Minimag aa upgrades?

[TnC_Products]

You can also personalize the body to make it unique.

 

[Megalamuffin]

The good news is that I found 'it'. The bad news is that there's 2 of 'em, they're very different, and you have a choice to make. Options are good!

First, I'll attach 3 photos I hastily snapped yesterday. They're crummy photos mainly because for various reasons I didn't want to swap lenses on my camera to something more appropriate for the task, which resulted in among other things, zero DOF (depth of field); however, they're good enough to illustrate the difference between the 2 reflectors and how that affects reflected light.

I couldn't do an A-B comparison in my 3-cell MM because I have only 1 alkaline AA in the joint, didn't want to use L91s and risk OV damaging one of my few examples of that rather unusual bulb, and Eneloops won't fit in my MM because it's old and the tube bore is too small for those. What the photos do illustrate is the difference in the effect they have on 'incident' light from my flash reflecting from their surfaces, and this is very similar to the effect they would have on reflected light from an installed bulb.

Here's my verbal description to go with the photos:
First, forget my "brushed" description of the finish(es), because that was a poor choice of words.
They both appear to be machined to the same specs, and are (to my eye w/o my calipers which aren't handy), dimensionally identical. They both have very slight machining marks, but the scale of those makes them a non-factor optically. They are both 'smooth', meaning there is no level of 'orange peel', 'egg shell', etc., and the only real difference is the fine surface 'finish' itself. I would describe the one on the right as a 'mirror finish', and the one on the left as a lightly 'frosted finish' (rather like Scotch Magic tape).

Although I can't compare them today in my MM, from what I recall the effect of the 'frosted' finish was a more homogenous, even, consistent beam with significant reduction in the reflected effects of artifacts / defects in the light from the bulb itself on the reflected beam being projected, resulting in enhanced resolution of detail in the surface of the object being illuminated. This may well come at the cost of a few candelas on that object downrange, but downrange ain't very far with a MM, and I believe any loss was more than offset by the reduction in optical noise / defects / artifacts / distortion, which personally I feel is the 'enemy' when examining objects / surfaces at shorter distances. I think that's why the 'frosted' one ended up in the 'user' I have left (which wasn't ravaged by alkalines).

That's 'seat of pants' opinion, but the bulb setup you're using is far different from the one in my light, and I'm not the one making the decision either. Perhaps you, and certainly others who have more experience with experimenting with incan lights / mods will have a far more informed opinion that mine based on my very limited experience, so I defer to the experience of others to decide / advise on what would be best for your application. I will only add that the 'frosted' reflector is what TacStar shipped standard with their MM upgrade kit (although they also supplied the 'mirror finish' one to me on request), so I guess that indicates what their opinion was for that setup - but again, that uses an only slightly larger version of the standard MM bulb w/ higher voltage rating, and I gather you're using a bulb rather different from that. @bykfixer and others will have more experience and more valid opinions than mine.

Let me know which one you'd prefer to use, and it's yours!


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Thank you for the descriptions and getting the photos together. I would like to try the left one.

 

[Megalamuffin]

I got a couple of old minimags off ebay for experimenting. I have the 6 cell bulb with 2x li-ion set up, same as before but I don't have to pirate parts off the blue mag. Glass lens with the stock reflector, and we will just see what happens. If it melts (which I do expect) no big deal. Enlarging the hole with the awl crazed the mirror finish at the base, it's not from heat.

It's a full moon tonight so pretty bright out, but this gives idea of the output. No idea what to expect for runtime. If I can get at least 20 minutes out of it that'd be swell. That is if the plastic reflector survives that long!

 

[aznsx]

Thank you for the descriptions and getting the photos together. I would like to try the left one.

Cool! PM sent.

 

[Megalamuffin]

Well the hotrod incan minimag got put on the back burner for quite a while, life gets busy and I forget things, but I finally got around to finishing it. This frosted aluminum reflector was kindly sent to me by aznsx and is the solution to the heat from a 6v bulb running on a pair of 14500's in a minimag. The plastic reflector I modded for proof of concept has (predictably) melted at this point.

I reamed the hole out for the large 6v bulb with the awl of my trusty alox swiss army knife again (one of the most excellent tools in the world- the alox SAK awl). So far so good as this little hotrod puts out a fair bit of heat in a short amount of time. With the frosted finish the aluminum reflector has a nice beam profile. Now that it can handle the heat I can test runtime.

 

[letschat7]

Run Energizer Lithiums in it. I did in 1999!

 

[lumen aeternum]

This frosted aluminum reflector was kindly sent to me by aznsx and is the solution to the heat from a 6v bulb running on a pair of 14500's in a minimag.

What exactly are the parts you are using? Do 14500s actually fit in an incan AA mini mag without alteration?

 

[Chicken Drumstick]

Well the hotrod incan minimag got put on the back burner for quite a while, life gets busy and I forget things, but I finally got around to finishing it. This frosted aluminum reflector was kindly sent to me by aznsx and is the solution to the heat from a 6v bulb running on a pair of 14500's in a minimag. The plastic reflector I modded for proof of concept has (predictably) melted at this point.

I reamed the hole out for the large 6v bulb with the awl of my trusty alox swiss army knife again (one of the most excellent tools in the world- the alox SAK awl). So far so good as this little hotrod puts out a fair bit of heat in a short amount of time. With the frosted finish the aluminum reflector has a nice beam profile. Now that it can handle the heat I can test runtime.

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What 6v bulb are you using?

 

[alpg88]

about 20 years ago i had a dive light princeton tech, iirc, it used similar bulb, ran on 8AA 4s2p

 

[Monocrom]

Not too much new in terms of upgrades outside of sticking an LED into one. There's an Etsy seller who'll custom print-engrave a 2AA Mini-Mag for you with large white lettering. Though you'll have to message him first if you want him to use an older incandescent Mini-mag. for the job.

 

[Megalamuffin]

What 6v bulb are you using?

That was a typo, it's a 6 cell d/c maglite bulb, not 6v. More like 9v.