Well, the other day I did some side by side comparisons.(I have 2 lights) I bought the Xenon maglite bulb from Home Depot, and I didn't notice any difference at all. Perhaps I need a light meter, but if the gain is too little to see with my eyes, then what's the point? Unless it lasts longer, I guess. Anyway, I have 4D's powering a 3D KPR, and I have 5C's powering a 4D KPR as well. I can't remember which one was brighter, but the difference was there. I think the 4D on a 3D bulb was the brighter one. One of my lights has a very ugly beam shot. It's tear drop shaped. I might try repositioning the reflector or the bulb, or both.. So for now, the simple 3D KPR in the 4D seems to be the winner. You can get cheap KPR's at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. You get a 2 pk for about $2.
I e-mailed the seller of the eBay 32-LED Mag-Lite unit, and he said that it does not throw a good beam, but it's real bright up close, and you batts last a long time. We knew that it wouldn't be focusable. I guess I will keep my $45.
I am going to look for some halogen bulbs(3D & 4D), and see if that's any brighter than my KPR's. I wasn't very impressed with the Xenon, but I still have more experiments to try.
I know that this isn't really true modding, but more simply pushing a bulb to it's limit. As long as I can make my 4D throw a nice white blinding beam, I am happy.
**BTW, I bought a 20W MR-16 (38 degree flood) at Walmart for less than $6 over the weekend. I plopped it into a 3D head, and went out to test it at night. I powered it with my john deere tractor battery, and even though the beamshot was nice, it wasn't as bright as I had hoped. The spot was nice and uniform, circular, no artifacts, but it was warm-yellowish compared to my other lights. My 2C 3x123 mod was about 5x brighter. I brought the MR-16 inside, and ligned up 5xSF123's, and lit it up. On more voltage, it was brighter, but again, not very impressive. Perhaps the outcome would had been different if I had 5x2 paralleled, but I wasn't ready to give up 10 of my SF123's and dump them into a 20 watt bulb. This particular MR-16 was a 38 degree flood. I returned it to walmart, said it was the wrong one, and life goes on I guess. Is there an MR-16 with more of a SPOT pattern? I don't really want a flood...
-Jace- /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif