Achilles Heel of the InReTech MagAA Adapter

Maybe Mag2AAs and 1W Luxeon LEDs are tough, but the collimator lenses can break real easy.

I found this out repeatedly with my MagAAs fitted with the InReTech 1W Luxeon Star (wht.) adapters.

I've shattered five collimators in these Mags in the past few months. The collimators all arrived from InReTech at different times during this period, presumably from different batches.

What happens is: the edge of the collimators crack and/or shatter when I push the Mag into the Flashlight Friend accessory (that plastic tube with the adjustable legs.)

And I know why. When you tighten down the head of the Mag, the bezel pushes on the edge of the collimator, which presses on the LED adapter, which presses on the Mag bulb platform, which presses on the switch, which turns off the flashlight. If you continue turning the head, the platform bottoms out against the shaft of the tube. Unfortunately, the threads of the head and the tube do not bottom out at or before that point. So now if you continue to forcefully twist the head, you are as a result compressing the whole assembly. The pressure on the edge of the collimator builds, and it shatters.

Why would some knucklehead twist the head past the beaking point, you ask? How about if you want to screw the head down tight so it doesn't turn on in your pack? (Yes, I have Kroll switches, but keep reading.) How about if the Flashlight Friend is a little tight, like outside in the cold for example, and you have to twist and push hard on the Mag? How about you hand the flashlight to your pal, a 600lb gorilla, who doesn't know any better? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif How about you just like twisting hard on your flashlight, huh? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Fortunately, I think I've figured out a modification to the collimator and the platform that will solve the problem. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif What you do is this: grind about 3mm off the conical tip of the collimator; grind just over 1mm off the top of the platform; and grind out a couple of tiny slots that will allow the LED leads enough space to feed into the platform. I've done the aforementioned grinding, and I'm just waiting for a replacement collimator to test out the fix. Will post results.

Do the InReTech adaptors fit into a Brinkman 2AA? It's quite possible that I'm just not screwing down the lens hard enough, but I can't imagine how I would make this happen in the Brinkman lights. I like their tailcaps better than the krolls too.

I to am interested as to whether the Inretech adapter fits the brinkman 2AA. As it turns out, the switching mechanism on my pre-assembled Mag is defective, properly lighting the LS only 50% of the time. TIA

Respectfully,
Dale

The INRETECH adapter isn't designed to work with the Brinkman, as to your switch - the switch in the MAGLIGHT AA is pretty "cheesy", the spring pushes the batteries up which put the black spacer up which makes contact with the case, if there is any dirt/paint/rust/etc, the little tab will not make good contact

Without dis. the flashlight, grab the adapter and pull gently, then spin it a couple of times - the contact will clean itself a little

If you carefully take the flashlight apart, be carefull NOT to lose the TINY little contact strip, then take a small sandpaper file and clean the contact and the inside of the flashlight

After finding a good "focus", I epoxy the bezels on all of my MMs with Luxeon mods, obviously using a tail switch for control.

Technically, gorilla induced failure of the collimnator is not an achillies heel because the adapter still produces light. Of course that doesn't matter much when you've got a broken collimnator, but because the part is replaceable, it bothers me a little to associate death with component failure. InReTech does make replacement collimnators available for sale at cost and our adapter installation is completely reversible. In this time of rapacious tort lawyers it has to be noted that failure of collimnator does not produce a life threatening condition because our adapter continues to work for weeks on a single set of batteries without that part. Without a collimnator the product produces enough light to write a letter to us requesting a replacement. That light will last long enough for us to mail you the replacement before the batteries die...even if you are on deployment in Kuwait.

Another method of preventing gorilla induced failure would be to install a stop ring to prevent further travel of the head assembly, but that would take a bit of work. I do suggest that the original assembly is susceptible to gorilla assault. A solution to this problem is to educate your gorilla in tightening things finger-tight instead of hand-tight. The InReTech test gorilla (named Tim) has been educated in this method and this has provided rewards beyond measure.

Three methods of keeping your Mini-MAG from turning on in your pack:
1. Wrap a rubber band around the body and the head of the flashlight to prevent it from turning accidentally. This is lightweight, easy to do, and is easy to overcome.
2. Reverse one of the two batteries in the flashlight to prevent current from flowing. This is fairly easy to do, but can provide nervous moments in an emergency. If your pack is flying to Kathmandu, I do suggest using this method.
3. Forget about it, you've got an InReTech AA adapter and your flashlight will run for weeks on a single set of battteries, just put an old set in for travel and carry a couple sets of fresh batteries in the package.

Patrick said: [ QUOTE ]
Forget about it, you've got an InReTech AA adapter and your flashlight will run for weeks on a single set of battteries, just put an old set in for travel and carry a couple sets of fresh batteries in the package

[/ QUOTE ]

DUH! This is so obvious /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif I can't believe I didn't think of it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Great idea, Patrick, I just ordered one so I'll remember this.
Thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
The INRETECH adapter isn't designed to work with the Brinkman,

[/ QUOTE ]

I have found that if you trim 3/32 inch off the insertion wires of the inretech adapter it works PERFECTLY in the Brinkman AA Legend. No flicker. No problem at all. And the adapter will still work in a minimag.

