Mag 3D to 3- LS conversion is done!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

SUCCESS!!! I received the LS modules friday (3 white and 1 green). I used two whites and what I thought was an amber. When I found out it was green I switched to 3 whites. I left them on their bases and trimmed the bases with metal shears to fit. That was easy. I left the two corners with solder contacts in place and trimmed off the others. They ended up eye shaped. I purchased some thin copper plate and cut that to fit inside the Mag head. I cut a small hole in the center to put the wires through. I soldered the LS modules together in parallel. I put 3 3.6ohm resisters in parallel. This gave me 1.2 ohms. I broke a mag bulb and soldered the wires to it. It all fits inside the Mag head PERFECTLY. I turned it on

ITS BRIGHT!.

BEAM QUALITY: It produces a nice white beam that is fuzzy-edged. It is perfect for walking around at night. It doesn't throw a long-distance beam like a mag can. The beam looks very white like it is fluorecent.

OK so how does it compare to a regular mag 3D? Sorry guys,

the mag is still a *little bit* brighter. The edges of the Mag beam are sharp. The conversion has a much softer-edged beam. I hope to put some pictures up. I don't have a digital camera but I will shoot a shot with my 35mm with the new LS conversion vs. a mag 3D and scan it.

HEAT. The copper plate is doing a good job of sinking the heat to the Mag head. The head does get quite warm after 10 minutes. I will be looking around for some heat-sink compound.

RESISTORS: The resistors I used are not quite right. My calculations show that it is pulling about 1 amp through those three .25 watt resistors

. That turns out to be about .4 watts each. It is also right at the maximum amps that the LS modules can handle (with fresh batteries). I will be changing to four 6 ohm resistors in parallel for 1.5 ohms.

Does anyone know of a step down module that can handle 4.5v input, and output 1 amp at 3.5 volts?

FUTURE: I wanted to try an amber module in there but

Peter sent me one green by mistake. The green was not a good addition to the light. I think one amber would be a very good idea. The beam is currently white with a little blue tinge. A little amber would make it more pleasent to use and should be brighter.

 

[Doug]

Cool! How about you take pictures of the beam, how it looks now, before you go changing the resistors, and basically have beam shots for all the variations, with the original beam shot of the un-modified MAG (of course). Is this a Mag 3C, 3D, ?.

Doug
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Squinty:
SUCCESS!!! I received the LS modules friday (3 white and 1 green). I used two whites and what I thought was an amber. When I found out it was green I switched to 3 whites. I left them on their bases and trimmed the bases with metal shears to fit. That was easy. I left the two corners with solder contacts in place and trimmed off the others. They ended up eye shaped. I purchased some thin copper plate and cut that to fit inside the Mag head. I cut a small hole in the center to put the wires through. I soldered the LS modules together in parallel. I put 3 3.6ohm resisters in parallel. This gave me 1.2 ohms. I broke a mag bulb and soldered the wires to it. It all fits inside the Mag head PERFECTLY. I turned it on

ITS BRIGHT!.

BEAM QUALITY: It produces a nice white beam that is fuzzy-edged. It is perfect for walking around at night. It doesn't throw a long-distance beam like a mag can. The beam looks very white like it is fluorecent.

OK so how does it compare to a regular mag 3D? Sorry guys,

the mag is still a *little bit* brighter. The edges of the Mag beam are sharp. The conversion has a much softer-edged beam. I hope to put some pictures up. I don't have a digital camera but I will shoot a shot with my 35mm with the new LS conversion vs. a mag 3D and scan it.

HEAT. The copper plate is doing a good job of sinking the heat to the Mag head. The head does get quite warm after 10 minutes. I will be looking around for some heat-sink compound.

RESISTORS: The resistors I used are not quite right. My calculations show that it is pulling about 1 amp through those three .25 watt resistors

. That turns out to be about .4 watts each. It is also right at the maximum amps that the LS modules can handle (with fresh batteries). I will be changing to four 6 ohm resistors in parallel for 1.5 ohms.

Does anyone know of a step down module that can handle 4.5v input, and output 1 amp at 3.5 volts?

