Running Light: 1 W LED Heatsink

The general idea: a cylindrical holder / heatsink for a 1 W LED on the end of a tube clamped in a Tour Easy fairing mount, much like a flashlight.

A pleasant evening at a virtual Squidwrench meeting produced the raw shape of the front end from a 1 inch aluminum rod:

Trace the outline of the LED’s PCB inside the cylinder just for comfort, align to the center, and drill two holes with a little bit of clearance:

For the 24 AWG silicone wire I used, a pair of 2 mm holes 8.75 mm out from the center suffice:

Gnaw some wire clearance in the lens holder:

Tap the central hole for an M3×0.5 screw, which may come in handy to pull the entire affair together.

Epoxy the PCB onto the heatsink with the lens holder keeping it aligned in the middle:

Then see how hot it gets dissipating 900 mW with 360 mA of current from a 2.2 Ω resistor:

As you might expect, it gets uncomfortably warm sitting on the bench, so it lacks surface area. The first pass will use a PVC cylinder for easy machining, but a full aluminum shell would eventually be a nice touch.

A doodle with some dimensions and aspirational features:

Even without a lens and blinkiness, it’s attention-getting!