4X Luxeon III Maglite mod. Battery configuration?

Hi agian. I plan on modifying a new C or D maglite and I wanted to know the best configuration of batteries i should use.
I can use:
-the bulky 3D flashlight
-the more comfortable and smaller 3C flashlight
-or a fat, but short 2D flashlight with a 6XAA holder (which I already have)

Size is an issue, in a way. I dont want a huge maglite. It would be nice, but not neccesary if the flashlight uses common batteries and had a decent battery life. I have plenty of NiMH AA batteries available, but I dont feel like spending all my time charging them with my 4XAA charger too often. I could use NiMH C's or D's, but if i use either, i will have to commit to that type only. I will have to buy this more expensive battery type, then get a charger for them. I would prefer if I dont use Alkaline because on a college budget, the price of the flashlight is expensive enough, and i dont want to pay for batteries every other week. I really dont like CR123's because they are expensive and not practical for me now, especially with a light that will draw this much current.

What should I do? What is the best way of finding how much battery life I will have? I know a 2300mAH NiHM AA will provide a 1A load for almost 2.3 hours (living in the ideal world, of course). Do I compare wattage? For example, 4 lux3's (3.6V@4A, or 7.2V@2A) will consume 14.4W (or either 3.6 X 4.0 or 7.2 X 2.0). Then the 14.4W divided by the voltage of the battery set-up? So 14.4/4.5V= 3.2A per C or D alkaline battery. 14.4/3.6V= 4A per C or D NiMH battery. Finally, 14.4/7.2V= 2.0A per AA NiMH battery.

If I am completely off with these calculations, please correct me. This idea seems to work okay, I guess. They are a bit rough, but they seem fair.

I will have 4 lux3 emitters wired in either a parallel configuration (about 3.6V@4000mA) for the 3 X C or D battery set-up, or I will have the Lux3's wired in a series-parallel configuration (about 7.2V@2000mA) for the 6 X AA battery set-up. I know the 3D maglite will give the best battery life, but which is the best, most practical set up I should go with, the 3C or the 6AA?

Currently I am torn. I am stuck on which host flashlight I should go with. I just started ordering parts tonight (4 X IMS SO20XA reflectors, which should fit well).

Another route is using some sort of converter circuit ($$) that will either boost or buck the voltage (like a TaskLED Fatman-boost or one of the many Yamaguchi Consulting Converters). This would have to be a worthy setup and the converter must be able to handle all the current (even in an efficient way). The nice thing about the converter is ease of use and it will keep me from overdriving or underdriving the LEDs significantly. I want a nice output, but I dont want to damage any LEDs.

Oh, if there is another good host flashlight that I should use (similar to a maglight), let me know. The Streamlight 2D Task-light would work well, but I never torn one apart, so I dont know how it would work in there. Nice thing is that it is 1.5inches shorter than a 2D Maglite. The 3C streamlight is 2 inches shorter than the Maglite, but the head isnt big enough for 4 emitters and reflectors. I was questioning the knock-offs that you see at Big-Lots. They dont seem too bad. If anyone has any experience modding any of these lights, please let me know what you found! Cool.

Any fellow modders have any advice for me? I know this post is long. I just felt like i am stuck and I dont know which way to go with battery and hookup configurations. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Boy I better get to bed. Whew. All this excitement of making a powerful Luxeon cluster flashlight is wearing off.

I'm in the same boat. I've been soaking in this site now for a week and a half now. Still getting myself up to date.

I agree on battery life. I am a telecom. field tech, and spend alot of time in peoples "caves"(some people that don't want to turn the light, or they don't have enough light, or don't want to open the curtains/blinds...). I was under a house for an hour yesterday fixing some stupid splicing. I need something that "will last" and has good enough light for my taste.

In a Mag2D (with 6AA adapter) or Mag2C (with 3 or 4x123 sleeve or 3xR123 sleeve) you could do a couple of things:

1) Wire them in series and use Dat2Zip's new Shark boost driver to drive them up to 1000ma. If you want to get fancy you can even add a trim pot to control the brightness.

2) Wire them in a 2x2 series/parallel arrangement and use a pair of DownBoy buck converters (one for each pair of emitters) to drive them up to 1000ma.

Jon

what i built:
triple lux or quad lux in a mag 2 d body
1-fatman circut with dimmer
i can run 2 -10,000 mAh D cells @ full power for about 2 hours or so and if its dimmed moderately, well over 5 hours of useable light. I used it to light my bedroom while testing.
the fatman can also use a 6 AA battery holder which will give you much brighter light but not as much runtime IMO, and gets hot FAST. 55C.

