newbie LED modder question...

how does the LED heat sink stay in a maglite? Is it mounted somehow?

thanks

also if there is any simple newbie LED moders pages I can look at I be interested to see a link.

You can use thermal adhesive to mount the led to the heat sink. Search for CPF member 3rd_shift, he has some great tutorial threads on building maglites. Or just search for mag lite mods in general, you'll find a lot of info if you have the time.

The actual heat sink stays in with thermal compound and the lens lightly squeezing against the reflectors.

how does the heatsink stay in?

and also do I have to use a driver?

What are the grooves in the heat sink for?

Are there heatinks that hold bare led's and not the stars?

There's a ledge in the mag head that the sink sits on. The reflectors which are then mounted on top of the sink and are lightly squeezed against the lens.

You dont have to use a driver. You can use a resistor, the type of resistor depends on the volts in compared to the volts needed out to run the led(s). 3rd_shift uses resistors in a couple of his tutorials.

Not sure what grooves you mean in the sink, but some are grooved to hold leds.

Sandwich Shoppe has sinks that are grooved to hold multiple bare leds. CPF member H22A has sinks that are made to hold a single bare led. There are many other suppliers out there that have sinks. It is also possible to mount bare leds on a flat sink.

Buschpounder, you are in the right section. I did a little of the work for you. Here is where I got alot of confidence I can do this.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/163902

Simple and foolproof.

Here is another wonderful summary of Icarus's many, many mods. Some complicated, but worth seening the different stuff out there.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1044752&postcount=57

Another one of my favorite informational tutorials:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2057789

Cydonia gave me the courage to use Micropucks and his excellent tutorial if you want a fast and great looking mod:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=166995

All the above said. The clones of these that I made while mine were in the mail needed some adjustment to fit tight. On one of the tutorials someone said hit the side a couple of times with a center punch....it did the trick perfectly for mine. The DHS that H22A offeres in the B/S/T forum is excellent and will save you hours of time infront of the lathe....all the dimensions have been figured out....no brainer. Worth your time to get a couple if you already don't.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=160483

Finally, as shown above there are basically two types of heatsinks, those that fit in the top of the battery tube where the light was, and two, those that use the threads on the inside of the head of the flashlight.

I will be corrected but generally the heatsinks that get inserted into the tube are for single LED mods while everyone uses the screw in kind for the 3 or more LED mods. Sandwich shoppe has the nice one that screws in and out so you can get the smaller reflectors tight against the main lense.

Bob E.

buschpounder said:

Not sure what grooves you mean in the sink, but some are grooved to hold leds.

Click to expand...

These are the grooves I was talking about..


Also, I didnt know there were two types of heat sinks.

""Finally, as shown above there are basically two types of heatsinks, those that fit in the top of the battery tube where the light was, and two, those that use the threads on the inside of the head of the flashlight""

Thanks SafteyBob, for all the great info.