Mag D-cell mod ideas... Whadda ya think?

I'm in the process of building two separate D cell Mag Light mods. One is a 2D/3C with a single LS/o, the other is a 3D with three LS/o's (Hydra!).

I've decided to mount the heatsink in the flashlight head for both of these mods since this will permit me to interchange heads (1-LS or 3) back and forth between the different size flashlight bodies. I thought this was a good idea and I haven't heard anyone mention it yet. But then again, how many folks own multiple Luxeon modded Mag lights with different quantities of emitters?

Mounting the Luxeons to the heatsink up in the flashlight head places the collumator right up against the back of the lens - which is OK with me. The single LS will use a trimmed out reflector to hide the potting. The 3 LS/o mod won't be fitted with a reflector.

So here's my question(s), I've been thinking about mixing "glow powder" up with some slow-cure clear epoxy and using that to pot up the rest of the space in the head (over the top of my thermal potting). Has anyone tried mixing glow powder and clear epoxy? If so what was your results? Does anyone know of a source for glow powder? Thanks!

Originally posted by Slick:
[QB]
But then again, how many folks own multiple Luxeon modded Mag lights with different quantities of emitters?

QB]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hmm, wonder who your refering too

Sounds interesting. Don't know of any reason it wouldn't work. Mr. Glow may be able to help with the powder. Otherwise just search for past discussions on glow powder; a lot of good info discussed.

Good luck!

I wasn't having much luck searching on "glow powder" until I tried in the other forums. The CPF search engine apparently only search's the one forum that you select as opposed to all active forums..

Anyhow, I was thinking about using the "glow epoxy" mix in the head of the Hydra that I'm building. If I use the collumator holders, then only 3 LS's will fit, but if I use a heatsink of the right thickness, the Mag's lens will hold the collumators in place without the use of the black plastic holders. It makes the collumators appear to "float" within the head. I think Lambda may have built his 4-LS Hydra like this if memory serves me right.

If I go with the "floating collumator" design, I'd have plenty of light spill to keep the glow epoxy charged..

I'm building this in conjunction with other mods, so progress is slow, but I'll post some photos when I get it finished and report on it's usefulness. I'm mostly excited about the "interchangeable head" idea that I'm going with. This should give me extra configuration options.

It sure is nice to be working on some mods where I can hold the parts in my hands instead of only being able to use my fingertips like most of the AA parts require.. My sore fingers are finally healing!

Originally posted by Slick:
I wasn't having much luck searching on "glow powder" until I tried in the other forums. The CPF search engine apparently only search's the one forum that you select as opposed to all active forums..

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's an option Davis sets and next month he is going to turn it on for ALL forums and see if it sucks much extra bandwidth.

Here's a source for glow powder.

http://www.barlowstackle.com/acb2/showdetl.cfm?&DID=9&Product_ID=358&CATID=58

Dave

Glow Powder? What a great idea. Wish I had thought of that. Mix it in with the epoxy. Cool. It would make the flashlight easy to find when it's dark. Maybe, on my Blaster, I could put some inside the head, around the LS, or around the switch?

Let me know how it comes out.

Wayne
www.elektrolumens.com

I haven't mixed it in with the epoxy, but I have painted on top of the epoxy with glow powder. Works okay, there's enough light leaking out of the optics to charge up the glow powder slightly, so when you look into the optics, there's a bluish glow. I potted the whole LS heatsink to have the epoxy almost surrounding the optics but not quite touching, I think if I just painted the potting epoxy as it was there wouldn't be a whole lot of light coming out of the optics to really give it a good charge because most of the light is internally reflected.

In a similar vein, I'm working on two lights that are going to have the LEDs (Nichias) in a "module" made of GITD Fimo clay.

Not even close to being finished, but initial tests look pretty good.

Originally posted by Silviron:
In in a "module" made of GITD Fimo clay.

Not even close to being finished, but initial tests look pretty good.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not too sure about the Fimo... How about making a mold (from prototype?) and cast it in something more resistant... Like plastic, rubber, or...(well, you get the picture) There is probably something out there wich mixes easily with the GITD powder, and is translucent to a degree...

Or isn't the Fimo chipping or breaking up?

If it works, great (and reproducable? by idiots like myself...)
Just curious...

There is another CPF member here that did a complete potted module and one layer of the epoxy box was mixed with glow powder. It looked really cool.

I can't see any reason why glow powder can't be blended in almost any clear substance.

The person I'm thinking of did a ??Pelican box and made it a solid cube with one of those rectagular LED boards.

-WayneY

Swappable heads? Now that's an idea whose time has come!

I am also going to paint some glow powder around the inside of the bezels on one of the LED mods I have or will have -- although I think mr. glow said something about how the powder needs to have direct light input (90 degrees?) to maximize the charge-up. Mebbe the LS side emitter?

Cool, I'm gonna try it.. Here's the plan. I'll pot over the heatsink, contacts, and wiring with a "thermal" epoxy blend that will be white to help give the clear a good "background". After that sets, I'll mix in the glow powder with the clear slow-cure epoxy. I'll pour this in on top the thermal layer.

I'll make it nice and deep if I use the collumator holders. What would really make this work good would be collumators holders molded in clear plastic instead of the black. Hmmmmmmm...... Maybe I should grab a spare collumator and head over to the plastics shop

There is a possible problem with this mod. If you are still going to be screwing the head on in the original manner, the LED wires will be twisted. You would need to make the wires extra long to provide for this. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if you don't screw it on very far. Also, if you do turn the head all the way against the body, you need to make sure the wires don't get squeezed between the head and body, or between the bulb holder and the back of the heatsink.