I myself want to build up a 2C mag. I'm in the process of trying to find a colored 2C to use as a base. Funny thing is, I'm not really sure what I wnat to do with it yet. But I'll figger it out ! :huh2:


Cliff

I love this place now. Thanks for replying. So is it best to use a fatman with 2D NiMH to power the Lux3's in series (14.4V@1000mA)? This will be better than direct-driving a 2X2 (series parallel) configuration with 6AA batteries?

Actually, I did research and for a Fatman driver, the minimum input voltage is 2.7V. Two well charged NiMH D batteries probably only puts out a max of about 2.6V. Will the boost circuit still work? Also, they say that the max input current that the Fatman should take in is 2.2A. With 3 Lux2's in series, that is 10.8V@1A, or about 10.8W. With 2 D batteries at 2.6V, the driver will be consuming about 4.2 A! The Fatman has to be getting hot! Hopefully you have it attached to a metal surface to dissipate heat. If I am wrong, I am sorry, but this is going by the technical specifications from the TaskLED website. if anything, your set-up with that flashlight means that the LED's are not to their max brightness (I am assuming).

I have a 3AA Task-light with the fatman powering a V-binned Lux 5 (love that thing, but it emptied my wallet many times over). The Lux 5 never seems to be run at its full potential for some reason (it is getting the correct voltage (6.3V) and it is mildly overdriven at about 800mA). Because of this, it draws 2A at the batteries, so the Fatman gets a little warm. I already had to replace the inductor 3 times because of heat and stress related falure/weakening. I am careful with it, but I used it in many occations and it has lit my way through several transmission replacement and an engine swap.
I know the fatman is tough, I just hope it can hold against 4 Lux3's.

So, Should I run 3 C or 3 D batteries with the seiries connected Lux3's and a Fatman Boost Circuit? To save $22.00 for the circuit, should I just direct drive them in parallel with 3 C's or 3 D's, or even series/parallel with 6AA's? I am beginning to accept a 3 C or D Maglite now, I guess, if it is the optimum set-up.

Like I said, I wanted to stay away from the CR123's. I think they are wasteful in a project like this. Also, any regulation circuit available by Da2Zip or TaskLED cannot handle anything far more than 1000mA, so a series/parallel configuration wont work. The LED's would be considerably underdriven.

Finally, I wonder how I could add a dimming pot to a maglite. The Fatman driver, when the resistance of the external pot is set to zero, will still give the luxeons about 30mA, so it will be on all the time (very dim). I would need to keep the clicky switch there or re-locate it. I can have the pot wired near the LEDs so I can change the current by taking off the reflector or the head (wont hurt me in any way).

Fatman's max input current is 2.2 amps you need more voltage. I have a quad 2c with 2x18650 lions pulling about 14watts through a fatman it works very well if you want to stick to AA you would need to get a 6aa-2d.

Gryloc said:

I love this place now. Thanks for replying. So is it best to use a fatman with 2D NiMH to power the Lux3's in series (14.4V@1000mA)? This will be better than direct-driving a 2X2 (series parallel) configuration with 6AA batteries?

Click to expand...

It's always better to have Vbat as close to Vf as possible. You're asking the FatMan to pull 14.4 watts from two "D" cells - that's what, a 6 amp draw? Even if the FatMan could handle the low voltage and very high Iin it just doesn't make sense. With 6AA's you're looking at nominal 7.2v once the batteries settle down a bit. That's a lot closer to 14.4v, but still not ideal. Plus, the FatMan can't run four Lux3's at 1a, Greg (the board's designer) has said it's not a good idea. It looks like the Shark from Dat2Zip could handle it. Anyone tried it?

Gryloc said:

I know the fatman is tough, I just hope it can hold against 4 Lux3's.

Click to expand...

See above. Not trying to slam the FatMan. It's been a staple here on CPF for a long time, it just wasn't designed to do what you're talking about.

Gryloc said:

So, Should I run 3 C or 3 D batteries with the seiries connected Lux3's and a Fatman Boost Circuit? To save $22.00 for the circuit, should I just direct drive them in parallel with 3 C's or 3 D's, or even series/parallel with 6AA's? I am beginning to accept a 3 C or D Maglite now, I guess, if it is the optimum set-up.

Click to expand...