I have always had trouble with the mm's coming on without knowing it, so I started using the Legends. One of them is the 3AA Legend with an Opalec. I had a bad clickie switch once so I just replaced it, but now I was wondering about using the Pro-grip since it is a push button switch instead of a clickie. I think this would be a good combination with an Inretech. Anyone tried the Pro-grip lights? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I would be very careful about using 3xAA with the InReTech AA adapter. While we feel that the thermal dissipation of the adapter is fine for lower power, direct driving 4.5 volts through a diode rated for at most 3.6 is a bad plan. Our D-Cell adapters with heat sinks are much better able to handle heavier power loading because we use a heat sink bigger than the Pentium used. Come to think about it, Mike and I were on the design team for one of the first production Pentium II boards and the heat sink for the Helios adapter is larger than what we first used for prototype PII processors.

I have not seen any product failure reports from overdriven AA adapters. That may just be because people knew they had broken the device and realized that we could tell from the returned unit that it had been smoked. We make what we feel to be a strong product that used with moderate care should last many years. If you can find other products that will work with it, we will be happy to hear from you.

Oh no, I would never plan on running my Inretech on 3AA's like I do my Opalec (which works fine btw). The Brinkmann Pro-grip is a 2AA that doesn't use a bottom clickie switch and I was curious to see if anyone has gone this route to get away from bottom switch problems.

Wrapping a few layers of teflon tape around the body threads b4 screwing the head on also works well to keep the head from wobbling side to side and to make it a bit harder for the head to unscrew and engage the spring switch in the aa mag.

[ QUOTE ]
I've figured out a modification to the collimator and the platform that will solve the problem. What you do is this: grind about 3mm off the conical tip of the collimator; grind just over 1mm off the top of the platform; and grind out a couple of tiny slots that will allow the LED leads enough space to feed into the platform. I've done the aforementioned grinding, and I'm just waiting for a replacement collimator to test out the fix. Will post results.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good news: the mod worked! I have been attempting "gorilla induced failure" on my InReTech (as modified above) for over ten days now, and no matter what, the darn collimator won't break! I'm just banannas about this as you can imagine! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif

I hope to get a before-and-after shot of the bulb platform and collimator posted before too long.

The mod wasn't too hard; I did the grinding on a Dremel drill press, but you could do the work by hand if you have a good eye.

Note: shortening the collimator will result in slightly widening the hot-spot of the beam, so presumably reducing the throw a little. I found this was a fair trade-off to protect the collimator.

On a further note: I discovered that theledguy/Yamaguchi's McFlood metal reflector dish fits the InReTech without any modification and also solves the problem, since you can't shatter it when you tighten down the head. (I'm sure I'm not the first to find this out. . . .)

I married a McFlood reflector with a <font color="turquoise">Cyan</font> InReTech 2-AA = <font color="turquoise">"VERY NICE!!"</font>

[ QUOTE ]
I hope to get a before-and-after shot of the bulb platform and collimator posted before too long.

[/ QUOTE ]

All right so it's been a while, but here's the photos at last. This first one is the Luxeon optic AKA collimator, from which I ground about 3+mm from the tip. The trick here is to take off as much as possible without the optic pressing directly on the LED bulb.



Now here's the InReTech LED. All I had to do here was pare some of the soder off the leads (some have excess soder, some don't):



Lastly the bulb platform. I ground the top section off, about 1.5mm, and ground some tiny slots into the holes for the leads to feed into. The latter is the tricky part if you've got the excess soder--you need to pare off all the soder, or also expand the holes and the slots without grinding away the little "septum" separating the holes.



And that's all there is to it! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Sorry for the poor photo clarity, I guess I'm still sharpening my skill behind the lens.

P.S. I actually like the InReTech probuct, alot, or I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble!

Great mod. What I did to degorillaize my bezel was to step up the O ring (same diameter but the next thicker size) then I put the bezel on without lubing the O ring. I now use the tailcap switch only and the bezel stays solid no wobble and even a gorilla needs a pair of pliers to turn it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Sounds like a cool and simple solution. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

The only trouble with MagAA tailswitches is the issue of electrical resistance which seems to turn up many of the Rams and Krolls, leading to flickering or dim output. I think this one has been chewed over on the forum quite a bit.

And a related dark-horse-issue is whether you are losing useful light but can't perceive the difference between good and bad tailswitchs, or between a tailswitch and a Mag-issue tailcap. This was suggested to me by something I read (here?) about how you need an order of magnitude change in intensity (ie one twice as bright as the other) before your eyeball can tell you one setup is dimmer than the other. But that missing undetectable quantum of light might be usefull as a practical fact in the field.