Mini Maglite recharging kit

Hello all. I am new to Candle Power Forums and what a wealth of information I have gathered. I have a question that maybe some great minds can answer. I recently met a friend of a friend who had a recharging kit for his AA Mini Maglite. He said his wife bought him this kit at a hardware store quite sometime ago and it had really worked well for him. Seems you just change the endcap and batteries and your in business. Anyway I have scoured the net in search of one these and have not located one yet. Any body have any suggestions? I am a certified flashlight nut. I like them all. My wife thinks I am crazy (until the power goes off) I also collect pressure lanterns. Thanks

jcozad,

never heard of such a "kit" - but to make a MiniMag rechargeable you just need 2 AA sized NiMhs preferrably of high capacity such as the 1800mas and a charger for those - a "cheap" solution consisting of 4 1600ma cells and a "dumb" charger will set you back around 10 USD - a "good" one with 4 x 1800ma cells and a "smart" charger probably 35 USD - I just got those offers from Cheapbatteries for your reference.

Klaus

Thanks for the information. I am currently using
rechargeable batteries in my Minimag. The "kit" his wife purchased had a charging stand for the AA Maglite. It was neat, it charged from the tailcap instead of close to the head as it does on the full size Mag rechargeable. Thanks Again

I have one of those kits, or a similar one around here somewhere. It's quite old maybe 10-15 years. The one I have you replace the tailcap of your maglite with their own, and it slides into a little charger. Pretty slick actually but I haven't seen one in a long long time. Can't remember who made it but I don't think it was made by maglite.

If I find it I'll see if I can give some more info on it.

Todd

What do ya know I found it.

It was made by streamlight. Says the streamlgiht jr. charger. 120v 60hz 4 watt input, output 2.9V dc 50ma.

The replacement endcap lacks a lanyard hole with a hold/jack in the end and looks like it takes just a standard coax style 5mm x 2.5mm DC power plug. Which means it would be easy to convert it to a higher rate of charge with another power AC adaptor or to a car charger as well.

No idea if it still works, but at 50ma with a 1800mah battery that's a 36+ hour charge I guess it wouldn't be bad for a light to have on the charger all the time or to modify the original unit to give a little more oomph say 200ma.

I would suggest no modification at all to increase the charge rate. Can you swap the cells for newer NiMH cells? If so, then I would suggest using an external smart charger to charge up flat cells, and use the charging kit to 'maintain' the cells at full charge.

50mA into a 1800mAh NiMH cell will take a long time to go from flat to fully charged, but it is such a low trickle rate that you could safely leave the light on the charger all the time. If I were going to make any modifications at all, I'd probably put a good current regulator in, and _drop_ the charge rate, perhaps to 20mA or even lower.

If anyone finds kits like these for sale, let us all know!

-Jon

FYI, these pop-up on Ebay every once in a while. I also know that Snap-On tools used to sell them, maybe track down one of their trucks and ask?

--dan

Does the kit require that you turn on the light for it to charge?

Yep the kit does require you have the light on to charge it.

And it is possible to remove the endcap and put any batteries in you want so it's certainly possible to put charged 1800 nimh's in and let the charger just maintain them no prob.

I appreciate all the info. Maybe I will run across one someday. I would really like to see Maglight make a rechargable AA similiar to the Stinger. I like keeping a rechargable in my truck. Thanks again.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ToddM:
Yep the kit does require you have the light on to charge it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ???????????????????????

Oh wait a minute - at 300ma draw from the bulb and 50ma charg I don´t see the cells gets much charge after all - do I miss something here ? or what does "have the light on" mean - have it switched "ON" or have the light "on" the charger craddle.

Confused



Klaus

The bulb would be in series with the batteries so the batteries would be getting the entire 50 ma. thru them. The bulb would not light or glow verrrry dimly since it would be just getting 50 ma.

Ron:

This 50 mA Chinese water torture variant doesn't sound like it would be very healthy for the bulb.

At that low of a current, the bulb should last about 100 years.

Ron:

At very low currents certain bulbs run "dirty" in a way that shortens their lives. I understand that the expected life curve increases for a while as voltage decreases. At some cross-over point lower voltage means shorter life for some bulbs.

Halogen lamps, for example, have to maintain a temperature of something like 300 degrees C inside the bulb for the halogen cleansing cycle to work.

It may be that Xenon and Krypton bulbs don't have such a crossover point. I don't know but would want to know before running a constant 50 mA.

Another concern: I have read that NiCads are very tolerant of continuous trickle charges but NiHM's are not. I wouldn't want to trickle a NiMH for very long after it acheived peak charge.

Hi Lemlux,

If you run a halogen a little underpowered, it's life will increase but if you run it a little more underdriven, under enough that the bulb is cool enough for the tungsten to deposit on the bulb wall, you will reduce the life. Underdrive it even more, and the life will start to increase again but your light output and efficiency will be poor. Underdrive it a whole lot and very little or no visible light will come out but the life will be extremly long.

I thought the problem wasn't "life" but that low currents will cause the bulb to blacken. They will still work just not much light coming through the blackend bulb.

Ron and Cave Dave:

You both reinforce my decision to wire my recharging ports on my DB mods directly to the battery connections so that the bulb can be switched off during charging.

cave dave,
the great Don Klipstein covers the issue @ http://misty.com/people/don//bulb1.html#hfm

As I understand it, the tungsten-halogen cycle won't work at "lowered" temperatures, and the redeposition of the tungsten isn't necessarily even across the filament.

lightlover