Depends on what you want. You don't want 123's and it sounds like you don't want to invest in li-ion rechargeables (could get 7.6v@~2.4Ah into a Mag2C pretty easily). So, a 3D Mag running 4C NiMh will get you a nominal 4.8v at whatever capacity you can find. Not bad, but still not ideal for a 14.4v/14.4w light. You're still better off driving t2x2 with a pair of converters or just direct-drive them all in parallel with healthy resistors on all for emitters to combat thermal runaway (or whatever they call frying the emitters). I don't like the direct-drive because the resistors more or less waste the extra power as heat plus the light is totally unregulated (I prefer constant output).

Gryloc said:

Like I said, I wanted to stay away from the CR123's. I think they are wasteful in a project like this. Also, any regulation circuit available by Da2Zip or TaskLED cannot handle anything far more than 1000mA, so a series/parallel configuration wont work. The LED's would be considerably underdriven.

Click to expand...

Again, if you are OK with using AA's (2500mah are cheap now), just run 6 of them in a 2D and use the Shark to drive them in series. Even better run 9 AA's in a Mag 3D. Or use 6AAs in 2D and 2 buck converters (DownBoy 1000 for example) to drive them 2x2. I believe buck converters are inherently more efficient that boost, so runtimes should be better.

Gryloc said:

Finally, I wonder how I could add a dimming pot to a maglite. The Fatman driver, when the resistance of the external pot is set to zero, will still give the luxeons about 30mA, so it will be on all the time (very dim). I would need to keep the clicky switch there or re-locate it. I can have the pot wired near the LEDs so I can change the current by taking off the reflector or the head (wont hurt me in any way).

Click to expand...

Most people just drill a hole above the Mag's clickie switch and mount the pot. A number of people used to sell dimmable FatMan Mags (and probably still do) - look up some old threads in the Custom B/S/T or send someone like ModAMag a PM for details.

Jon

Thanks again for replying so soon. Great! Alright, I see the different options and I understand them all. I can have a converter circuit, or I can direct drive. Both have their strenghts, but I dont know which is exaclty, in others opinion, the most successful and favored out of the rest.

On one side, I have regulated:
1. 6AA (7.2V) in a 2D flashlight and a Fatman or Shark to power 14.4V @ 1A.
2. 4C (4.8V) in a 3D flashlight and a Fatman or Shark to power 14.4V @ 1A.

On the other side, I have direct drive:
3. 6AA (7.2V) in a 2D flashlight to power 7.2V @ 2A.
4. 3C (3.6V) in a 3C flashlight to power 3.6V @ 4A.

The only thing is that i dont know if I can afford a converter, especially two, now that I look back at this project. Should I just go with the third option, then I can add two shark or fatman drivers later? I dont know. Anyway, thanks for helping. Cant wait untill I can order the flashlight.

The only multi Lux light I've built so far was in a 3D host running 3 RW0H Lux I stars. I wired them in parallel (though some folks don't seem to like that idea) and on 3 fresh Energizer cells, I think it pulls 1.12A which is about perfect. Honestly, it puts out an amazing amount of light and a nice, wide beam as expected. Sure, the same thing with 3 T-bins would be brighter, but this thing is already putting out 120-150 lumens and with the relatively floody 20mm reflectors, that seems to be plenty bright for use within 75 yards or so.

I think I should see about 7 hours to 50% brightness using alkalines. A Tri Lux III light would get half that at best on alkalines.

But, as a true CPFer, I'm going to rebuild the tri Lux I light in a 2C body on a regulator and 2 18650 cells and do a Tri Lux III light in the 3D body.

If you have any specific questions, you might PM 3rdshift as I think he's considered one of the resident experts in the multi LED modded Mags.

all i know is that the fatman will run of 2 niMh D's well. 4 or more would be better, but i wanted the smallest non modded body with good runtime. however since i have TONS of nimh AA's i switched over to a 6AA adapter (from Modamag) it works very well (brighter) if not as long as the 2 D's you can even run it on 3 C's if you cut down the spring in the tail cap And use some tubing to keep the c"s from rattling about.

if you do use a fatman, a dimmer is a highly recommended option. really, do you need to light up the entire forest ALL the time? good for outdoors, too much in a 6' tent

A wealth of information about successfully executed Tri and Quad Lux mods done by Icarus can be found in index form here. I am really fortunate to have some of his work and regard it as top shelf in every respect. There are several Fatman designs described there. I think you will find it a great resource.

