Should I "Mod" my Arc AA?

I have, in the past, bought three Arc AA's, in 2003, gave two away and kept one. It still works great. Has the brightness of the last premium before the demise of the original ArcFlashlight company. About that of an Infinity Ultra Gerber (I've done the side by side comparisons).
I have heard about some modding capabilities such as a two stage switch or even an updated LED. Is it worth it? How much $? Is this considered a collectable and should be left 'original equipment'? The warranty is history. What do you guys think?

If I were you, I'd keep it stock.

About the only thing you can do with a stock board is change the LED, and that's risky. Anything involving a Lux and fancy 2 stages requires an entirely new board and maybe modifying the head (depending on what you want to do with it).

MillerMods does some cool stuff from what I hear, and goldserve has FluPIC boards that fit in there and run off 1xli-ion AA

if you do decide to mod... don't mess up your original working head.

miller mods and chimo both do an excellent job!

I've got dead/empty ARC AA heads set for $18 shipped.

Please PM if interested...

Thanks guys...I had a sneaking suspicion that unless the light quit-out on me I should probably leave it alone.
I was tempted by the idea of a two stage but I'll just wait until Peter...or somebody else comes up with one.
....I'll leave my trusty AA Tank alone. Thanks for the input.

MOD! MOD! MOD! Pick up 2 AA heads from CY for $18 and send one off to Millermods. You don't have to get a 2-stage. Have him do a single stage 1W luxeon and you should get more than 2 hours runtime out of a quality AA battery. Even the 3/4 watt mod would be a HUGE improvement over the stock ARC AA output, and at the 3/4W drive level, the battery life would be even better - probably 3 to 4 hours depending on battery type. Trust me, it's a great mod. I NEVER go anywhere without my 2-stage ARC AA - it's running 1.5W on High and the low is set to a 90ma drive level. At these bright levels, I still get more than 1 hour on high and 6 to 7 hours on the low setting. The low setting with the 90ma drive is bright enough that I rarely need the high except to impress people. Best thing is that I kept the original heads stock and used some of CY's AA heads for the mods.

I'm a little lost as to what you kept and what you modded. When you sent this out....you sent the whole thing? You kept the stock Arc head and sent the barrel?......sorry....a little lost here. I'm in Astoria Queens and Con Ed has had us on "Reduced Voltage" for almost three days...with no promises for when this will end. We're talking about the "Capital of the Free World" here....and The Con Ed plant is actually in the neighborhood...three days of 90+ degree heat and the 'feeders' go down.
Enough off topic ranting, I'm just dreading the trip home, it's got the subways screwed up too. I made sure I had an Arc on me when I left the house....

You can send the entire flashlight and get the mod done that way. However, if you want to keep your ARC AA stock for sentimental reasons, then as I stated buy a couple of ARC AA "dead-heads" from Cy and send one of them to Millermods to get the mod performed. That way you will have your stock head and a brighter 2-stage replacement head. The modifications are only performed on the head. The body remains stock.

Cool, thanks Randyo.

......we got our power back in Astoria Queens yesterday....eight days....woohoo....

I just received a second modded AA head from MillerMods yesterday. This one has his latest version circuit board which allows all of the parts to be located on the Luxeon side of the board, with only some traces and the 2-stage leaf-spring switch on the battery side of the board. The new layout is excellent - superior to the original layout - in that there is sufficient space for the larger positive terminals that come with NIMH batteries. I highly recomment this mod. The best choice would be a 2-stage with the 1.5W high level and 60ma low level. This gives you about 1-1/2 hours of runtime on a high capacity NIMH or a lithium battery, and around 12 to 20 hours on low depending on battery type/capacity. The 1.5W high setting throws nearly as far as the Fenix L1P, but has a much more useful beam shape, with more of a balance between the spot and the spill areas.

pics?

Pics? Haven't had time for beamshots - too much going on at work and the home front. I already posted pics of the light on this thread:

Arc AA

Here's a size comparison photo with a modded ARC AA head on a Peak Kilmanjaro pocket body, a modded ARC-AA, a Peak Kilmanjaro with the keychain body, and the Fenix L1P.