DIY LED build machined from billet alluminum

[Gary]

Here's my new project. It's a custom machined LED light I am making for a friend of mine. He will take care of the wiring. I don't have the specifics on all the LEDs that he is using. The power supplies will be mounted in a nearby cabinet. The light and brackets will all be hard flash anodized (light gray).

The wall mount is a clam shell that when loosened will allow the light to be removed.

Bottom view. We had some custom PCBAs made that have 12 lensed LEDs on them. He's experimented with various patterns and found a pattern that looks nice! There is also room for 6 more LEDs around each PCBA. I doubt that many of those will be used. The other 2 individual LEDs are moon lights. Once it gets assembled, I will post what LEDs were used.

Top view. For cooling the entire top is fined. There also some through slots to help with the convection. In case that the fins don't cool well enough there are 2 different hole patterns to allow several different fan types to be mounted.

Dimensions. This will start as a 19 lb billet and end up about 7 lbs.

I have the metal and the top part of the light programmed. I hope to have the top operations done this Saturday.

 

[TJL]

SWEEEEET! Going to be a very nice fixture, wish I had (or access to) the machinery to play like that. Will definitely follow this build along.

Cheers, Todd

 

[Peppie]

Nice plan Gary,
What is the going rate for scrap aluminum??? LOL

 

[Gary]

Thanks Todd! I hope it turns out well. If so I might make one for my tank too. My buddy and I both have the same Oceanic Illuminata tanks.

 

[Gary]

Peppie,
It's not much! Maybe $.60 a pound.

 

[TheKraken]

My gut feeling is that a modest LED load will be on the limit of passive cooling. You might want to leave a space for mounting fans or adding ducting IMHO.

 

[Gary]

I think so too TheKraken. Check out the third picture. The arced pattern of 4 holes on each LED location is for different size fans. We made a mock-up using 1, 12 LED PCBA and a CPU heat sink. It needed a fan to keep the temperature reasonable.

 

[eartaker]

Gary, you should post up some machining videos when you do this. I'm guessing you are doing this with a CNC not a manual right? If so what kind of CNC do you have? I converted a ZX-45 clone to CNC, it's an awesome tool to have.

 

[Gary]

I can put some videos up. I use a Doosan DNM500. Here's a link to a picture. It's a pretty good machine. Luckily the company I work for lets me use it for hobby projects. I couldn't afford one of these!

Here's a link to a video of the top operations program. That's the next best thing to watching it in real life! I wish it machined this fast too! The video is fast forwarded to make it smaller.

 

[Gary]

Here's the video.

 

[Spinner]

Very nice i like your design Can't wait to see the real deal!

 

[Gary]

Got a few operations done tonight. Here's a video of some of the ops.

 

[Gary]

I finished the top today. It turned out pretty nice. I have some other machining to do next weekend so it will be 2 weeks until I can finish the back side. I ran this pretty slow. The total time for the front was about 3 hours of machine time. I expect the back to be about 2 hours.

Here's one end. I got a little chatter from the slots that go through the part (.25" end mill cutting 1.05" deep). It will never been seen once the light is installed so I didn't bother to do more clean up passes on the cooling fins. The tapped holes are for a cooling fan. The counterbores have tapped holes in the bottom of the hole for a different size fan. The center hole was because I wasn't sure if I was going to bolt this to a tooling plate for the second op. I decided to use it to index off of for the back of the part. the other hole is a wire pass through for a fan.

Here's a video of a slot being machined. It's like watching paint dry! The slots took about 1.75 hours. I probably could have gone faster, but it was either hang out in the machine shop or go home and rake leaves!

 

[pandora32]

Machine shop for sure! Beautiful job!

 

[eartaker]

NICE, I like it. Want to loan me a Kurt vise I wish I had flood coolant on my mill. Did you use the CNC for tapping as well?

 

[Gary]

Thanks eartaker! I'd like to put one more vice on that! This was the first part I used a roll tap. What time saver! No pecking anymore! The video in post #12 has the tapping at 1:34. 6-32 .6 deep with a .125 clearance hole .75 deep.

 

[eartaker]

Gary, awesome, I need to add an indexing sensor to my spindle to be able to use rigid tapping. I could buy a floating tapping head but I think the rigid tapping would be a better choice.

 

[eartaker]

Also, how do you like BobCAD? I have been using MasterCAM X3 but the 3d machining programing drives me crazy. Maybe because I suck at using it but thought about using Alibre

 

[Gary]

So far I'm happy with Bobcad. But, first a disclaimer. I'm not a machinist so don't take my opinion too seriously! . I make parts for fun. I was using Mastercam X5 at work. The machine shop manager was getting tired of me using his office so I bought Bobcad V25. Right now I am trying to get my post processor figured out. Their tech support is pretty good too. Right now I am dealing with them almost daily because I don't know my way around the program. It was the same when I changed modeling software. Once I get their lingo figured out I think it will be great. I need some more time to get it figured out. Once I get a little better, if you have any specific questions, I will do my best to help!

The machine I used before this was an old Shizuoka. I had to hand code everything. That was back in the day before we had a machinist and the Engineers machined their own parts.

 

[eartaker]

Awesome, I just run the CNC as another hobby. I am self taught but have used Mastercam since 2004, started with MC 9. I'm still learning on it. I have my CNC in my garage so I have to design, and machine everything I make. Its been fun =] I will probably stick with X3 since I have a copy of it and really don't want to pay for another software.