Broke My MadMax

My MiniMag/MadMax quit working on me the other night at work. I thought that maybe it was just the contacts on the sandwich touching the side of the flashlight, again. What I found was that one of the leads to the LED had broken off at the base end.

My work flashlights are tools. I don't abuse them, except my MagCharger on occasion, but I don't baby them either. What I think happened is when I was changing I had tossed my pants onto the bench and the flashlight on my belt hit the bench. Because the opening that the LED sticks up through on the MagLite is so small it must have sheared the lead when it hit the bench.

I did manage to solder it back together. But because I don't have a small soldering tip or thin solder it looks like crap. It does work, though.

The Brinkmann Legend AA's have a larger opening for the diode to stick up through. That together with the better switch means the MagLite's days are numbered.

I put my MadMax in a Brinkmann Legend 2AA and it works quite well. I think it's the better platform for dat2zip's sandwiches.

That's too bad, though, what happened to yours. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Is the legend also better for lambda's pills, do you know?

I have to echo once again praise for the brinkman legend flashlights for Mods. They are the choice of Mr Bulk for LGI Classic mods after all /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I've heard a lot of talk about carefully bending the luxeon leads to get them to fit through the top of the light. Or filing the hole a little larger. This is completely unnecessary on the brinkman lights.

If anyone wants to post a closeup pict of what the pill looks like installed in a mag light showing the hole at the top where the LED sticks through I'll be happy to post one of the Brinkman for comparison. I don't currently own a mini mag to test with though, so I can't take both pictures.

EDIT: I don't one of Lamda's pills yet, but I imagine that it would be exactly the same situation since it's the same sized luxeon that has to fit through the hole.

An easy fix for the 2AA mags is to ream the opening out with a tapered reamer. They can be bought at Lowes, Home Depot, etc for around $10. Very handy to have around for other uses since they will open any hole up to 5/8" (15.875mm) dia. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I don't think you want to open it too much, though.
I think the upper lip is the main heat sink path.

I guess I'm saying go easy and remove the burr afterward. That way the underside of the lip is flat.