Help a Newbie mod some maglites =)

[bugsy714]

Hello to all,

I'm new to this forum and came in search of the best LED mods to do with my 2D 3D and 4D maglites (shwaglites). I'd love to really pack the most & highest wattage LEDs into these that can fit, I saw a mod on a show the other day with maglite with 3X 3 or 5 watt LEDs in an array and was inspired!

A little background on my flashaholic history; I have been obsessed with high powered flashlights for years due to an eye condition I have that causes nightblindness. When I saw my first keychain LED I was converted from a diehard maglite fan to an LED obsessed fiend. I just recently got my first 3 watt LED that is the size of a cigar, it blew my maglights away and could be carried anywhere which is a big bonus for me. I'm now on the hunt for something fun to do with my maglites since they are pretty much useless with incandescent bulbs.

I would prefer a nice smooth beam somewhere between spotlight and floodlight and have no need for the beam adjustment. Also I would like to get the most lumens possible since I am essentially blindfolded while in the dark yet fully functional with a proper light source.

Any help is much appreciated, if you want to throw some recommendations for small & powerful LED flashlights I'm always looking for a better & brighter light =)

Thanks!

 

[Gunner12]

First off, Welcome to CPF!

Buy one of these(malkoffdevices Dropin, he is making these by hand so they are in short supply) or a Terralux SSC drop in (dimmer then the Malkoff but also cheaper) just to see what the new Seoul LEDs are capable of(Cree XRE and Seoul P4 have twice the efficency of Luxeons if you haven't noticed yet, example).

On a show, hummm, was that on National Geography? If it was, then the person who made the mod is here but I don;t recall his forum name(Modamag?).

Triple/Quad Cree heatsink
Regulators, I can't help with
Reflectors,
LEDs can be found for cheap here(Dealextreme and Kaidomain), more Seouls and Crees and people here also sell them.
Thermal epoxy
And it is recommended to get glass lenses.

A fun mod will be to create a Aspheric Lens Cree mod for the Mag, like this one, throws very far.

For a small but powerful light, the Fenix CE line is recommended(L0D-CE(AAA), L1/2D-CE(AA), P1/2/3D-CE(CR123), Reviews on Flashlightreviews)
For something cheap, look at Dealextreme(Cree)(Seoul)

Good Luck and Have Fun

 

[Cydonia]

Welcome to the madhouse

There are plenty of powerful custom LED upgrades for Maglites. I recently came to face the fact that... to get good Maglite LED power... one has to jump into the do it yourself modification arena. So I'm currently waiting on a slew of parts from 5 different sources to arrive so that I can put together a few nice single LED (SSC P4) Mag's. Pretty frustrating that no big metal well heatsinked Maglite upgrade module exists yet. Gene of Malkoff Devices makes some, but his next batch are a month away. Good luck getting one, they sell out instantly. They are the brightest single LED Maglite upgrade you can get, short of building one yourself. They are about $75.

Because the off the shelf options are not very exciting. You've got MagLED's... and the TerraLux modules. Yawn. Oh, MagLED's are alright... but read the flashlightreviews.com info on them and notice that the 3 cell MagLED is about 25% brighter than the 2D one, and almost 10% brighter than the 4 cell version! Of course, they quickly dim by 50% or more after just 10 minutes of constant operation... as the heat builds up... the MagLED throttles down the power to the LED to save the circuit and LED from burning up. The TerraLux modules do not throttle down power to limit heat... so they keep getting hotter and hotter. One wonders about life expectancy of these modules.

The other absolutely essential Maglite upgrade that makes a good 8-10% increase in light output is to replace the plastic lens with a good quality glass coated lens. $5.50 from flashlightlens.com. You want the 52.1mm x 1.90mm for all C and D size maglites. (The 2.84mm thick option there is for when you have a Maglite without the reflector in place.)

So the first thing I would do is get some clear glass lenses that will let more light through and be resistant to scratches. Maybe try a 3 cell MagLED in the 3D. Try a TerraLux in the 4D. And if you have patience and can solder (and have the tools for this)... then for about $55 you can turn the 2D into a "170 lumen out the front blazer". (SSC P4 from dealextreme $6.25, D size heatsink from Litemania for $12 + $5 shipping, Two (2) MicroPuck's (High output up to 500ma) from led-supply for $9.99 each, and some arctic silver thermal epoxy from the sandwich shoppe for $13.

 

[bugsy714]

Wow, Thanks for all of the info!

The guy on the national geo show was talking about 700 lumens+, it got my wheels turning =)

I'll poke around and check out all of the links, I'll probably be picking up a new mini light as well.

Any other suggestions/info are welcome, glad to know I'm not the only person out there with a flashlight fetish =)

 

[DonShock]

...The guy on the national geo show was talking about 700 lumens+, it got my wheels turning =)....

FYI - That guy and all the others at that get together where those segments were filmed were people from CPF.
See this thread for all the posts by the people involved. It has the details leading up to the shooting of the TV footage, what went on during the TV shoot, and more right up to the show airing this week.

 

[Essexman]

If you want to have a go at building a Mag yourself here are a couple of threads that show you what to do;
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=144921

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=163902

have fun

 

[Cydonia]

It is very common for people to come here asking what they can do to upgrade their Maglites. There ought to be a sticky up top containing in 1 post all the various options, lumens out etc., to help new users. At least once a week a new thread is created asking these same questions.