MC-E in a MiniMag 2AA

[rayman]

Just bought the MiniMag Heatsink from mariposaoyako and thought why not mod a MiniMag 2AA with a MC-E, as some of you know I wanted to mod a EX10 with a MC-E and wasn't very successful. My idea was to use a SOB 1500 converter with a MC-E connected in parallel and power it with 2x AW 14500. How much lumen would I get with a MC-E connected in parallel at 1500mA? Any idea what reflector I could use?

rayman

 

[bbgobie]

Look up the bin of emitter you have in the binning sheet and see the typical luminous flux.
Than look up the datsheet and find the chart where it shows luminous flux depending on how hard you drive it.

 

[Fallingwater]

You'd have serious heating issues in a light as small as a minimag. You'd have to drive the LED way under spec, and at that point you might as well go for a single-die and drive it closer to its rated power.

 

[TexLite]

You'd have serious heating issues in a light as small as a minimag. You'd have to drive the LED way under spec, and at that point you might as well go for a single-die and drive it closer to its rated power.

Thats not entirely correct,there are multiple reasons to choose an MC-E over a single die XR-E.

An XR-E is up to 280lm @ 3.7W for 75.67lm/W.
An MC-E is up to 490lm @ 4.48W for 109.37lm/W.

A substantial increase in output for a comparitively small(%) increase in power.

Either could be managed for short durations with the proper thermal path.Long runs wouldn't be recommended.

-Michael

 

[Fallingwater]

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this. It's rather obvious when you think about it, if a four-die LED is driven at one-die current levels itmeans the individual dies will be underdriven and so more efficient.

Too bad quad-die LEDs are so expensive...

 

[clg0159]

Not only are they expensive, but you have fewer choices for optics/reflectors

 

[rayman]

Not only are they expensive, but you have fewer choices for optics/reflectors

Unfortunately you are right . I really have no idea what reflector to use. I'm not that friend of optics I more like a reflector. Anybody know a aluminium reflector for the MiniMag?

rayman

 

[bikerjay]

Why not use a Carclo 20mm triple XP-E. There at cutter.com.au finally, and the XP-E are available in R2 bin. This optic/led combination is begging to be put into a mag AA. Gives the option for a more efficent converter as well. You could use 2 AA sized lions and a boost conveter with better forward voltage matching.

3 R2 couldeasily be 400 lumens and around 4watts. Seems doable.

Ok I confess, I really just want to see beam shots from this optic.

Alternativley a modded IMS20 could be a good reflector for MC-E use, relativly focused with only a minimal donut. People have been using them for bike lights with good results.

 

[rayman]

The idea with the triple XP-E sounds great but I'll first try the MC-E MiniMag.

rayman

 

[bretti_kivi]

carclos are also readily available from dotlight and led1, no?

 

[TigerhawkT3]

This was the first thing I wanted to do with an MC-E back in August last year. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for posting about these heatsinks! I probably wouldn't have come across that thread on my own.

Onwards to my 1000-lumen Minimag! :devil: Soon, my precious, soon...

 

[Al Combs]

Awesome

Following your link, Darkzero would be a good guy to ask about reflectors. He might not have put a McR-18 or McR-20-S together with an MC-E, but he knows which McGizmo will fit in a MiniMag. I have seen a sales thread he has on MiniMag sandwiches.

If you have access to a lathe, the McR-20-S can be machined to fit. There are three separate operation necessary so it's a little bit of work. The second larger step needs 0.25 mm removed from the diameter so it will fit in the MiniMag's reflector housing. The front needs 2.33 mm removed from the height so the bezel will sit in the proper position with a standard cover glass thickness. And that leaves 0.15 mm you need to remove from the height by the LED end so it would be 12 mm tall. Or if Mariposaoyako meant 12 mm overall height to the front of the reflector housing, the end of the first step is 10.88 mm from the LED end and requires no further cutting. That's probably a good thing since I've heard the orange peel coating is electroplated and sometimes chips off if you try to machine it. I guess you could do all that with a file, but it would to say the least be tedious. The McR-18 needs only the LED hole bored out. The McR-18-S is much closer with an LED hole 6.35 mm or ¼ inch in diameter. The MC-E dome radius is 3.18 mm, so it's only 0.01 mm too large to fit. One pass with an X-Acto knife and you're good to go.

