My main goal for fabrication this semester is in practical hardware design. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to create a usable flashlight with a practical design that felt good in the hands. The first thing I needed was the light, and instead of using a bunch of LED’s I researched and found that these little circular LED’s are cheap and powered off of low voltage. I bought this item from Canal Street Lighting Co.
The light came with a switch and a battery terminal. I cut out the switch and the LED patch, as well as some of the battery contacts.
I picked up a cardboard tube from the junk pile of a hardware store and this would serve as the shape for my flashlight.
I grabbed a rubber stopper that fit it as well in order to be able to place the flashlight down and have it stand up on its own.
This small funnel would act as the conical shape for the reflector. I cut pieces of aluminum foil to fill the inside.
Looking at the back of the LED I found a 3V input, and happened to have a CR123 3V battery around. I created a little battery terminal out of cardboard and hot glue. I used the battery contacts on either side.
I soldered all of the contacts to the battery and back to the original switch that came with the light. I cut a little hole out of the cardboard for the switch.
I then cut a piece of diffusion to cover the flashlight. I thought this pattern would look interesting with the paper I chose to wrap the rest of the flashlight.
This is the final look of the flashlight and it is able to stand up like I had imagined. Next time I would like to get it brighter as a 3v led is not super bright but would get the job done in the dark. Below is a video of how that looks.
Will Politan ITP Blog 