Daekar
Enlightened
You know those 2D right-angle olive drab flashlights the military uses? My brother is getting ready to go out on 3 weeks of "in the field" combat training and he wants me to mod one for him. His criteria were vague, but he wants at least as much runtime as it gets currently with 2D alkalines. The funny thing is he wants me to measure what that runtime is. LOL... Right. I wonder if he knows that after the first hour the light output stays at or below the 30% mark? He told me he's essentially going to use it as a utility light, so flood/throw combination is what I'm assuming for this. Obviously, runtime will be more useful than incredible output, so I'll be modding accordingly. Has anybody ever modified one of these things before?
It would be great to simply drop-in a maglite LED mod and stippled reflector and be done with it, but I'm afraid I may have to give up my P4EverLED and buy a TerraLux mag-dropin for my 6AA-2D mag. I'd love to be able to set him up with some lithium batteries to reduce the weight but the only thing I can think of is the C sized ones and that would give me 7.4V to play with. Oh yes, I have a spending limit of $80.10 on "improvements"... I know that's kind of random, but the light itself and shipping and some lense filters ate into the $100 figure he gave me at the beginning. If it looks like I can use the AW C Li-ions, I might just spend more than that and take the losses out of my own pocket.
My primary problems are:
~ Will the C-li-ions fit in a 2D light? I seem to remember seeing 3 fit in a maglite, but I'm not sure. The more power the merrier, but he'd need to charge all three at once if it is three. Two would be better, so he could charge two and take two extra. Oh yes, he'd need a charger too.
~ If the li-ions DO fit, I need something to hook them up to. I'd like to give him something with at least primative regulation circuitry. Not against doing my own emitter-reflector-driver mod, but would prefer something dropin.
~ If 3.7v is a more efficient setup than having the driver reduce the voltage and take some losses, I'm not against working up an adapter to put the batteries in parallel.
~ Lenses? I imagine these things take plastic lenses. In a hard-use situation like this, is glass even desirable despite it's superior transmission qualities? As far as I can tell, almost ANYTHING will be an output upgrade, so durability is very high on the list. If it doesn't work, it's just extra weight.
~ Reliability improvement. So far he's got three of these lights, one that works and two that don't. The ones that don't work now used to work if you smacked them hard enough. I want to reduce internal resistance and make sure the contacts inside this puppy are rock-solid.
Yes, I know, this is a lot of effort for a crappy host. Last I heard they're still made out of plastic bodies, so we know the heat disippation is going to leave much to be desired - but since this isn't going to be a monster light, I guess it might not matter. Probably a plastic reflector too, and that will almost certainly be better off replaced with an OP. It's funny he wants it to be a "sleeper"... I guess I can understand that from a certain point of view.
Thanks for reading... any suggestions are welcome and appreciated! Amused posts regarding my spending limit are also greatly appreciated.
It would be great to simply drop-in a maglite LED mod and stippled reflector and be done with it, but I'm afraid I may have to give up my P4EverLED and buy a TerraLux mag-dropin for my 6AA-2D mag. I'd love to be able to set him up with some lithium batteries to reduce the weight but the only thing I can think of is the C sized ones and that would give me 7.4V to play with. Oh yes, I have a spending limit of $80.10 on "improvements"... I know that's kind of random, but the light itself and shipping and some lense filters ate into the $100 figure he gave me at the beginning. If it looks like I can use the AW C Li-ions, I might just spend more than that and take the losses out of my own pocket.
My primary problems are:
~ Will the C-li-ions fit in a 2D light? I seem to remember seeing 3 fit in a maglite, but I'm not sure. The more power the merrier, but he'd need to charge all three at once if it is three. Two would be better, so he could charge two and take two extra. Oh yes, he'd need a charger too.
~ If the li-ions DO fit, I need something to hook them up to. I'd like to give him something with at least primative regulation circuitry. Not against doing my own emitter-reflector-driver mod, but would prefer something dropin.
~ If 3.7v is a more efficient setup than having the driver reduce the voltage and take some losses, I'm not against working up an adapter to put the batteries in parallel.
~ Lenses? I imagine these things take plastic lenses. In a hard-use situation like this, is glass even desirable despite it's superior transmission qualities? As far as I can tell, almost ANYTHING will be an output upgrade, so durability is very high on the list. If it doesn't work, it's just extra weight.
~ Reliability improvement. So far he's got three of these lights, one that works and two that don't. The ones that don't work now used to work if you smacked them hard enough. I want to reduce internal resistance and make sure the contacts inside this puppy are rock-solid.
Yes, I know, this is a lot of effort for a crappy host. Last I heard they're still made out of plastic bodies, so we know the heat disippation is going to leave much to be desired - but since this isn't going to be a monster light, I guess it might not matter. Probably a plastic reflector too, and that will almost certainly be better off replaced with an OP. It's funny he wants it to be a "sleeper"... I guess I can understand that from a certain point of view.
Thanks for reading... any suggestions are welcome and appreciated! Amused posts regarding my spending limit are also greatly appreciated.
