soupdragon
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 36
Having just ordered a SF 9p and goodies to go with i'm now thinking about my other project which will be putting together a mag85
althou I had a flash of inspiriation i've been chacking out how its done and what to do and althou nice and bright they can be high mantenance.
one of my other passtimes that i spend daft amounts of cash on is mountainbiking and so i have a couple of high powered off road lighting systems about. one of them a niterider xlc-pro has been shelved due to a dead battery and me getting a 21watt hid cateye stadium 3.
so a it occured to me to try and use the intelligent switch from the niterider in a mag85 build
It has a soft start for the bulbs so no worries about instaflashes
3 settings so when vast amounts arent needed i can conserve battery life
It has a battery fuel guage (althou i'm not sure this is gonna be operational)
Today i've been reverse engineering the niterider (read pulling apart) and it seems like it should be possible
I plan on using a 3D mag for the host
Batteries:
The system used from what i can make out 11 subc nicad cells which i'm guessing would be around 3000mAH
So battery wise i'll go with 10 or 11 2400mAH AA nimh batteries. The old switch isnt needed so it shouldnt be a prob fitting them in a 3d. The switch won't start with anything less than 12v I havent tried more yet as i've only got the original cells to mess about with
So the questions here is nihms should be no different to a nicad in operation, someone at niterider told me otherwise but i cant see why it should make a difference.
Where it could be a problem is charging as the system has a dumb charger you plug into the light and the switch acts as a smart charger for the battery. so i imagine i'll have to get a pack charger for the batteries.
Bulb
The lighset in normal use runs 2 bulbs a 12 and a 20 watt in various modes its designed so that when a bulb blows it will just drive a single bulb. althou when testing this today it seems the battery guage doesnt work when this happens.
The system runs 13.2v althou i can get it to run on 12v so using this post https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/114094 the best choice would seem to be a WA1166 bulb wich runs on 11.6v
Other bits and pieces such as reflector and so on have yet to be decided i want to get the bones of it together 1st and figure out whether its gonna work.
I'm no expert when it comes to electronics so what i've posted here is with the little knowledge I have + some common sense (well as much as common sense can be applied squeezing parts of a 250 quid lightset into a 25 quid torch)
So any input would be apreciated I plan on getting some pics posted here so you can get a better idea of how its gonna work
althou I had a flash of inspiriation i've been chacking out how its done and what to do and althou nice and bright they can be high mantenance.
one of my other passtimes that i spend daft amounts of cash on is mountainbiking and so i have a couple of high powered off road lighting systems about. one of them a niterider xlc-pro has been shelved due to a dead battery and me getting a 21watt hid cateye stadium 3.
so a it occured to me to try and use the intelligent switch from the niterider in a mag85 build
It has a soft start for the bulbs so no worries about instaflashes
3 settings so when vast amounts arent needed i can conserve battery life
It has a battery fuel guage (althou i'm not sure this is gonna be operational)
Today i've been reverse engineering the niterider (read pulling apart) and it seems like it should be possible
I plan on using a 3D mag for the host
Batteries:
The system used from what i can make out 11 subc nicad cells which i'm guessing would be around 3000mAH
So battery wise i'll go with 10 or 11 2400mAH AA nimh batteries. The old switch isnt needed so it shouldnt be a prob fitting them in a 3d. The switch won't start with anything less than 12v I havent tried more yet as i've only got the original cells to mess about with
So the questions here is nihms should be no different to a nicad in operation, someone at niterider told me otherwise but i cant see why it should make a difference.
Where it could be a problem is charging as the system has a dumb charger you plug into the light and the switch acts as a smart charger for the battery. so i imagine i'll have to get a pack charger for the batteries.
Bulb
The lighset in normal use runs 2 bulbs a 12 and a 20 watt in various modes its designed so that when a bulb blows it will just drive a single bulb. althou when testing this today it seems the battery guage doesnt work when this happens.
The system runs 13.2v althou i can get it to run on 12v so using this post https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/114094 the best choice would seem to be a WA1166 bulb wich runs on 11.6v
Other bits and pieces such as reflector and so on have yet to be decided i want to get the bones of it together 1st and figure out whether its gonna work.
I'm no expert when it comes to electronics so what i've posted here is with the little knowledge I have + some common sense (well as much as common sense can be applied squeezing parts of a 250 quid lightset into a 25 quid torch)
So any input would be apreciated I plan on getting some pics posted here so you can get a better idea of how its gonna work
... I will use a 4amp/hr 14.4v lithium pack...
