MJLED upgrade - impressive

[Lee1959]

About two weeks ago with the advice of some here I got an MJLED LED upgrade from Lighthound and put it in a AAA Minimag. I was impressed with the output, to my eyes better than the original bulbs comparing with another AAA Minimag using the original bulb.

Well I did not change batteries in that light, they had been changed a month or so ago and not used a lot. I have used that Minimag a lot in the past two weeks at night around the house when I needed a small light.

Anyways, on those used batteries, I decided to run a small test yesterday just because I did not see it growing dimmer like I would have with the other bulb, I had tested them before and figured I got just over an hour of useable light on a new set of AAA's.

Ok so I turned the light on at 3:30 PM Est. yesterday, and turned it off when I went to bed last night at 2:30 AM Est, a total of 11 HOURS!!! And then I used the light to walk through the house and check locks. It was very dim but still useable.

I was shocked and totally impressed. Thanks guys, this is one heck of a change, I knew it would be impressive but not this impressive. I am going to see how long it lasts again tonight till it is unusable.

 

[UnknownVT]

Lee1959 wrote: "turned the light on at 3:30 PM Est. yesterday, and turned it off when I went to bed last night at 2:30 AM Est, a total of 11 HOURS!!! And then I used the light to walk through the house and check locks. It was very dim but still useable.
I was shocked and totally impressed. Thanks guys, this is one heck of a change, I knew it would be impressive but not this impressive. I am going to see how long it lasts again tonight till it is unusable."

There's a report of about 30 hours runtime on 2x AA alkalines in this original comparison review thread -

MJLED drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

(direct link to post #46 )

in this more recent thread -

super MJLED drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

wwglen (post #24 ) points out that the MJLEDs are voltage sensitive and when they show dim there is still a LOT of power left in the batteries - enough to get several more hours out of a Nite-Ize LED Drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

 

[Lee1959]

Thank you for the links VT, and I am planning on getting one of the blue Nite ize when they come out for my AA Minimag, but the MJLED was in a AAA minimag and I dont beleive they come in AAA version, so the MJLED is the best bet for the AAA is it not?

It went anothert 10 hours yesterday, and it was pretty dim when I turned it off, so 21 hours is still pretty impressive in my eyes. It does give new life to those old Minimags that is for sure.

 

[UnknownVT]

Lee1959 wrote: "so the MJLED is the best bet for the AAA is it not?
It went anothert 10 hours yesterday, and it was pretty dim when I turned it off, so 21 hours is still pretty impressive in my eyes."

21 hours.....What do you think?

Even if there isn't a Nite-Ize for the 2AAA yet - you could just try dropping the seemingly depleted AAA battery(s) into something efficient like a Dorcy 1AAA ($5.94 from WalMart - see this thread link - A Classic Revisited - Dorcy 1AAA )

 

[Lee1959]

OK, for whatever reason, you win, its a lousy upgrade, better to toss the old AAA Minimags in the trash... work for you now?

 

[srvctec]

Lee1959 wrote: "turned the light on at 3:30 PM Est. yesterday, and turned it off when I went to bed last night at 2:30 AM Est, a total of 11 HOURS!!! And then I used the light to walk through the house and check locks. It was very dim but still useable.
I was shocked and totally impressed. Thanks guys, this is one heck of a change, I knew it would be impressive but not this impressive. I am going to see how long it lasts again tonight till it is unusable."

There's a report of about 30 hours runtime on 2x AA alkalines in this original comparison review thread -

MJLED drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

(direct link to post #46 )

in this more recent thread -

super MJLED drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

wwglen (post #24 ) points out that the MJLEDs are voltage sensitive and when they show dim there is still a LOT of power left in the batteries - enough to get several more hours out of a Nite-Ize LED Drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

:huh2: I don't get it. Lee1959 posted about how impressed he was with an upgrade to a MiniMag 2aaa. What's the above qouted post have to do with it?:shrug:

Somehow, an entire reply about how much better a 2aa upgrade is, doesn't seem to fit here. It seems Lee1959's impression of his upgrade was completely dismissed.

It appears Lee got the same notion I did about about the first reply.

 

[wwglen]

The point being made in the above replys is that YES the MJLED is a great upgrade.

20+ hours with the AAA

30++ hours with the AA

And then you STILL have enough power left in the batteries to run something like the Dorcy AAA or NiteIze LED module for about 50% of the run time that you would get with new batteries.

I can let my kids have the MJLED modded lights and when the batterys get down so the light is dim I then can transferr them to MY lights and still get impressive runtime.

