Modified my first two flashlights on the cheap

Whilst wandering the vastness of my local DIY warehouse (B&Q for those of you based in the UK) I came upon a couple of cheap yellow plastic flashlights sold as a combo. One took 3 'D' cells, the other took 2 'AA'. Total cost to myself £1 or about $1.60 Batteries not included! They were, of course, junk. Cheap feeling and brittle yellow plastic with pretty crappy internals. In stock form with fresh alkalines they were pretty awful. The 3d cell light was a warm yellow colour and the light flickered when I shook it. The 2AA had a really dim, awful splotchy beam. Almost worse than having no light at all

Mod 1
This ones a real 'no brainer'. Dump the 3D cells and replace them with 4 C cells. I wrapped the cells in some cardboard from a breakfast cereal box. Screwed the head back on and gave it a gentle shake. No more rattles Fired it up fully expecting the bulb to instaflash (I had some maglite Krypton bulbs as back up). Light. Lots of bright white light That extra voltage really perked the cheap bulb up. To be honest I didnt expect the bulb to last but its had a good couple of hours runtime and it seems to be doing fine. The brightness is impressive considering the humble origins. Its *almost* as bright as my Surefire 8NX (110 lumens) when comparing hotspots. Obviously the beam is still pretty awful with a small hotspot and very little side spill. Quite a few ugly artifacts to be seen too. It does throw rather well though. At about 25 yards the hotspot is about 6 feet across and reasonably bright. Perfect for my garden. Total runtime before I estimated that I would want to change the batteries if the torch was in normal use was about 1 1/2 hours. It was still shining but it was only putting out about as much light as an AA Maglite. Overall I was quietly impressed with this free modification. Literally 2 minutes work had turned a piece of worthless junk into a *MUCH* brighter piece of worthless junk

Mod 2
This one was pretty easy too I just pulled out the incandescent bulb and dropped in a red LED (Scavanged from a cheap Photon clone with a cracked case) I bent one leg of the led to touch the negative part of the bulbholder and the other leg dropped down and rested on the positive contact where it touchs the battery. I -was- going to solder the LED in place (Still might!) but when I screwed the lamp assembly together it really gripped the LED tightly and the torch seems to work really well. It puts out a nice smooth red beam, very little hotspot to see and its perfect for wandering the house and checking on my son without waking him.
I did wonder about fitting a resistor but without the LED specs I wouldnt know what size to fit. It seems to work just fine being direct driven though. The alkalines that are in it at the minute had already seen some heavy service in a toy RC car and I still got a further 6 hours worth of red light from them. In fact, its still shining now but fading fast.


So, let me see. What did it all cost?

£1 (Okay $1.60 if you must )

Yep, thats all. Everything else I had in the house. The only tools I used were a pair of scissors to cut the cardboard and snips to shorten the led leg.



I can feel a ROP coming on


Sorry about the long rambling post!

Cheers,
Simon


Surefire 8NX, Orb Raw, MXDL 3 Watt, AA MiniMag with Nite Ize, PALights*4, a 5mcp spotlight and also any number of really poor quality torches bought before I found this place