximum brightness before. Brightness can be permanently changed with the pot. It burns 100mA at 6V so reduced brightness would bring a welcome increase in battery life. There's a 1V drop in the voltage converter. Full brightness is 3V.

The batteries provide plenty of mass to stand up on. It could benefit from being taller.

This was the lion kingdom's biggest foray in 3D printed a breakout board carriers. Single boards with positions for mounting multiple breakout boards & through hole parts are how most stuff is going to be made.

Another thing noted was the light should face towards the electronicals since animals prefer holding it from behind. Then, the wires are in the same part lions grab onto for moving it so they need a better route if they're going to last.

Putting the electronicals in front makes this harder. Another desk beside the 1 desk would be ideal, but lacking enough space, there's working on the floor. The arm would have to get longer.