Fire Extinguisher Flashlight

I had a friend who had to use his fire extinguisher and he was going to throw it away so I decided to take it and use it for something. I decided to make it into a flashlight in disguise. Here are the plans for the way I did it.

1.First I decided to use LEDs rather than a traditional light bulb. I was planning of visiting my local electronics store but ran out of time so I ended up purchasing a mag light led upgrade kit that consisted of three LEDs connected to a small circuit board.

IMG_5836

IMG_5838

2. I then removed the black jacket on the circuit board and filed down the sides of the chip and the inside of the tip on the end of the hose on the fire extinguisher until it fit inside the yellow tip on the end of the hose.

IMG_5839

IMG_5840

3. I then cleaned out the fire extinguisher by unscrewing the top from the tank and cleaning it out with a hose. I also removed the plastic tube attached to the inside of the top. I then unscrewed the hose from the top valve assembly.

IMG_5835

IMG_5844

4. Next I removed the small valve that the handle presses down to release the contents of the tank. This then gave me a hole from the hose to the tank and from the tank to right underneath the handle (location of switch). This is easily done by simply pushing it through the bottom of the top valve assembly.

IMG_5843

IMG_5842

4. Now we can begin to route the wires through the hose. I simply pushed them through the hose so I had about two inches sticking out of either end. This allowed me to solder on both ends while the wire was inside the hose. You can also run a straightened clothes hanger through the hose to allow the hose to be bent and hold any position.

IMG_5845

5. At this point you can solder the light to the wires and stuff it in the end. Make sure you solder the + contact on the circuit board to the wire you will connect tot he battery because my circuitry only worked one way.

IMG_5846

6. I then attached the – wire to the – terminal of a single AA battery located inside the tank. I then ran the + from the battery and from the light up through the hole where the valve push button was, before I removed it. This then allowed me to put a small pressure switch under the handle so it will turn on only when the handle is pressed all the way down.

Here are some pics of the final result:

IMG_5848

IMG_5847

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 22:15 • ElectronicRSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback

Leave a Reply