[APML] OT: LED Flashlights

[steve banbury <banburys@sonic.net>]

I have a number of commercial red LED flashlights. All of them have a
major drawback--when I need both hands free, they end up being held in
my teeth. There are some really nice headband mounted units like the
Princeton Aurora--except they only make them in white.

I happened to notice a 12 LED red tail light in a local auto parts store
here for only 7 bucks. Its enclosure was clear plastic, and I decided to
try cutting it open it to make a decent LED headband flashlight.

Its current drain at 13 volts was 100 mA, and the light output would
burn a hole thru clouds!
I changed the dropping resistors and found I could get very useful light
at 10 mA using a 9 volt transistor radio battery.
At 50 Ma, the light is good enough to hunt for that black set screw (or
whatever) I invariably drop in the dirt in the
middle of the night.

I didn't realize LEDs like this could be had so cheaply!
I put together a web page showing how I assembled a headlamp in case
anybody else is interested:

http://www.sonic.net/~banburys/LED_Flashlight/

Cheers--Steve

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