DIY Cree Rocklights

[4x4mike]

After finding one of my rock lights broken I decided I wanted to change them up. The current set up is 2 banks of 2. One set is mounted to the frame between the wheels

and the other 2 are under the rear bumper and shine out to the sides. I while I don't spend a lot of time in the rocks or wheeling at night these have come in handy.
Here is a picture of how the ones under the bumper look.

It's not even dark in that picture so it's hard to do it justice. This location is great for not only wheeling but also backing up, loading or hooking up a trailer and helpful at camp. These suckers pull 500ma and can stay on for as long as it's dark out and you'll have no problems starting in the morning.

My bum led is one of the ones midframe. The 2 mid frame ones run off the same regulator I used for my dome lights, 700ma. The plan is to remove the midframe ones, replace them and add 2 more in front of the front tires. These 4 will run off of one 1000ma regulator so each led will shine at 500ma, like the rears.

[slosurfer]

Nice!!!!

[4x4mike]

First step was to order the Led's. All my cree's have come from Cutter which is located in Australia. I like Cutter because you know what you are getting and you have many options. There are many different tints (even colors) and bins available. They are also different ways you can have them mounted. I have chosen the 20mm metal core PCB stars as they dissipate heat and are easier to solder than just the emitter. Places like deal extreme are known to have poor tint color and the output of the emitters are not consistent. Some write ups state that they burn out after a short time as well. They are cheap but I'm already doing this a second time, I really wouldn't enjoy a third.
Special delivery from the other side of the world.






The metal core board will get hot so it's important to heat sink the leds. The emitter will last longer and burn brighter if the led is kept cool. Like my previous edition I will use copper as a heat sink.
Off to Homie D.
1" copper caps and Simpson A21's.






I also needed some epoxy.

I already had some JB weld which is also needed.

[4x4mike]

The copper caps are a little too deep so you need to trim them. The first time I did this I used a hack saw and file. It took awhile but they did the job. Messing around later I used a 3" cutoff wheel. It's much more fun and faster but the SOB copper gets really hot (this is a good thing, think heat sink)and copper dust gets every where.
Cutting.






After gluing and before the jb trim.


After I cleaned them up I mounted them to the A21's. The nice thing about the copper and galvanized steel is that they won't rust, you can bend them and JB weld sticks them together. The metal bracket is to be bent depending on your mounting location. You may want to do them differently depending on how and where you are mounting them.




Shot them with some paint before mounting the LED's.

[slosurfer]

I like your mounts.

Patiently awaiting the rest of the writeup.


I wonder if I could make a few of these and splice it into the set I already have? I know visionx sell the individual pods and they told me they can just be spliced into the kit I already had. They said only to add two pods per existing light, as they weren't sure if the mastercontrol could handle more than that load. These pull an even lower load, so do you think it would work?

I want to add a couple to under the hood among other places.

[4x4mike]

Nothing like checking the oil with a disco strobe going on. Chances are you'll be able to splice something like this in. They're both LED's, the only thing is with these is that these leds are high power and when spliced in you don't don't know how much power they are all consuming. At about 500ma the cree xre pulls 3.2-3.3 volts. You would need to get data sheets or specs on you system and see what the leds are running at an maybe even the type of led. You can strobe/pulse the heck out of the crees so there isn't a real problem there. Here is the cree data sheet to look over.
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLamp7090XR-E.pdf

[slosurfer]

Ah, okay, I'll look into that.

Haha, I'm not too concerned about the strobes, although if I get the strobe just right in the engine bay, does that mean I don't need to get a timing light for my timing?

[4x4mike]

Looks like my update post didn't get posted.
Anyways, here is the regulator.

It's a little guy and costs about $15. You can make several different types of regulators but I'm not that skilled and am too ADD. This one is sealed and I know it can handle me. I have one in each of my domes lights so I know they can handle the summer heat of the roof. I've got one in the rear hatch so I know it can be slammed over and over and I have 2 under the 4runner. Those have been submerged and blasted by rocks and are still pumping. The led's run at about 3.2V and the regulator takes care of their management as they can't see 12v directly.

After I drilled holes in the copper for the wires I jb welded the stars in.




The jb weld actually trasfers some of the heat to the copper and keeps the leds from bouncing out. Once I get some wire soldered to the stars I'm going to fill the copper cups with clear epoxy to seal up the wiring. Then I have to cut out the old, smaller, regulator and wiring. Then wire up the new regulator and run the wires to my spots. After that you mount the lights, hook up the wires and put to power.

[slomatt]

Mike, the rocklights are looking good! I potted mine using water-clear epoxy from Tap Plastics and I HIGHLY recommend that you not use the same stuff. It was difficult to work with and can take days to dry depending on the temperature, humidity, and amount of catalyst you use. Additionally it was one of the worst smelling chemicals I've ever used and is very dangerous to breathe. There are some non-toxic water clear products on the market that are much better.

I can't find the links at the moment, but if you search for something like "non toxic water clear casting resin" it should bring up some results.

- Matt

[4x4mike]

I'm using some semi clear home depot stuff. Package says 5 minutes. I've used it on my dome lights and in one set of my old rocklights. The color actually doesn't matter as no one is going to see these. I ended up painting my old ones all black except for the emitter.

Ken was talking about using casting resin from the hobby shop. HD was one stop shopping and it has worked in the past.