Best way (cheap) to mod a 2D Mag for ultra brightness

I am a newbie to this forum but think its great! I have a question about a great way to make my 2D Maglite brighter without having to reach far into my wallet. What type of mod should I do??

put 3 C cells inside your 2D maglite?

I'm talking LED wise, I want to make it more efficient as well. LED's are the way to go I must admit.

Hmm.... what's your budget? Luxeon stars are the only way to go if you want bright. But they don't come cheap anyway. Might as well get a MAD MAX or BAD BOY converter from dat2zip. He does some pretty good stuff.

3 C cells with a lengh of PVC pipe or cardboard fax tube of the appropriate ID/OD to make 'em fit, and replace the bulb with 12 or more Nichia
NSWP500BSs. Direct Drive or use a SI diode or resistor to ease up on them. Best lights to modify are like the MagLite, or Eveready or Rayovac "Industrial" yellow plastic 2D lights.
The ones that have the battery compartment physically separated from the bulb, are better and far easier to use than the cheap ones that just press the battery + tip against the base of the bulb. (uggghhhhhh).

If you like red, 2D and replace the bulb with a dozen or more red HP traffic signal LEDs. Bright as heck... The HPs can tahe the 3VDC direct drive in stride. Cheap Radyo Shaq LEDs will become smoke-emitters pretty quickly.

Done both, they do the job...

/ed brown

I'm looking near the $20-30 range, I want it to be better but not the best, what would I be looking at for the luxeon star? Or the converter? These sound very interesting. I want usefulness, ie. bright blue or high white.

I also saw a great idea for the 2AAA Mag, replacing the blub with a single 3mm bright LED, where would I get a bright white or blue 3mm???

You could look at InReTECH's stuff. They look like good products.

Pretty good site, makes me want to convert all my Mag's. Where should I go for a bright 3mm white led??

I have just modified a Benross 4033 to 5 Blue Nichia LED's. The 4033 is a 3 cell torch.
To get blue LED's to operate brightly in your torch you need three cells as they have a voltage drop of about 4.2V.
There are various options available to enable ou to run blue LED's in your 2 cell:
1. Fit C cells and a spacer tube. 3 c cells are slightly longer than 2 D's but they should physically fit into the torch body tube. The spring in he tailcap will be more compressed and the inside surfaces of he ends of your torch will be under more pressure, but it should work.
2. Fit a battery cage with AA batteries. One of these was recently shown being used in a 2D cell torch to power a 6V dichroic fitting!
There are now battery cages that have contacts on them so that you can directly install them in place of the D cells.

3. Have a tube machined to fit an extra D cell and make the torch a 3 cell. There are members of CPF who could make you bits and pieces like this!

4. The voltage of the existing 2 D cells can be boosted by means of a small inverter circuit.
There are several of these avazilable, some made by members of this forum.

5. Perhaps the simplest, though not necessarily the best or brightest solution is to buy a PR LED Bulb with its own built in booster circuit. This option does allow you to swap bulbs willy nilly, allows you to revert back to filament bulb operation or have a choice of LED colours for you torch. The bulb will probably outlast any torch ts installed in anyway. With a PR mod you can at least pass on your new technology bulb from torch to torch!

I would like to find a PR LED Bulb with its own built in booster circuit. Can you suggest a brand or supplier?

John