Flashlight | Research

I'm dipping my toe into the world of electronics for a new project: copper pipe flashlight. This is a different type of project for me and I'm interested to learn more about designing at this smaller scale. I've also got in mind to try selling a few of them to see what that's like.

When designing seating, I've learned to hold off on refining the design until sourcing all "off the shelf" components (cushions for seating.) I started with a sketch to identify which components I'd attempt to make (custom) vs find (standard):

  • Copper Housing (Custom)
  • Battery (Standard)
  • LED light (Standard)
  • Control chip / Input(Standard)
  • Armature (Custom)
  • End Caps (Custom)
  • Input Module(Stnadard
When scheming up the project, I'd decided to use rechargeable batteries. I don't fully understand the science but intuitively, rechargeables seem more environmentally friendly. This would need some kind of power input (a separate charger would be cumbersome), and some sort of control chip to regulate the power flow. As part of my initial "research," I searched the web for similar projects. As it turns out, my favorite youtube channel: AvE, does indeed have a similar build.

I started my research by tackling the biggest unknown: the battery. I liked the idea of recycling Lithium Ion batteries from dead phone charger packs, but wasn't sure if/how that would work. I started by learning about the different types of batteries, and very quickly fell down a rabbit hole of information. There's SO much information on batteries (and most everything I've looked into) it can almost be overwhelming. Here's one of the better battery-type summary videos I found.

While down the battery rabbit hole, I learned about the 18650 Li-ion battery, which is the most common cell for power packs as well as most laptop batteries. The battery is 18mm x 65mm and has excellent power density. There seems to be a decent community t seems like there's even a community around salving these batteries from discarded battery packs and re-purposing them. There's of course the risk of an explosion, but using the proper precautions should minimize the risk.