Home Built 36 LED Flashlight

The first beginnings of the flashlight project: Instruction and a 9-LED conversion.
The LED museum: Inspiration and encouragement.
LEDTRONICS A good place to buy LEDs online

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This view is the head-on view through a dark gray tinted glass. There is no information about the attenuation or spectral neutrality of the glass.

Let's compare:

The price of a commercially available TEKTITE 40-LED flashlight is $199.95. The only cause for questions I saw was that one vendor of the product, theledlight.com, cautions: "Warning! Lithiums and Duracell Ultras run at 1.6vdc to 1.7vdc, and will cause some LEDs to "blow" or die. Do not use on these bulbs until voltage has dropped to 1.5vdc." This is a reason for concern, as it calls into question the manner of power handling circuitry in the products, especially in light of the high price (pun intended). Does the manufacturer endorse this warning? (I did not see it on their web site). A 60-LED model of the same manufacture is $299.95 At the least, visit the websites and check out these flashlights, they are pretty cool, and the only ones (AOW) that get near or exceed 36 LEDs.

The 36-LED home made flashlight shown here uses, optimally, one Eveready EN529 6V alkaline lantern battery with a capacity of 18000 mAH or equivalent (or 4 "D" cells with an adapter) and has a full brightness duration of 7 hours. Please note that the duration, at least in the case of this project, is for 100% duty cycle. To extend duration in cases where less light is needed, a switch can be added to disconnect all but one string of LEDs. This would leave nine LEDs on, giving about 40 hours of full brightness use. The less current drawn from a battery, the more use can be made of its published AH rating.

The costs involved for this project were:
$11.95 Garrity flashlight with battery
$ 2.00 electrical box
$49.32 LEDs
$ 6.95 circuit board
$22.00 power supply components
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$92.22 total cost

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