FUTURE: I wanted to try an amber module in there but

Peter sent me one green by mistake. The green was not a good addition to the light. I think one amber would be a very good idea. The beam is currently white with a little blue tinge. A little amber would make it more pleasent to use and should be brighter.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

This is a Mag 3D. I have an unmodified one to compare with. I will take pictures 6 feet from a white wall with both beams on.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Squinty
your mod is basically at MAX for the things
so that is cool, cause i wanna know OUTPUT results
cause i wana do it too, mabey with the nicads

all them wall shoots is great for comparisons
but here is a good use for the TYPE of light and the TYPE of use for a mag

in the car test:
does it bash sculls in as well as a mag
naw that wasnt it
if you shined the light into the car to find something, or the best example i can think of is trying to iluminate something in the engine compartment that i am trying to see without frying my wires and stuff with a incadescent bulb
or getting a florescent light stick glowing into my face

i would think that THERE a smooth beam with nice rolloff like what comes out of the star would be much better than the incadescent mag

THE MAG
twist it one way, and you cant see anything, twist it the other and the One place your trying to illuminate is in black
and the light is so speckily its hard to get good definitions

too bad you didnt get the amber
and why didnt you put the cyan in ?
how about one of each ?

how much heat is comming from the resisters ? and are you disipating that through the sync

someday i am gonna have a spare 60$ and i wont have ta envy you

lemme see lemme see

 

[Gransee]

Sorry about the mixup. Even though I don't do the fullfillment, it's ultimately my responsibility. Send me an email with your name or order #. I will personally send you another amber module for no extra charge.

Maybe with the third module pulling the voltage down, you could use less resistors and thereby increase efficiency. Another idea (which I am sure you have already thought of) is to only resistor the amber module. Depends on the final voltage to each module so as to not burn anything out.

Peter Gransee

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Video Guy

USES FOR THIS CONVERSION:
I have been walking around the yard at night to kill black widow spiders (me, the mag, and a can of bug spray). I killed 10 of them the other night. The light is very good for walking around. It puts out a good clean beam that is quite wide. I found that with the mag I had to keep moving the light back and forth because the edge of the beam is very sharp even when you make it wider.

LIGHT COLORS:
I did put the cyan in first with two whites (I thought it would be amber). I tried it that way. It didn't seem as bright. It cast strange green shaddows if you shined it at a plant. I swapped in the third white instead and that was better. Peter has offered to send me an amber (thanks). I will try that. The color with 3 whites is white with a little blue in it EXACTLY like a florescent bulb. I think that amber should make a very nice blend with the whites and will warm it up a little. I do like the slightly yellow color that the stock mag has. It is very easy on the eyes.

RESISTORS:
The resistors I currently have in there get very hot fast (too hot to touch in less than 10 seconds). I went out and got some other ones yesterday and will change them out tonight (I will put in 4 6-ohm in parallel for 1.5 ohms). The resistors are underneath the copper disk and are just soldered to the outside of an old bulb I broke. They are putting all of their heat into that space. I didn't heat sink them.

I have tried this light with old batteries and no resistor. It worked great.

The current 1.2 ohm's worth of resistors are dropping 1 volt (with 3 ls modules) and are very important to have with fresh batteries.

 

[Silviron]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Squinty:
Video Guy ....RESISTORS:
The resistors I currently have in there get very hot fast (too hot to touch in less than 10 seconds)...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What wattage of resistors are you using? You are running about 5 watts of power through them, and 4 parallel 1/4 watters will only handle 1 watt with reasonable performance.... 4 parallel 1/2 watters won't safely handle it either.

At least that is my opinion...

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

The resistors are only dropping 1.2 volts. The rest is being handled by the LS modules.
By my calulations with the formula "watts = volts x amps": voltage drop across the resistors = 1.2v, amps = 1, so watts = 1.2. I have currently 3 1/4 watt 3.6 ohm resistors in parallel, so 1.2 watts is divided by the 3 resistors, each is trying to handle .4 watts.

I am planning to go to a higher total resistance: 1.5 ohms (thus less watts disipated) and either 4 or 5 1/4 watt resistors. That should bring it down to around .25 watts per resistor. I will look at the resistors I purchased an do the math again tonight.