Help for a "Newbie", Please

Hello All,

I've been reading the forums here for some time and the thought of modifying a light intrigues me greatly but I have little knowledge of how to go about it. Can anyone offer any information on where to go for supplies, how to's, tools needed, etc.? I currently have an old Mini-Mag that's been stripped years ago before I acquired it, and would like to know if that's a good one to start with? Any help on this matter will be greatly apprecaited.

Thank you all for your time,

Pat

You can buy replacement front ends for your minimag, some made by members of this forum.
If you want to start from scratch though, go to a car-boot-sale or garage sale and pick up some old torches to modify to LED.
I started my LED torch collection like this, by being given an old torch with a defunct bulb.
The LED's and resistors are available through a variety of sources, mail order internet and high street shops.
The easiest way to mod a torch is to mod the bulb with an LED and resistor. There are lots of web sites covering this subject, dogpiling on "LED Light bulb" should net you a number of sites.

They have Car-boot-sales there? That's cool. That would be the American equivilant of a "trunk" sale.


I like tyres

You'll want a quality DVOM and soldering iron as well as a "hobby" tool set (that contains smaller tools for working on smaller projects). A Dremel moto-tool, metal snips, and some files will aid in making heatsinks & other custom parts. A small vise, clamps, clips or "helping hands" come in handy during assembly. Also get both slow-cure and 5min epoxy along with some Arctic Silver.

I shop at metal surplus stores for pieces of various metals to make heatsinks. Surplus hardware & eletronics stores are where I find most of the consumables used for modding flashlights.

Many times I find parts (for a penny a piece) that look like they may have potential for modding, so I stock up on a variety of items. Then you'll have this stuff on hand to assist you in determining your design for a mod.

Good-luck & enjoy.

PS. A stripped AA mini-mag would not be my first choice for a mod but would probably be good for practice..

Saaby
Basically a car boot sale is where people gather to sell on all thier unwanted items, usually in a field or sometimes a parking lot. People would fill thier car's boot (or trunk) with items they want to sell on and set up selling the stuff directly out of the car's boot. Nowadays car-boot-sales are often populated with people who have stalls to sell thier goods, or sometimes the anonymous white Transit van; and sometimes you have small time tradesmen there as well as mobile burger stalls and he like. It is fascinating what you can find at these places, and there are many torch bargains ripe for modding for a few pence. Often you will find the only fault with the torch is a blown bulb, so this gets modified to LED pretty easily and you have a reliable LED torch for the price of an LED and a resistor and a few pence for your purchase! One man's rubbish is often another man's treasure at these sales!
And to finish, you don't usually find many tyres for sale at these places! For thar you need to go to an autojumble, which is like a car-boot-sale specializing in secondhand car and motorbike bits and pieces! You can find some quite interesting torchaholic stuff at these events too!
I guess that we English are a funny bunch, if not a bit eccentric! But then again so are us torchaholics! I like nothing better than looking through wshat appears to be a pile of junk and coming away aith a treasured item for a few pence! It is surprising what some people will buy and sell!

That is kinda what I figured...we have yard sales, where you sell stuff in your yard, and they're rare but there's garage sales, where you sell stuff from your garage. There's flea markets but I've honestly never been to one...

Anyway so I just thought it was funny to have a car-boot sale, but you think the (you?) English are odd look at those sweeds driving their most unique Saabs

Hi Saaby!
'm headimng out to a car boot sale tomorrow to see what I can glean! I will report back on the tankbagful of bargains I've picked up!

Ome would assume from your CPF name that you drive one of those cars as manufactured by a well known Swedish aeroplane manufacturer!

I wish I drive one. I just turned 16, age of driving right here in Utah. My family doesn't own a Saab but we almost did once, however I have decited my first car will be a Saab. My brother is 25 and just bought his first car, I plan to buy a car before I am 25

Been to car boot sale, and collected a bergen full of goodies!
One of the items will be in the collectors forum, the rest will be included in my new torch mods in this forum!

Ok...waiting patiently