The Quest Ends: The Perfect Mag Reflector

Stock Mag reflectors are great parabolic reflectors, but magnify all errors with off-center filaments. In fact, at its best, a Mag reflector essentially gives you a gnarly projected image of the filament.

I've been looking for a Mag reflector that can produce a perfect beam for many months. By this I mean a good hotspot slowly tapering away to a nice--but tight--spill.

I had a stock aluminum parabolic reflector stippled and vacuum metalized, then machined it to fit a Mag lite as a drop-in modification. The result is a perfect beam. It actually blows away my Surefire lights in brightness and tightness.

The stochastic reflector is on the left, the stock Mag reflector on the right. You'll notice the reflections from the flash in each are rather different.

Frankly, there's little reason to preserve the Mag "focusing" feature since (in my opinion) anything but a focused beam is pretty sorry, but "drop-in" either C or D was a design goal. Defocusing slightly gives a looser Surefire-style beam.

I'm very satisfied with this reflector!

What was the donor for the reflector?

Wilkey

No donor. The reflector started life as a stock Carley 1940 (2" parabolic with set screw).

Thanks!

That's very nice. So, any plans to make up some more of these? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Beamshots? Please? If we all ask very nicely? Thanks

-Mike

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X-CalBR8 said:
That's very nice. So, any plans to make up some more of these? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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My thoughts exactly! Any plans of making anymore of these? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Very nice indeed!

Me too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Oh now that is lovely! I could use about 4 of those if you feel like making a batch. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/poke2.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

very nice!

i'm excited to hear you finally got around to this /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

about those beamshots...

Here are the beam shots at 15 feet 1/15 sec F 3.5. This is somewhat underexposed to display the difference between the beams. This is on a Mag 3C with EverLED SE bulb.

On the left is the stock reflector. On the right is the stochastic reflector. Both are focused to tightest possible spot.

Pictures were converted to grayscale, then the brightest area was converted to white. On top are the original pictures. On bottom are the pictures posterized to 16 shades; the dark and light bands are an optical illusion. The darkness in the lower left corner is due to the paper being bent outward.

The stock reflector has brighter areas, but the hotspot looks like a crescent moon, probably due to a slightly off center bulb. The overall beam contains uneven light and dark areas.

The stochastic reflector beam, though not containing the super hot irregular areas, is very circular and more diffuse, about 50% again as big. The beam is much more useful since the center doesn't completely overwhelm the diffuse area.

Rothrandir: Carley for an unknown reason was having quality control problems with the vacuum metalization. I told them that if their own QC department accepted them, so would I. They refinished them three times over the last four months. (I can't even remember why I originally ordered them.) Luckily, Carley is only five minutes away from where I live.

After seeing the results, I already have a request for quote in for twenty more. I assumed a few folks around here could figure out what to do with them /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. I could probably do something with twenty of them all by myself!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

sounds great!

I can do something with it! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I don't understand. Why is the Mag reflector mounted in an aluminum reflector? Or is it just the rear cam of the Mag reflector in the aluminum one?
Why not just metalize the Mag reflector?
Is there another thread where you discused these details of your design?

I would sure like to get one.

It looks like you've done something very important here, Otokoyama. It will be interesting to see what all the rest of the Modifiers say about it. Congratulations on your prize.

shankus: I cut off the cam from a Mag reflector and reamed out the back of the aluminum reflector to make it fit. If I was to provide these to CPFers, I'd probably make the cam aluminum also to reduce the cost of buying Mag reflectors (though many mods use reflectors with cams removed and maybe someone would be interested). However, I'm not sure that aluminum would wear well as a cam.

I would prefer to stipple and metalize the Mag reflector. I wasn't able to identify anyone that could/would do this, though have wondered if a Mag reflector was lightly bead blasted (instead of stippled) and re-metalized if the effect wouldn't be the same.

Great work Otokoyama! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

- Don

Nice work Otokoyama. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Wouldn't it be possible to do something simular as Flashlightlens did with the Tigerlightreflectors, or would that disperse the beam too much? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif
beamshaper for Tigerlight?

I agree with Do!

So how much are you asking for one of these? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif