mdocod
Flashaholic
I was thinking about a simple magmod.... couldn't find anything but a litemania adapter... not sure what those are made like, and it looks like I'm not the only one looking for a way to get AAs into a mag in a nice low resistance fashion. Now.. I was thinking about making something for myself... but after making some phone calls (a great many to even find a source of the material I had in mind), the minimum order size for the bar stock I would be using is 8ft. All I need is about 5 inches of that for a 2D adapter, So I might as well put the whole bar to good use IF I order it (it's not exactly cheap). Which means making about a dozen or more 3AA>1D adapters and selling the ones I don't intend to use to help recover costs.
I've spent the better part of the day making phone calls to source materials and sketching designs and figuring out this simple CAD program and all around pulling hair out... But I am slowly progressing in the direction of a 3AA>1D carrier.
The design goals are as follows:
1. Secure 3 AA sized cells in a reasonably sturdy fashion.
2. Have those cells wired in series.
3. Have all electrical connections very solid and low resistance. (heavy soldered copper interconnects)
4. Have a stud sticking out the "positive" end with a nut on it, the nut will hold the assembly together and apply clamping force to the connections. With the nut removed, assembly can be screwed into the negative end of another adapter. This way you can stack adapters end to end with very low resistance (not just touching, but threaded together). Users could stack up to 6 packs, for anywhere from 6AA to 18AA in stock mag light sizes.
5. Charging would be accomplished by charging leads with magnets that the user would attach to either end of the removed pack manually, I may consider making some little magnet loaded charging leads and including them with each adapter. I have no intension of making a charging jack, or including any special design that would cater to the use of a driver or anything, I'm trying to keep the design simple and functional without complication, and above all else, not infringe on any of the design aspects that make some of the existing modder/builder packs special (namely the AWR and FM packs).
At this point, I have no idea if this will come to fruition: There are a ton of obstacles in the way at this point. I am waiting on a response to see if I would qualify for modder/builder status, (if not, then this won't happen, as the cost of a dealer "license" would nearly double the price I would have to charge for these things)... Also if the tooling requirements get way over my garages abilities I may have to bail out. Have to get my paypal setup to receive payment. If a lot of folks think that doing this would be unethical and unfair to current builders/modders I will not pursue it, as I don't want to be on anyones *bad* list. At this point I am thinking about doing 1 "run" in hopes that I can replace the cost of doing the "run."(including paying for some tools I'll need to add to the collection) Might be able to get 20-30 of them out of the first run depending on how many I screw up. Maybe more, not sure at this point.. If it goes well and there is remaining demand I might consider doing more "runs."
so anyways... let me know if you are interested in adapters like this. Let me know if you would throw fruit at me, and let me know what you think.
[edit in]
here's some "Google Sketchup" example of where I'm going with this....
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[edit in 10-9-2007]Ok folks, I've been messing with this for awhile and have spent a lot of money prototyping, at this time, I have come to the conclusion that 5mm isn't enough space to make a strong enough fastener arrangement to stack 3AA carriers end to end. I'm now going to just try for 6AA>2D carriers instead. With 10mm on either end of the cells to work with, these should be much more sturdy. I may be able to make these screw end-to-end, and will experiment with the possibility of a 9AA>3D carrier soon, (if I can come up with a way that the carriers could fasten together, and offer both 2D and 3D sizes, then anything from 2D to 6D mags could use these in stacked configurations).
I've spent the better part of the day making phone calls to source materials and sketching designs and figuring out this simple CAD program and all around pulling hair out... But I am slowly progressing in the direction of a 3AA>1D carrier.
The design goals are as follows:
1. Secure 3 AA sized cells in a reasonably sturdy fashion.
2. Have those cells wired in series.
3. Have all electrical connections very solid and low resistance. (heavy soldered copper interconnects)
4. Have a stud sticking out the "positive" end with a nut on it, the nut will hold the assembly together and apply clamping force to the connections. With the nut removed, assembly can be screwed into the negative end of another adapter. This way you can stack adapters end to end with very low resistance (not just touching, but threaded together). Users could stack up to 6 packs, for anywhere from 6AA to 18AA in stock mag light sizes.
5. Charging would be accomplished by charging leads with magnets that the user would attach to either end of the removed pack manually, I may consider making some little magnet loaded charging leads and including them with each adapter. I have no intension of making a charging jack, or including any special design that would cater to the use of a driver or anything, I'm trying to keep the design simple and functional without complication, and above all else, not infringe on any of the design aspects that make some of the existing modder/builder packs special (namely the AWR and FM packs).
At this point, I have no idea if this will come to fruition: There are a ton of obstacles in the way at this point. I am waiting on a response to see if I would qualify for modder/builder status, (if not, then this won't happen, as the cost of a dealer "license" would nearly double the price I would have to charge for these things)... Also if the tooling requirements get way over my garages abilities I may have to bail out. Have to get my paypal setup to receive payment. If a lot of folks think that doing this would be unethical and unfair to current builders/modders I will not pursue it, as I don't want to be on anyones *bad* list. At this point I am thinking about doing 1 "run" in hopes that I can replace the cost of doing the "run."(including paying for some tools I'll need to add to the collection) Might be able to get 20-30 of them out of the first run depending on how many I screw up. Maybe more, not sure at this point.. If it goes well and there is remaining demand I might consider doing more "runs."
so anyways... let me know if you are interested in adapters like this. Let me know if you would throw fruit at me, and let me know what you think.
[edit in]
here's some "Google Sketchup" example of where I'm going with this....
------------------------------------------------------------
[edit in 10-9-2007]Ok folks, I've been messing with this for awhile and have spent a lot of money prototyping, at this time, I have come to the conclusion that 5mm isn't enough space to make a strong enough fastener arrangement to stack 3AA carriers end to end. I'm now going to just try for 6AA>2D carriers instead. With 10mm on either end of the cells to work with, these should be much more sturdy. I may be able to make these screw end-to-end, and will experiment with the possibility of a 9AA>3D carrier soon, (if I can come up with a way that the carriers could fasten together, and offer both 2D and 3D sizes, then anything from 2D to 6D mags could use these in stacked configurations).
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I'm glad to hear things are coming along well! Sounds like you have an excuse to buy a lathe, how could your gentler-half ever object? 
