Just Because I Could....The Pac-Mag

DonShock

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 28, 2005
Messages
1,641
Location
Belton Texas
A dumb idea occurred to me when I put a bunch of spare parts in a box. If was getting full so I started nesting parts to conserve space. I put a Mag tailcap inside a Mag head and it fit perfectly and looked nice, so I got to wondering if you could build a working light. My original thought was to put a switch and some button cells inside for a barely working, short lived light: a Mag No-D. However, since I wanted to keep the stock head appearance, there was almost no empty space around the outside of reflector for the button cells, the tailcap threads take up most of this area. So I figured if I was going to have an external battery, the Pak Light seemed a good inspiration for the most compact solution. And hence the name....The Pac-Mag.

As you can see the internals are very bare due to the tight space, basically limited to the area inside the cam and a small area just below it. The 6 cell bulb is soldered directly to the switch and to the negative lead of the 9 volt battery holder. The switch is the smallest 2 position toggle I could find and it has both momentary and On positions. Originaly I had intended to wire a regular bulb holder to the switch but it would have been too long. Even directly soldering it to the terminal of the switch raised the bulb a little above the spot focus point, but there was no way to make it any shorter. A also replaced the normal tailcap o-ring with a thicker one which gives just enough friction to keep the while thing together and still alow it to be pulled apart. The Clip for the 9 volt battery is held on with 3M super strength foam tape used to hold on auto door trim. I didn't want to do any permanent mods to the head in case I need it later for something useful. The 9 volt sits so far to the rear so that the lens ring can still be unscrewed.
 
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slinco

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 22, 2006
Messages
39
Location
NorCal USA
Pretty cool, you inspired me to make one right now!! It's a little different than yours but same principle. Hate to be a copycat but......
Thanks!
 

DonShock

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 28, 2005
Messages
1,641
Location
Belton Texas
Slinco: Steal away! I am sure you can improve on my puny effort. I only spent about an hour of time and $7 on the switch and battery clip for mine.

Ktronic: yours is a lot nicer than mine, you obviously took more time to go the extra step and kept the battery internal. I just had a dumb idea, no machining tools, a box of parts, and an hour to kill. I am sure that in the near future, it will either get taken apart to use the head and tailcap on a full size body. Or if I get really ambitious, I may decide to put some time into it and try to make more room in the head to fit a real bulb socket and a battery, maybe one of those tiny 12V cells (MN23?).
 
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