In our previous episode (around 2007 IIRC) our hero had just moved from the suburbs out to the sticks, didn't want to add to the light pollution by ringing the property with conventional lighting, and so was thrust into the world of CPF. Ended up with a fairly typical selection of great lights - a 3D Mag85, whatever you call a 2D with WA1111, a 2D ROP high which became a ROP low after the Hi bulb blew, and a MagCharger with 1160.
I had a couple of spare bulbs, apparently fell back to the original MC bulb after the last 1160 blew, and had also started collecting pressure lamps so was fairly well covered until recently when my last 1185 blew and the battery pack died shortly afterwards. Came back to CPF and found that things had not improved in my absence. In particular WA's bulb division shut down and so anything depending on a WA**** bulb (or Penguin 3854 for that matter) was facing some risk.
Even worse, LEDs had become brighter and more efficient, enough that people were abandoning their One True Light Source and starting to fill the world with LED's sickly blue glow. Truly the end of days.
Fortunately LuxLuthor had left a vast repository of information about both obsolete and still-available bulbs, while konifans and Techjunkie (among others) had started threads talking about specific sources for WA alternatives. After a flurry of searching and ordering I now have the following bulbs on their way...
Panasonic
JE3.6V13W-N LR001930
JE8.4V30W-N LR003920
JE10.8V30W-N LR003930
(there was also a 4.8v 13W that I should have ordered as a MagCharger upgrade, and will order once I finish testing the other 3 bulbs)
www.candlepowerforums.com
Hikari
JC5607 JC20/6V 20 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base (I ordered 20 of these because they looked so promising)
JC5609 JC30/6V 30 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base
JC5605 JC10/6V 10 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base
Philips
7388 6V 20W G4
Osram
64250 6V 20W G4
... along with a couple of MagCharger and Mag 6 cell MagnumStar bulbs. Also included a couple of WA 1274 bulbs in my latest FiveMega order.
As these bulbs dribble in I'll check them out and see how they work.
First to arrive were three Osram 64250's - I ordered a couple from Canada via Amazon then forgot and ordered 3 more from China via EBay. Predictably the bulbs from China arrived first, with nice Osram boxes and what I imagine were Chinese-language inventory stickers.
Initial testing could best be described as abortive, so I'll do more testing once more parts arrive. For initial testing I used the WA1111 2D Maglite, with a ceramic bi-pin adapter from <either FiveMega or Kiu> and the usual aluminum reflector / glass lens combo. Power came from 6 AA Eneloops in an FM 6aa-2D holder - batteries were not fresh off the charger but had run the WA1111 for maybe a minute total since charging a couple of weeks ago.
In case anything wanted to blow up I plugged the bulb in, pointed it away from me, and switched on without reflector. Nice white light but a lot of artifacts from the curli-cue glass on the top of the bulb - I figure that the reflector would eliminate most of those. Encountered problem #1 when I went to screw the bezel/reflector/lens combination onto the barrel - the bulb was much too fat to fit through the opening in the reflector. A bit of checking confirmed that all of my aluminum reflectors had the same opening, so swapped in a plastic original Maglite reflector and tried again.
That's where problem #2 came in - the bulb has a normal bubble surrounding the filament but then has a much taller flat section than I'm used to seeing with WA bulbs... so the filament is quite high above the bi-pin socket. It is probably possible to jam the light post down at the bottom of its travel but I didn't remember how to do that, so I just unscrewed the bezel as far as I could in the hope of reaching focus. In the end I got pretty close to focus at the end of the threads but there was still a ways to go, and the artifacts were still present.
I have three aluminum reflectors on order - two different OP models from Kaidomain (both seem to have wide opening so I gather the difference is in reflector shape) plus a MagCharger MOP from FiveMega. It's possible that one of those will reach focus and clean up the artifacts, but until I see that I can't recommend 64250s for flashlight use despite being inexpensive and apparently a good fit for a 6AA power source:
https://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/bulbs/64250.jpg (link from LuxLuthor's "Destructive Incan Testing" page at https://www.candlepowerforums.com/t...ts-updated-8-27-2010-newer-info-added.179748/ )
The Panasonic bulbs from amazon.jp just showed up (thanks konifans) so will try them next. Will come back to this post and add battery voltages, and maybe (a) retry with freshly charged batteries, (b) capture some beamshots if I can reduce the ugly.
