Maglite Rechargable

LightGrunt0311

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Feb 21, 2008
Messages
37
Hiya,

I was just wondering if there is a quick charger for the Maglite Rechargable? Is this flashlight any good? Does the operator have to completely drain the batteries before recharging in order to get rid of the "zero memory" effect? Would you recommend this rechargable flashlight? thanks. semper fi
 
It's about 20 years out of date. There are a lot of other lights available these days which are vastly superior in all categories, unless you really want the "thumpability" the light has.
 
The MagCharger is actually a pretty respectable light. Sure its no hotwire-firestarting-retinascorching-burnyourhousedown light, but in stock form, it puts out a good bit of light. My friend's dad, a former LEO, had one, and it was one of the brightest lights I had seen back then. Its a workhorse light, its made for lots of use...
So, while there are better/more compact/brighter/longer running choices out there, the MagCharger is a light that will probably serve you faithfully should you choose to buy it.
 
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You can make any Maglite rechargeable using a variety of different battery types and configurations. Mine uses a pair of 2D/6AA battery adapters, loaded with NiMH AAs. NiMH C and D cells are very popular now also.
 
The stock Magcharger is a robust, very usable light (and only outdated according to CPF's standards, NOT every day users).

Don't worry about "memory effect" as it's largely a myth, and will not effect the cells in the Magcharger's battery stick.

I'd much rather have a Magcharger in an emergency than an electronic based LED light.

-dan
 
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The 6AA-in-2D mag is really insanely popular here, Grunt. That said,the Magcharger is a fine light with a lot of potential for upgrades.

That said, you'd have to wire a fast charger into the cradle yourself, as Mag doesn't deign to offer a fast/smart charger.
 
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I agree 100% with Marduke on this one. I am sure the MagCharger is a great light, but there are many other lights I could recommend and other members could recommend that may be superior to it in the catagories you would find useful. :)

It would be helpful to know what qualities you would like your next light to have, such as brightness, runtime, throw, size, etc.
 
The MagCharger is actually a pretty respectable light. Sure its no hotwire-firestarting-retinascorching-burnyourhousedown light, but in stock form, it puts out a good bit of light. My friend's dad, a former LEO, had one, and it was one of the brightest lights I had seen back then. Its a workhorse light, its made for lots of use...
So, while there are better/more compact/brighter/longer running choices out there, the MagCharger is a light that will probably serve you faithfully should you choose to buy it.

I agree with that it´s still a respectable light, and I wonder if I could make use of my MagCharger. For the moment it's in the box. 16 hours charging time and 50% brightness after slightly more than 1 hour makes it really out of date in this respect.

But my question is: I see that the battery to MagCharger is in 5 parts, and think it's actually 5 pieces of 1/2D cells coupled together?
In that case I could get 1/2 D NiMh cells and charge them in my Maha Charger at some few hours, thought it makes the demand of spacers.
I tried to place 3 D cells in it which works well because MagCharger is nearly the same length of the 3D. The brightness was very low, however...

Regards, Patric
 
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Thanks Starhalo for the information.

Slightly better runtime with NiMh battery and still ~16 hours charging time or 765 lumens dropin with much shorter runtime, none of these alternative are attractive in my opinion. Likely best to go for Malkoff or Elektrolumens dropins. Just thought it would be sad to discard such an high quality light...

Regards, Patric
 
I use the magcharger as my duty light damn near everybody else has the SL-20x or whatever that streamlight flashlight is called. The one with the 3 LED's inside of the head.

The magcharger is a simple light and it beats the SL-20 in terms of brightness and throw.

Plus it has heft to it and it can do some things lol.

It makes for a great lamp, baton, long distance light etc.

Very useful to your everyday person and to those in Law Enforcement.
 
Yes, I can still encourage someone to buy one. I've got three of them. They won't easily let you down (remember, those bulbs are made to have a live of about 50 hours at least).
In theory, yes, you should drain the NiCd battery until the light output suddenly drops a little, then STOP otherwise you are RUINING the battery!!
At that moment, one of the cells is empty. Draining the stick further will recharge the empty cell in reverse direction, with the lamps' current (more than 1.6A)
Constantly charging them is not recommended, I know from several heavy users that the battery will only live one year then.
You'll have to build a smart charger yourself, or take a hobby-charger and connect it to the charging cradle.
Maybe, you'd better take the newer NiMH-batteries, these have at least 4Ah capacity instead of 2.5Ah for the NiCd ones.

Timmo.
 
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