Alright! Thank you so much Lunarmodule, Turbo_E, and even Icarus (the guy who mods maglites to fit in 3 or 4 luxeons)! This site is such a wealth of information. The last post with the link to that index just made my day -or night, whatever. I have decided to go with the 2D maglite. I will power the 4 Lux3's in series with a fatman (which I might add later because they are $22 -I will direct drive it carefully temporarily). I will use the 6AA battery holder modded so the positive contact will be at the top, and the negative at the bottom (of course). The holder came with this little part that has two special contacts side by side (with springs) and wires coming out the side. I wont use it. Then, when I get the fatman, I will modify a 8AA battery holder to have the positive and negative contacts on either end (that will be weird to figure out). This will put out 9.6V, so the Fatman wont work as hard. It will demand only 1.5A from the batteries (sweet!).

Now, my only obsticle is heatsinking. I found a heatsink that is 1.352" by .25" thick that fits in the barell of the maglite (the body). It is found in the misc part section on the elektrolumens website. Here, I will have two of these epoxied and maybe screwwed together and have the 4 emitters epoxied near the edge in a square (to allow the reflectors to fit next to each other). *Look below at my lovely diagram made from various symbols. It shows the two heatsink disks together. The heatsink will not be as nice as what Icarus used, but it will work. I cant drive the Lux3's at 1A for too long due to the heat. He used a custom machined copper heatsink. I wont have access to a lathe for a long time, so, if I cant find a larger heatsink like what is used with the Fraen Tri-Star, I will have to settle with what I can find. I will play around. I can find scrap aluminum and add or modify the heatsink when I have the chance to go home for a while.

*.....Lux3...............Lux3.........
.........|....................|...........
\.......|......../ \........|......./..
..\.....V....../....\......V...../....
....\........./........\........./......<---so20xa reflectors
......\...../............\...../........
....__-^-_________-^-___.....
.._|................................|_..<---Heatsink 1
..||__________________||..
..||................................||..<---Heatsink 2
..||__________________||..
..||................................||..
..||................................||..
..||................................||..<---Maglite body (barrell)
..||................................||..
..||................................||..


I hope you like it. Ignore all the periods... That was fun to make (and quite a challenge).
Any further comments or suggestion?

BTW, I do want to put a dimmer on the light. George from TaskLED (on his website) says that I will need a 50kohm logarithimic taper potentionmeter. The potentionmeter doesnt have to handle many watts of power, like Icarus says, so I can get one rated at like 1/8W or 1/16W (dont know how low you can go with the power rating). I will probably mount in above the switch (I know, just like everybody else). Like Icarus said, it is pointless to run 4 of these at once when working on something closer that 10 feet away. Plus the added runtime will be greatly appreciated. I will add a potentionmeter when I get the Fatman. The dimming ability is so cool. I never had a light that was dimmable yet. :rock:

I plan on creating a post to ask if anybody would like to sell me a heatsink that would work with a maglite and 4 decent Luxeon III's (they dont have to be U-binned). I am starting to really dislike Future. Their customer support isnt the greatest when it comes to asking for certain parts. I dont feel like playing the luxeon lottery either, so I will check out the group buys, or have people come to me in a post on the buy section.

You can do 3x NiMH C in a 2D mag, or 3C mag. Or get a 3D mag and go with D size. If you use ***K binned luxIII's, you can wire them all in parallel and Direct drive them with this, perfectly..

RE: heatstinks.... You probably won't be able to get 4 emitters AND 4 decent reflectors crammed onto a heatsink that is sized to fit the barrel of a "D" Mag. There are ready-made heatsinks out there (the Perfect Quad Sink by ModAMag, for example). These drop into the Mag head and are even machined to help locate the emitters so that they are perfectly spaced to accept the 20mm reflectors.


Jon

Oh yeah, the heatsinks are readily available. Theres ones to fit either 3 or 4 Luxes in either a C or D body Mag. There are also some that use optics rather than the IMS20mm reflectors. Other than the time and effort of actually put everything physically together, they aren't very hard to build. I think this light cost me less than $50 to build, of course, it's unregulated.

The huge hotspot is really something to behold. The first beamshot is my RW0Hx3 light (again I used Lux Is, not Lux IIIs) and the second beamshot is the brightest Lux III light I own, a Magmod with a UX1L at 937ma. Granted, the hotspot of the U-bin is brighter, but look how HUGE the hotspot is with the tri lux light!

a final note. the 2D mag can fit a 8AA battery holder (avail from Modamag) if you have the the correct sized AA's. some AA's have a minutely larger diameter and wont fit. this will give you 9.6V VS 7.2V off 6 AAs. brighter light and longer runtime.

i really recommend getting T binned stars if you can afford it. they put much more light at the same power levels (VS S bins).

BTW the FATMAN is heat protected. if the luxes start blinking, you're getting too hot and it will shut down soon. it only means you need to heatsink the fatman to the mag body