Both Khatod and IMS make 17 mm aluminized plastic reflectors that would fit. Fairly cheap if they don't work out. You might need to bore out the LED hole slightly to make them fit around the LED. Their pdf specs don't say the size of the LED hole. And you will need to hold them against the cover glass to keep both the cover glass and the reflector from rattling around. And that means no focusing ability. Khatod also makes a heavily stippled 17 to help with the artifacts. Given the fact that you can't focus, that might be the better one. They're only 4 bucks a pop.

Good luck and keep us posted:thumbsup:

 

[rayman]

Thanks for all the help .

@AL Combs
Thanks for you information :thumbsup:. The idea with the McR-20-S sounds great. I think I'll try that one but I'll first contact McGizmo.

At the moment I decided to use a Ledil optic. I hope this will fit well in the MiniMag. When not I have to search for a reflector. On flashlightlens.com they have a UCL lens with a 2.61 diameter. Will this lens fit into the MiniMag head?

At first I wanted to take a SOB 1500 converter as a driver but this on only has one mode. Does anybody know a know a driver with 1400-1500mA on high, 2-5 modes and a 1,7 diameter? I can only find some on KD but I didn't had good experience with the KD drivers so this one are not an option for me :shakehead.

thanks
rayman

 

[HarryN]

I think that LED has a Vf of around 7 - 8 volts - right ? Just put the 2 x AW protected 14500s in series and direct drive it. Worst case, maybe a 1 - 2 ohm resistor. There is no need for a fancy driver for a light that will only run for a few minutes at a time anyway.

I just noticed that you want it to have multiple stages - a bit trickier. The risk is that as it goes from low to high drive currents, and the cells go from charged to discharged, the Vf could swing from needing buck to needing boost.

 

[rayman]

Connected parallel and at 350mA per die the MC-E has a forward voltage of typical 3.2V as you can read here. And I don't really like direct drive.

rayman

 

[HarryN]

Just MHO, but I if you are going to go with a driver, I would probably wire it all in series if you can. That way it just needs a simple boost driver no matter the battery configuration. Feeding 2+ amps into the output side of a driver takes a big coil, while 350ma is easy, and your space is small.

 

[Al Combs]

@AL Combs
Thanks for you information :thumbsup:. The idea with the McR-20-S sounds great. I think I'll try that one but I'll first contact McGizmo.

I ran across another recent post where DZ talks about the McR-20 requiring machining to fit a MiniMag. He machined the reflector housing instead of the reflector. That makes more sense.

At the moment I decided to use a Ledil optic. I hope this will fit well in the MiniMag. When not I have to search for a reflector. On flashlightlens.com they have a UCL lens with a 2.61 diameter. Will this lens fit into the MiniMag head?

Ledil's Boom-reflector for the MC-E will fit with some machining. But is not a drop-in. It's only metalized ABS, so after you protect the openings with something, you should be able to use a file or a Dremel to make it fit in short order. That might be your best bet. I've heard some good things about these.

Here is a post where steve6690 says he used both the Ledil TIR Optic and the Boom Spot with good results. I'm guessing you are ordering this from Cutter. They also carry the LM1 series. Since you're already paying the shipping anyway... The pdf says the holder is 21.6mm diameter. So the TIR drop-in might fit without modification. Just a guess, I've never seen one. Perhaps you could send a PM to steve6690 and ask him what the dimensions are. There is a LM1-RS in the series that cutter doen't carry for some reason. But the LM1-D optic has the exact same 10° FWHM that the Boom-MC-S reflector has.

Yes the FlashlightLens 22.61mm UCL fits the MiniMag. Also it has 5% higher transmission than the Borofloat which is really for the Hotwires.