I had a couple of spare bulbs, apparently fell back to the original MC bulb after the last 1160 blew, and had also started collecting pressure lamps so was fairly well covered until recently when my last 1185 blew and the battery pack died shortly afterwards. Came back to CPF and found that things had not improved in my absence. In particular WA's bulb division shut down and so anything depending on a WA**** bulb (or Penguin 3854 for that matter) was facing some risk.
Even worse, LEDs had become brighter and more efficient, enough that people were abandoning their One True Light Source and starting to fill the world with LED's sickly blue glow. Truly the end of days.
Fortunately LuxLuthor had left a vast repository of information about both obsolete and still-available bulbs, while konifans and Techjunkie (among others) had started threads talking about specific sources for WA alternatives. After a flurry of searching and ordering I now have the following bulbs on their way...
Panasonic
JE3.6V13W-N LR001930
JE8.4V30W-N LR003920
JE10.8V30W-N LR003930
(there was also a 4.8v 13W that I should have ordered as a MagCharger upgrade, and will order once I finish testing the other 3 bulbs)
G4 Halogen Bulbs - 3.6V 4.8V 8.4V 10.8V
If you are looking for G4 Halogen bulbs with voltage 3.6V, 4.8V, 8.4V and 10.8V, have a look at Amazon Japan. These are made by Panasonic and Toshiba, since more than 10 years ago. I am not sure if they are discontinued or not. I did some research and I believe these have standard size and spec...
![www.candlepowerforums.com](https://www.candlepowerforums.com/data/assets/logo/idea2.png)
Hikari
JC5607 JC20/6V 20 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base (I ordered 20 of these because they looked so promising)
JC5609 JC30/6V 30 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base
JC5605 JC10/6V 10 Watt 6 Volt JC Halogen G4 Base
Philips
7388 6V 20W G4
Osram
64250 6V 20W G4
... along with a couple of MagCharger and Mag 6 cell MagnumStar bulbs. Also included a couple of WA 1274 bulbs in my latest FiveMega order.
As these bulbs dribble in I'll check them out and see how they work.
First to arrive were three Osram 64250's - I ordered a couple from Canada via Amazon then forgot and ordered 3 more from China via EBay. Predictably the bulbs from China arrived first, with nice Osram boxes and what I imagine were Chinese-language inventory stickers.
Initial testing could best be described as abortive, so I'll do more testing once more parts arrive. For initial testing I used the WA1111 2D Maglite, with a ceramic bi-pin adapter from <either FiveMega or Kiu> and the usual aluminum reflector / glass lens combo. Power came from 6 AA Eneloops in an FM 6aa-2D holder - batteries were not fresh off the charger but had run the WA1111 for maybe a minute total since charging a couple of weeks ago.
In case anything wanted to blow up I plugged the bulb in, pointed it away from me, and switched on without reflector. Nice white light but a lot of artifacts from the curli-cue glass on the top of the bulb - I figure that the reflector would eliminate most of those. Encountered problem #1 when I went to screw the bezel/reflector/lens combination onto the barrel - the bulb was much too fat to fit through the opening in the reflector. A bit of checking confirmed that all of my aluminum reflectors had the same opening, so swapped in a plastic original Maglite reflector and tried again.
That's where problem #2 came in - the bulb has a normal bubble surrounding the filament but then has a much taller flat section than I'm used to seeing with WA bulbs... so the filament is quite high above the bi-pin socket. It is probably possible to jam the light post down at the bottom of its travel but I didn't remember how to do that, so I just unscrewed the bezel as far as I could in the hope of reaching focus. In the end I got pretty close to focus at the end of the threads but there was still a ways to go, and the artifacts were still present.
I have three aluminum reflectors on order - two different OP models from Kaidomain (both seem to have wide opening so I gather the difference is in reflector shape) plus a MagCharger MOP from FiveMega. It's possible that one of those will reach focus and clean up the artifacts, but until I see that I can't recommend 64250s for flashlight use despite being inexpensive and apparently a good fit for a 6AA power source:
https://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/bulbs/64250.jpg (link from LuxLuthor's "Destructive Incan Testing" page at https://www.candlepowerforums.com/t...ts-updated-8-27-2010-newer-info-added.179748/ )
The Panasonic bulbs from amazon.jp just showed up (thanks konifans) so will try them next. Will come back to this post and add battery voltages, and maybe (a) retry with freshly charged batteries, (b) capture some beamshots if I can reduce the ugly.
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