mag85 to mag85R

I'd like to turn my mag85 direct-drive to a mag85 with a regulator but I don't really know anithing about this and I need some suggestions..
for example I have read that someone has built a mag85 with 9 nimh and setted the regulator at 11.1 when batteries has 10.8V of nominal voltage?:thinking:
and then where can I get one of these regulators?
how can I assembe that ? and where? (I have a KIU socket)

thanks in advance!

Hi Filippo, there are a few possibilities.

AWR's Hot Driver which don't think he's offering here anyway. sounds like what you quoted.

JimmyM has a few goodies in the works I've heard including a soft start MOSFET and PWM. google search will bring them up.
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Another is "AW's going regulated, Woot" driver, there is a discussion thread over in incan. section

Another way, a cheaper easier way is Northern Lights' NTC. there is a couple of threads on it. just google NTC.

Hope this helps,
Jim

FILIPPO said:

I'd like to turn my mag85 direct-drive to a mag85 with a regulator but I don't really know anithing about this and I need some suggestions..
for example I have read that someone has built a mag85 with 9 nimh and setted the regulator at 11.1 when batteries has 10.8V of nominal voltage?:thinking:
and then where can I get one of these regulators?
how can I assembe that ? and where? (I have a KIU socket)

thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

Hi Filippo,

Your best bet is to wait for AW's D sized regulator. You need more than a soft start scheme to be able to drive the 1185 at 11.1V; you also need more than the usual 9 cells.

With a regulator like AWR's hotdriver or the soon to be released regulator from AW you could drive the 1185 to 11.50V for 1000 lumens. This would give a bulb life of about 5.7 hrs. The powerpack can be 10 Nimh cells, with the nicest form factor being 4/5A cells IMO. These will give you 2000 mAh capacity. The new Elite 2000 cells are a good deal, but out of stock at cheapbatterypacks right now.

I have a Mag85R that runs on 9 GP2000 NiMH high-current cells. The regulation is set at 11.1 on a AWR Hotdriver. This setup works because the cells are high-current, which means they hold their voltage even under high current. Fully charged, this pack exceeds 12.6 V. It can hold 1.3V/cell (11.7V for the pack), so the regulation at 11.1 works pretty well. By the time the cells drop to 1.23V (the regulation cutoff of 11.1 for the pack), they are pretty close to done anyway. The Hotdriver with these cells allows long runtimes, soft starts and a much higher, flat lumen output than ordinary Mag85s.

The other thing I should add is that this is a very low-resistance light, so the voltage holds more easily at a higher level.