On my Mag LS, I screwed the head all the way on for maximum heat conduction between them, then drilled and tapped holes to attach a copper heatsink. There are connectors on the wires so that I can unbolt the heatsink assembly and remove it completely to install a different LED configuration in the future. Maybe multiple LS's or a 5W LS.

My LS topic

Photos

The glow idea sounds interesting.

Originally posted by kz1000s1:
There is a possible problem with this mod. If you are still going to be screwing the head on in the original manner, the LED wires will be twisted

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My bad.. I didn't really explain how I was going to get around the very obstacle that you mention. Taking lessons that I learned from my 3AA mod, I'm actually building another "pill" design.. Since this one is going in a full-size D-cell Mag, I thought about dubbing it the "Horse Pill". But since this assembly will get epoxied into the head, It won't be considered a true "pill" after the testing phase. Essentially, my mod has "no wires", but uses "spring contacts" instead.

Here's the plan, I'm building two heads right now. One is a single LS and the other is a triple LS. In both cases the Luxeons will be mounted to heatsinks that mount in the flashlight head (as opposed to the top of the body).. The bottom of each heatsink will have a "post" that extends downwards towards the body. The tip of this post will house the positive contact and the base will supply the negative. Since the Mag's PR base mount has a "verticle spring action", when the head is screwed down the post will drop into (what was) the original bulb socket and the tip will hit the bottom (+) and base will hit the top edge (-) of the bulb socket to supply power to the head. This all happens because the positive contact at the bottom of the bulb socket is spring loaded just like the entire bulb socket (although a stiffer spring). Mag does this to accomodate their means of focusing the incandecent bulb. I'm simply re-directing their "compound spring action" to create the proper electrical contacts for the pickup "post" to feed my hungry Luxeons..

I'm hoping that just even a little of this made sense since I don't have any pix to post yet. I do have some friends w/digi-cams so photos WILL be forthcoming upon completion...(which is still a way's off)...

***** Just as an update to where I'm at on the project, I just found some "carbonfiber" tubing to build the pickup posts. I have been held up looking for a suitable non-conductive material that is strong enough to handle abuse and properly mount to the bottom of the heatsink.. Ideas are a cookin, so stay tuned..

..and Thanks for your thoughts KZ100s1, You guys are helping me make sure I have my bases covered on this..

That should work as long as the negative contact can make a good enough connection without the clamping force of the original bulb retainer. I had also thought of a drop in "pill" using a similar arrangement with a gutted bulb on the end of a post coming off of the bottom of the pill, then fitting the heatsink between the top of the tube and the head like you appear to have done with your Brinkmann.

I don't mean to sound negative, but I do believe "carbonfiber" is conductive. I have a motorcycle magazine that shows a bike with a carbonfiber tail section that was pushed against the top of the battery by the weight of the rider and shorted out the battery.

Keep up the good work!

Originally posted by Slick:
Essentially, my mod has "no wires", but uses "spring contacts" instead.

Here's the plan, I'm building two heads right now. One is a single LS and the other is a triple LS. In both cases the Luxeons will be mounted to heatsinks that mount in the flashlight head (as opposed to the top of the body).. The bottom of each heatsink will have a "post" that extends downwards towards the body. The tip of this post will house the positive contact and the base will supply the negative. ..

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Slick,

This is exactly how I did an LS mod to a RadioShack 3C aluminum flashlight. Because I could not solder the negative lead from the LS to the aluminum heat sink [just you try that ] I had construct a copper disk with a hole in the center for the negative contact. The copper disk was glued with Arctic Alumina adhesive to the back of the heatsink, and the negative lead was soldered to that. The back of the assembly looks like a bullseye target. The copper disk makes contact with the flashlight body. The Arctic Alumina ensures good heat conductivity from the heatsink to the copper contact, and from there to the flashlight body.

I intend to do a Mag LS mod this way as well. I really like the result, but must say it was a lot of work. I think the Mag will be easier than the RS 3C because of the way the bulb carrier floats.

Good luck,
Sal

Oh, and the RS light is a single, and the Mag will be a triple LS, how about that! But the heads won't be interchangeable :-(

Digressing a bit...
I haven't decided how to power the triple, whether 3V (2 D's) or 4.5V (3 C's), and more importantly, direct drive or regulated. Maximum brightness is probably direct drive with fresh batts, but regulated output would be great. Pretty darn expensive light with 3 regulators + 3 LS's. I've done the DD thing though, so not too excited about that. Damn the torpedoes, I'm gonna do this thing up!

--Sal

Perhaps just a ZLT-reg feeding all 3 LS's in series? It wouldn't be able to individually adjust theLS's to make them all match brightness, tho.

Kill-o-zap, you pretty much nailed it. Mine looks like a bulls eye too. It's nice to have a design that the head can switched around without having to mess with any wires.

KZ1000s1 - I checked and my carbon-fiber tube is electrically non-conductive.. But in double checking that negative contact - I see what you mean. I had first thought the the + power contact at the bottom of the bulb socket was INDEPENDANTLY sprung from the negative socket shell. But they're sprung together. I'm glad I checked this because I was able to redesign my negative pickup without wasting any effort or material on a "goof-up" Thanks man!!

I had thought of naming this thing the "horse pill" Also am looking at glow sheet material and might even make a mask (around the LS's) instead of trying to mix the glow epoxy. I'm kind of afraid that the clear epoxy would "yellow" over time and not look as nice.

Oh yeah, runnin direct-drive all the way

Carbon is a semiconductor. Having carbon fiber impregnated with epoxy may render it an insulator.
Carbon is, of course, what most resistors are made of.