Cheap reflector/heatsing for P7/Cmag

for those of you who were wondering... www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13803

The heat sink is about .050 too large to fit into a C mag body... even with the ano removed. Looks like its time for power tools

yes, this is not a massive heat sink.
yes the potential exists to cook the emitter if run continously at hight amps... but its $7!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there's little or no heat sink in these:shakehead i had to make a one off beryllium copper heat sink, there is not enough metal to keep cool a P7 when used in a C mag

you think?

abinok said:

you think?

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yep i did the same thing as you show in you picture, then turn down the outside of the brass bit and with a little thermo grease filled void then caped the end run for 5 mins and then 30 mins the head and neck area was up to 74.2 cen top limit being around 86cen so like a dumd a fool tried for an hour killed it stone dead so IMO it didn't work for me i can only hope it work out for you. post pics when you build it cheers DocD

Makes sense... im thinking of this more of a 300-400 lumen light, not driven to the max. How hard were you driving yours?

I have one of these on order. If it is not suitable for a P7, what about a P4 driven between 500 and 1000 ma?:sigh:

I brought the same one for my dive light project.Upon getting it I quickly decided the heat sink would be inadequate. I still used the reflector though.
The heat sink may have been OK for a dive light due to the water being a heat sink but I didnt see any point limiting its usage to below water only.

how is the beam compared to a stock or mop mag reflector?

Ya, that $7 was just too cheap to pass up. I'm looking at a DD Mag that needs attention. No doubt the heatsink is too narrow but no big deal, I have plenty of rod stock and a tool room lathe.

I'd be interested to hear reports about the beam quality.

PS Any news that SSI will migrate their high CRI technology to the P7? Seems like a logical step.

Nos said:

how is the beam compared to a stock or mop mag reflector?

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The beam is MUCH smoother than the stock mag reflector. No donut that I see of and most, if not all artifacts are gone. However you will lose some throw but you gain in spill. This is more of a flood reflector than anything else. I ended up going back to the stock reflector because I wanted throw. I already have another light for flood. For the price, it's as good as you can get for a mag replacement. It just needs to be modified a bit. Heatsink is junk. I think you can buy the reflector without the heatsink. It was $1 cheaper or something.

GSteg said:

The beam is MUCH smoother than the stock mag reflector. No donut that I see of and most, if not all artifacts are gone. However you will lose some throw but you gain in spill. This is more of a flood reflector than anything else. I ended up going back to the stock reflector because I wanted throw. I already have another light for flood. For the price, it's as good as you can get for a mag replacement. It just needs to be modified a bit. Heatsink is junk. I think you can buy the reflector without the heatsink. It was $1 cheaper or something.

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the cheap one is a different reflector, not as deep as the one you used. :tinfoil:

Nos said:

the cheap one is a different reflector, not as deep as the one you used. :tinfoil:

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i think they are both the same :candle: as i have both, i can see no difference between the two :thumbsup:

DocD said:

i think they are both the same :candle: as i have both, i can see no difference between the two :thumbsup:

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DX also does this reflector

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12229

And KD Too

http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1844

Its a P7 reflector similar to sku 13803 except it has no heatsink or threads for a heatsink on the back of it.

Kaidomain has a selection of reflectors, I have an R2 dropin pill screwed into the back of one of these

http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=1819

Its fitted to a 4D maglite clone, this clone was better suited to take this mod than a genuine maglite would have been but it still required the head to be bored out and the lip on the reflector machined down so the bezel would screw on fully.

nicknich22931 said:

I have one of these on order. If it is not suitable for a P7, what about a P4 driven between 500 and 1000 ma?:sigh:

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I did the mod, but with a Cree Q4 XR-E Star instead of the SSC P4 I suggested.



I had a bare P4 but thought the star would work better.

To get better heat sinking, I first cut the end off the brass LED holder that comes with the reflector (so it would fit down inside the C Maglite body), cut about 1/4 inch off a Radio Shack 276-1368 heat sink and thermal epoxied it to the back side of the brass holder.



Since the reflector was designed to mount and focus a P7, I wanted to be able to adjust the focus after installing the star, so I enlarged the end of the reflector with a file, giving the star room to come through the opening. Rotating the brass holder varies the focal length. Once I had it where I wanted it, a coating of Shoe-Goo on the outside keeps it there. The Shoe-Goo stays rubbery so can be removed if I need to get things apart.



I used a 500 MA MicroPuck-SHO to drive it. At that level, nothing gets warm to the touch, not even the surface of the star.

It has a nice round smooth hot spot with lots of spill and is easy on the two C alkalines.

The lens bezel does not screw all the way down, the lip is too thick. I will sand it down on a belt sander later, when I get the chance.

I bought this reflector to try it out on a low current P7 in a beat up old Mag2D I am restoring for a friend. However things turned out differently...
First of all, the reflector needed some work to make it fit in the Mag head, i used handtools and did the job in something like two hours.

I then discovered the pocket for the electronics is something like 20mm+ and I only had some 17mm circuits. I solved this problem by making an insert from some 3/4" plumbingparts I had laying around.

The original diameter for electronics was however perfect for the outer spring from a D26-module I had in my sparesbox. The center connection was made from a fairly long spring with a copper rivet soldered in the middle. The rivethead is ground to a diameter that fits in the Mag-switch after the bulbtower has been cut off.
The outer spring touches the negative tab on the Mag-switch wich has been bent outwards and soldered to a small bridge to make better contact with the spring. Also the spring has been soldered shut in the end to avoid it from snagging on the internals while assembling.

To test the module I glued a U2SWOH P4 in place, and the thing lit up very nicely with a perfect beampattern. So perfect, I am actually thinking of keeping it this way and just see what my friend says about it.

Here´s how the module looks from the rear


And here... the front