Lets use the AAA version for comparision.

Assume Dorcy AAA runs for 7 hours (Not really sure but good enough).

2 - AAA batteries in a Dorcy 1-AAA gives 14 hours.

2-AAA in a MJLED minimag gives 22+ hours in the minimag and then 7 hours in the Dorcy.

14 hours compaired to 30+ hours. No contest the MJLED AAA minimag / Dorcy 1-AAA combo blows it away.

AND it is 100% better lioght than the original AAA minimag.

wwglen

 

[srvctec]

The point being made in the above replys is that YES the MJLED is a great upgrade.
wwglen

If that was the point being made, then I took it wrong. My bad.:oops:

 

[UnknownVT]

Lee1959 wrote: "OK, for whatever reason, you win, its a lousy upgrade, better to toss the old AAA Minimags in the trash... work for you now?"

Huh?:huh2:

What's going on?

That's NOT what I was trying to say.....

OK let me be painfully EXPLICIT -
I think the MJLED is a fabulous upgrade in an AAA or AA -

I don't have an AAA version - but as can be seen in the AA versions I upgraded I thought they were great -
to be able to get 21 hours out of used AAA's - and still have enough left to light up something like a Dorcy AAA is TERRIFIC.

I see that srvctec also thought I was being negative - or at least irrelevant -
so something may have been wrong with the way I presented my posts -

One more time I was NOT being NEGATIVE in anyway -
If I was I would be a bit more straightforward/obvious/explicit about it -

.... and Thank You wwglen for coming to my rescue

.

 

[Lee1959]

Sorry I misread you Vincent, I appologize for the smart reply. It must have been my day for such things, got in an arguement with my wife last night too boot.

 

[Hondo]

Glad to see things clear up a bit, I had tried to post the other day but got shut out of CPF before submitting. I think the one thing that may have sounded like a slam towards MJLED upgrades is the term "effecient" for the Dorcy when used to extract the remaining battery capacity after a long run with the MJ. While the Dorcy is just the trick, with it's boost circuit, it actually is less effecient at making lumen-hours per amp-hour input, due to the necessary inefficiency of the boost circuit. But the highly effecient low Vf MJLED directly driven, can't hold it's brightness as an alkaline drops in voltage. Hence the wonderfully symbionic relationship of the two types of lights, as detailed more by wwglen later. UnknownVT, I got your point fine, and sorry I couldn't help wordsmith sooner. Lee1959, we all have those days!

 

[Lee1959]

Just for the heck of it I put new batteries in yesterday morning at noon, at 7 PM tonight after 31 hours I could still read the book titles in my library from about 10 feet, but just barely. So I think that 31 hours is about as far as I would push them.

I saved the batteries and am planning on running to pick up a Dorcy to try what you suggested VT, will be interesting to see how that works out.

 

[Hondo]

Thanks, Lee1959, that is incredible performance from AAA's. Most of the info I have seen is for AA's, and then mostly lithium. I wondered how well I would do with my two AA Mags running this mod, which are still bright on the first set of batts, and whether it was worth doing a AAA on alkalines. I am just too dang cheap to pay over 10 times the price of alkalines to get DISPOSABLE lithiums, even though I blow a lot more cash on dumber stuff. But for my use, the alkies seem to be plenty good to power this mod and I am off to Sears hardware to get a new AAA Mag tonight (my old one was slain by leaking batteries :mecry: ).

I have not found bottom yet on a Rayovac AAA I am trying to kill in a stock Dorcy. It is below 1 volt resting, and fires right up making good reading level light, but does have trouble now re-lighting after being run for more than 10-20 seconds. If I let the light rest for a bit, or even turn it on and just wait, it catches up and re-lights. No matter how long I have run it so far, it won't go out once it is lit. This is my deliberately-dim-middle-of-the-night light to navigate with dark adapted eyes. I've been doing the same thing with my "deadest" AA in a Xnova8, but it is not as far down as the AAA in the Dorcy. It gets set on it's tail in ceiling bounce mode before turning in for the night mostly.

BTW, these things give great economy but not if you wreck a light with a leaky battery. It is best to use recent, well used batties, not 10+ year old used batteries. Oh, and do as I say, not as I do. Actually, the Energizers that killed my old AAA Mag were not that old, I just had a long run of bad luck with that brand. Hope they are better now, I make a habit of burning up any I get with new lights right away so as not to find out.

Hope you like the Dorcy, I keep falling back to them as my most used lights (mostly with a Nichia CS installed, though). Let us know how it goes.