Sears 3AAA Worklight Lux1 bulb in a 3D Mag, Whoa!

I was bored this afternoon, and was reading over the thread on the Sears 3AAA Lux1 Worklight and decided to perform an experiment, i went to Sears and picked up their 3AAA Luxeon 1 "Worklight", then stopped off at Home Despot and picked up a silver 3 D-cell Mag

I got into the car, and pulled the Lux from the worklight, popped it into the Mag 3D, put it back together, and lit'er up...

Whoa!, that's one bright upgraded Modmag, got it home to test throw, and it easily illuminated a roadsign and a tree about 1/4 mile down the road, the best part is, the head on the Mag was prefocused to the tightest spot possible when it's tightened all the way down, defocusing the head causes the infamous Mag "Black Hole"

it actially throws a relatively clean beam with the Lux bulb, there are a few extremely minor artifacts in the spot when wall hunting, but they'd be unnoticable in normal use....

now i've got a nice, bright, and long running upgraded Mag with a nearly indestructible Luxeon 1 emitter that throws like a monster, and don't have to deal with the sickly yellow, blotchy Mag beam

this has to be one of the best-kept secrets out there, if you've got an old 3-D Mag gathering dust, go on down to Sears, pick up their 3 AAA Worklight and pop the bulb in the Mag, it'll give it a new lease on life...

maybe down the road i'll sputter the reflector to smooth out the beam, but it's actually not neccecary, the beam is decent enough as it is, and since this light will be my LED throwmonster, sputtering the reflector won't be neccecary....

here's some pics;

Mag 3D stock incan bulb, fesh batteries, flood and spot beams;



Sears Lux1 Worklight;


Mag 3D with Lux1 Worklight bulb


and now, some distance pics, the target is the flourescent index cards on the door, the door is about 10 feet away...

baseline shot for reference


Stock Minimag on spot focus;

Fenix L1 Lighthound Special;

SureFire G2 with BOG 3 Watt Luxeon LA;

SureFire 6P;

Inova X5;

Mag 3D with Sears Worklight Lux1 emitter;

Hmmm, I'm interested in that.

Any longevity problems with the bulb in this setup? Guess I should read the earlier string...

Also, anybody know where to get a replacement 'little rubber thingie' to cover the clickie on a mag? I have a Mag that would be perfect for this setup, but I'd have to get a rubber clickie cover back in place to make it better against the elements.

Let the girlies play with it many years ago, and one of 'em plucked it right out of there in the middle of the grass...

Yep... pretty impressive for the price.

As far as sputtering, just so you know, you trade off quite a bit of throw when sputtering... I'm a total sputtering junkie but The beam is soooo good with the smoothe reflector, I couldn't personally recommend sputtering it just to improve the beam quality. On the other hand, when you sputter, the hotspot will get a bit larger, but again, at the cost of reduced throw.

Just a heads up.

Hello Sleestak-

If you ask on one of the "mod" forums you can probably get someone to send you the rubber cover. There was a big group buy not long ago for switches and bi-pin slugs and IIRC they came with the rubber cap, so there should be at lease a few people out there with spare covers.

bjn70 said:

Hello Sleestak-

If you ask on one of the "mod" forums you can probably get someone to send you the rubber cover. There was a big group buy not long ago for switches and bi-pin slugs and IIRC they came with the rubber cap, so there should be at lease a few people out there with spare covers.

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks!

Sleestak said:

anybody know where to get a replacement 'little rubber thingie' to cover the clickie on a mag?

Click to expand...

Mag sells stuff like this. I needed a new O-ring a few years ago, and they sent a couple free. Those days are probably gone now, but the switch cover shouldn't cost too much.

Shipping will be the big dollar item.

nice pics. i am thinking about doing this but i am wondering is it worth it to not have a functioning sears 3AAA worklight in return for a sweet 3D Mag. is there any risk of damage to the led, and, on a side note, what are the possibilities of running 4C in the Mag with the led in question?

:thanks:

on your last pic¨Mag 3D with Sears Worklight Lux1 emitter;¨, where the index cards are?????did you remove them or the hotspot is so bright

bah i wasted 4 hours and 3 dollars trying to find that stupid sears 3AAA flashlight, apparently sears doesnt have them in canada, way to go sears..., i really wanted that mag mod

Great idea, I'm all over this quick and easy mod. I have an old M@g 3D collecting dust in the garage. Just waiting for Sears to have a sale on this light now.

I did this and replaced the Lux1 in the 3-AAA tool light with a home made four white 35K LED PR based bulb.

It was had to fit 4 5mm LEDs into the space of one PR bulb and I had to sand the mating side of the LEDs to get them to fit.

wwglen

garageguy said:

Great idea, I'm all over this quick and easy mod. I have an old M@g 3D collecting dust in the garage. Just waiting for Sears to have a sale on this light now.

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No need to wait for a sale, it was only $18-and change at my Sears. Definatly worth it to give an old light new life. Great find, Mactech. Looked neat as hell on a dark foggy morning!

pr5owner said:

bah i wasted 4 hours and 3 dollars trying to find that stupid sears 3AAA flashlight, apparently sears doesnt have them in canada, way to go sears..., i really wanted that mag mod

Click to expand...

What about this one, it's a 3D LED from Sears Canada
http://image.sears.ca/icat/39/30/092539305.fpx?cell=500&cvt=jpeg

WOW!

That Inova is like switching on the overhead lights compared to the rest.
I like blinding hot spots to slow down an aggressive person, but for usability that Inova is really impressive.
All the rest look like tunnel vision next to it.

Cool pics.
Thanks.

Is the Sears 3aaa lux a PR base or a screw on replacement like the Diamond replacement bulbs??

SubtleIrony said:

Is the Sears 3aaa lux a PR base or a screw on replacement like the Diamond replacement bulbs??

Click to expand...

It's a standard PR Base.

I'm pretty sure there is a dropping resistor in the lamp base. It is probably too small to handle the heat from a 4C conversion.

I've been running the same setup in a 2D Mag converted to 3C cells. No angry blue light or magic brown smoke to date.

The big hummer 3D light is a little on the large side for me to handle comfortably. Don't know why the outer tube has to be soooo large. A little slippery as well. The unit is built differently as the LED and reflector is one assembly and is removed to insert batteries. Or it can do that as I did not try the tail end to see if it unscrews. It also has a two stage switch that looks like it cuts two different resistors in the circuit to drop the amperage.

edit: changed reference above from 3C (oops) to 4C.

I went ahead and picked one up the other day. Very nice M@g now.

Nice mod for the price

i popped one into a dorcy "solid state". this runs on 4 aa's with a reflector of about 47mm. it throws a wicked beam! if you are worried about the longevity, consider this: the light is a craftsman. it will be replaced at anytime, no questions asked...