How to make your own Infared Light ?

[johnrs]

Morning all.

My daughter has a ghost walk tomorrow and while we have a IR camera, its range is not great.  So I initially started to see if I could get a IR torch or light. Due to short notice on this I was looking to go out and buy one today if I would.

Well after some searching the obvious places like Maplin I could not find anything, but I did find this

http://www.maplin.co.uk/infrared-spotlight-module-265568

Now how hard can it be to buy this from maplin, with a case from Maplin and power it...   

I know some of your are good with electronics and stuff.  Its Operating voltage is 12~14V so am I right in thinking it should be easy to solder some wires to the power pins and on the other end a batter connector.   

Let me know what you think  :)

[Jumpy07]

No issues with soldering a bettery on, although the load is quite heavy at 300ma..  batt would last too long...
So you will need someting meaty like a small 12v alarm battery.. @ 2ah
Best Regards

Craig 

[bigbelly]

That module looks like it has resistors on there to current limit from the battery to the module. So, if the text says this thing uses 300 mA, and lets say Voltage as 12 volts, then the those resistor values are going to add up to 40 ohms which doesn';t sound unreasonable.   

It looks like all you need to do is solder on either a 12V lead acid battery, or even a 3s lipo, but of course there will be no low voltage warning on the IR module, so be careful not to run down the lipo too much. Then again, any lipo might be a bit overkill. 

A small 12 vold lead acid would be a lot safer.
If you don';t like either of those, maplins also sell battery modules. Get an 8 x AA battery holder, or 2 4 x AA battery holders and solder those up and wire in a switch and you';ll have the same voltage.

Good luck 

[johnrs]

Wow. Some quick read lies there. Thanks

A trip to maplin is in order. Think I would go with the AA battery solution for safety

Cheers for the help

[Flyinegypt]

That should work ok for fairly close operation.
I rigged a 140 ir LED illuminator in my garden for fox watching about 8 years ago. It would cover most of the garden > 10M range.

Let us know if your daughter spots any ghosts

[johnrs]

Cheers.  Will pop out tomorrow and get a few bits

Will post some video