Milwaukee M12 lantern/torch by ksuszka

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is a lantern-type flashlight for Milwaukee M12 battery.
It is my first design made with Fusion 360, so the quality of it may be questionable, but if you want to use it, go ahead.
BOM
To assembly it, you will need:
3d printed base - a material with high heat resistance (like ABS/PETG) is recommended.
3d printed led strip holder - a material with high heat resistance (like ABS/PETG) is recommended.
3d printed shade - a transparent material with high heat resistance is needed. I used transparent PETG.
150cm of 12V, self adhesive, white LED strip
2 pieces of 6.3mm spade male connectors
1 piece of 21x15mm rocker on/off switch
35cm of wire
soldering iron
Printing instruction
Important note: Depending on the power of the LED strip you plan to use you may need to choose a material with high heat resistance for all parts.
Base
Print with the thread on the bottom. Support is required. Use pliers to remove support from the inside. Don't worry too much if it doesn't look nice, as the inside is not visible after the assembly. I used 25% infill with 1mm shell.
LED strip holder
Print with the wide ring on the bottom. No support is needed. This part is not visible.
Shade
Print from a transparent material (I used transparent PETG) with the thread on the top. I used 100% infill (it is only used in a small area near the thread). Some support may be used to achieve nice round edge.
Assembly instruction
Print all 3 parts (I've uploaded two versions of the shade, but only one is needed). Use pliers to remove the support from the base part.
Make sure that the shade can be screwed to the base. You may need to screw/unscrew it a few times to make sure that all excess material is removed.
Make sure that the M12 battery can be put/removed to/from the base.
Solder two 15cm wires to the one side of the LED strip.
Attach the LED strip to a 3d printed LED strip holder. Put both wires through a small hole on the bottom of the LED strip holder and start attaching the LED strip from the bottom in a spiral pattern (see photos). Wires should stick out from the inside of the cylinder. Use one of top grooves to hook the last part of the LED strip so it doesn't detach itself from the cylinder.
IMPORTANT: put one of already soldered wires through the switch hole in the base part (from the inside to the outside) and solder it to the first terminal of the rocker on/off switch. As wires are 15cm long, you should have a lot of freedom here. When you solder the switch, you basically connect it to the LED strip cylinder. The wire needs to be already reeved through the hole in the base.
Solder the 5cm wire to the second terminal of the rocker on/off switch.
Solder the first 6.3mm male spade connector to the other end of the 5cm wire.
Solder the second 6.3mm male spade connector to the second wire attached to the LED strip.
Put the rocker on/off switch into the base into its final position.
Check which spade connector is + and which is -.
Put spade connectors in their final position inside the base. Use pliers to push them through holes. Try not to bend them.
Insert the M12 battery into the base, turn on the switch and check if LED strip is working correctly.
Put the cylinder with the LED strip inside the base, put wires inside the cylinder.
Screw the shade to the base.
Congratulations, You should have a working lantern :)
Final note
M12 battery voltage goes from 12.6V to 8.4V. As there is no voltage/current regulation, the LED strip light is brighter on the fully charged battery and it gets dimmer when the battery discharges. But it still should give a lot of light.
To fix this, one could use 24V LED strip with DC-DC step-up converter. There should be plenty of space inside the LED strip holder to put such converter inside.