Mini Maglite upgrade?
- Thread starter Shawn L
- Start date
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KeyGrip
Flashlight Enthusiast
Lighthound, Great online dealer. I've had some bad experiences with the quality of NiteIze producs, so I recommend Terralux.
climberkid
Flashlight Enthusiast
if you do a search for mini mag led upgrade you can find quite a few results. here is one
Gunner12
Flashaholic
kurni
Enlightened
IMO MiniM@g is not worth upgrading; Fenix is so cheap these days, as well as D10. The biggest problem with upgrading MiniM@g is heatsinking especially if you want to maintain the switch mechanism.
Fenix L2D provides what MiniM@g can't (without proper heatsinking): constant brightness, efficiency, and multimode.
Fenix L2D provides what MiniM@g can't (without proper heatsinking): constant brightness, efficiency, and multimode.
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RyanA
Flashlight Enthusiast
Sandwich Shoppe has SSC P4 drop in sandwiches for minimags powered by madmax converters. If you get one make sure to get the little o ring to keep it from falling out when you change the batteries. With the TL3 upgrade that was always annoying.
american lockpicker
Enlightened
What is heatsinking?
kurni
Enlightened
LED produces heat when turned on. Overheating reduce the life, can eventually change colour or even burn out. Unlike ordinary lightbulb, the the heat is not projected with the light, but the heat remains in the LED. Therefore the heat has to be removed by creating a thermal path to the body of the torch. The air surrounding the body takes away the heat, and if you're holding the body, your blood flow takes away the heat better than the air.
The thermal path from the LED to the body of the torch is "heatsink". Aluminum makes an efficient and cost-effective heatsink, copper is better but much heavier and more expensive.
That's why personally I don't upgrade my MiniM@g; no drop-in that I know provide any solution in expelling the heat from the LED to the body (heatsinking). Some people sacrifice the head-turning switch by fixing the LED to the body, hence creating a good thermal path, but then you have to use tail switch like kroll. To me it's just too costly / too much hassle to upgrade when Fenix or D10 is available at comparable price.
Gunner12
Flashaholic
Heatsinking is used to remove waste heat from whatever device that is thermally connected to the heatsink. Most heatsinks are made of some kind of metal.
In this case, since LEDs are still far from 100% efficiency, they still produce heat.
kurni explained the rest pretty well.
Glasstream15
Newly Enlightened
The only advantage I can see to a MiniMag upgrade is, it's easy to go back to stock (if you just use a straight drop-in) and therefore, in an emergency if the LED goes out you have the backp incan bulb already in the tailcap.
Or just for the heck of having a brighter MM than your buddy with a stock one.
Or just for the heck of having a brighter MM than your buddy with a stock one.
Black Rose
Flashlight Enthusiast
Although the MM upgrades usually cost more than the light is worth, it is nice to take that nice aluminum bodied light and actually make it into a usable light.
It's not cost effective, but it does make something you already own more usable.
It's not cost effective, but it does make something you already own more usable.
Blue72
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2007
- Messages
- 1,138
I agree! I get more of a reaction from people with a minimag putting out 80 lumens with a drop in than I do with a stock light putting out 200 lumens
Hi Guys and fellow Flashaholics.
There is a man here in Germany who recently developed the most awesome MiniMag AA conversion kit. Take a look:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Cree-Chip-LED-pa...ryZ16037QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Hope I could help...
Tek.
There is a man here in Germany who recently developed the most awesome MiniMag AA conversion kit. Take a look:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Cree-Chip-LED-pa...ryZ16037QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Hope I could help...
Tek.
yup, i owned one. the guy name is Sven Dittmann. He uses edixion kl8 and using buck/boost converter that draw nearly 1 amp from the batteries.
you can see the video of its creation in
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=8puzgXr3ivY and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvhBPQbnjHk
seeing from the vids, this baby is damn bright.
his website is http://www.led4more.de/ and you can contact him personally at [email protected]
There was a thread about that before.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=196642&highlight=sven+dittmann
Giandi
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woodrow
Flashlight Enthusiast
I am sure that the above statement is true more often than not! I wonder though, if the new inova, colman and energizer AA lights availible at wal-mart and target will start converting average Americans to brighter and better lights?
