Flashlight body with copper pipe heatsink for LED/reflector drop-in

thingiverse

An upgrade of sorts to https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2647700 The photos show the new version next to the previous version without heatsinking. This is a flashlight body which includes a 3/4 inch copper pipe and some copper foil to act as a heatsink. The previous version tended to heat up too much, never to the point of failure, but I started worrying about damage to the LED. New Ingredients: 3/4 inch outer diameter copper pipe 3/4 inch inner diameter straight copper pipe coupling (a straight joint) Ingredients from previous flashlight: 1 protected 18650 cell 1 LED flashlight "drop-in", 26.5mm version. You can buy them from aliexpress, the ultrafire.com site, dealsextreme, etc etc. You want the ones with a reflector and a driver board already built in. 1 clear plastic circle 26.5mm - you can cut this out of anything, i used a dremel on a demo lens (ask for these at your local optometrist or optical store, they just throw them out) 1 SPST, 11mm diameter round latching switch from junk giveaway flashlights 5cm of 1.6mm /14awg solid copper wire and the will to bend it Assembly: Body - cut the pipe to size and put all the pieces in. I used copper foil to wrap around the plug-in itself so it can form a tighter fit (for better heat conduction) into the copper joint piece. When cutting the copper pipe, your insert may differ but essentially once everything is in the petg tube, the end of the copper pipe should be flush to 1mm shorter than the edge of the petg tube. Plug - rotate the plug top-bottom before printing. the switch goes into the middle hole, and copper wire goes into the side holes. Bend the copper wire so it forms a sort of spring which will press against the inside of the copper pipe once assembled. Screwing the plug in is best done by pressing the tube against the table and using palm surface to achieve good torque via friction.