Brightest LED for 4D MagLite

[JimboDude]

Hi, this is my first time posting and i have looked through the forums for countless hours.

I am still unsure of which led to mod my maglite for the best brightness, considering a reasonable price.

The 3w Diamond Luxeon LED looks great, but would it brighter if i used, say 32 26k mcd leds?

I am also aware that 4D is a bit too much voltage, so i was thinking of using one "dummy" battery as a spacer to just use 4.5v.

Thanks for all the input, I appreciate your help.

 

[Bimmerboy]

Welcome to CPF, Jimbo!
Just guessing, but you may not have gotten a reply because of a couple things.
There are so many mod choices and combinations of LED's, optics, reflectors, batteries that it's hard to answer what could work for you without stating what you want your mod to do... flood, tight spot, bright, long runtime, etc.
But maybe more importantly, this same (slightly misdirected) question has already been asked about 15,000 times. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

First thing to do, as I've found out, is to learn as much as you can about what all these different components do and how they interact. This will help you ask more directed questions that will make more sense. Not that you can't ask general questions, but you get the idea...

Have fun learning... it's been fun for me so far.

 

[HarryN]

Hi - ok - I will throw in my 2 cents. The nice thing about a little too much voltage is that it can be efficiently, or not so efficiently, converted to current and make your light last longer.

My favorite, but least efficient simple method would be a 2 ohm resistor and a Lux III with 4xD.

A more efficient, but slightly more expensive, is to use a buck converter - such as sold by georges80 and wayne at the sandwich shoppe.

 

[UncleFester]

If ya want a really bright single LED solution, here's da deal.
Use a georges80 Fatman boost converter to drive a Luxeon 5 on an O-sink. That Fatman has adjustable output current all the way up to one amp.
I built one of these and it works really well.
If you're looking for a little less light and longer run time (along with a tighter beam)use a georges80 CC5WB downconverter set at one amp to drive a Lux 3 on the same O-sink. This is the buck converter HarryN mentioned.
These things are fun to mess with.
Welcome to CPF. Hang on to your wallet. Oh yeah, if you don't have one already, you might want a PayPal account.