solitaire mod??

i dont understand the 3mm soltaire mod on flashlight review 2?

Welcome to CPF, poppeye.

That particular mod entails exchanging the stock bulb for a 3mm LED. To power the little beast, you'll need an A23 battery (they're 12V, used in garage door openers). That battery is the same thickness as a AAA, but it's shorter, so you'll need to make up a spacer to make up for the missing length. The spring from a mechanical pen, a screw cut to size, or even a long wad of aluminum foil should work.

Hope that helps. That mod is not very bright, but the LED will glow for a looooooong time.

You could also use a higher mcd 5mm led for more light. You can get a new spring to make up the battery distance at a hardware store. Have Fun:thumbsup:

How about an easier solution? The Sandwich Shoppe sells the SMJ2 AAA Solitaire modules. It is "plug and play".

No modification to the is Solitaire required, and you can even carry your spare bulb in the tailcap as a backup.

Yeah, you could do that. Personally, I can't resist tinkering with lights, even if they pay the ultimate price in the process.

A 10440 3v cell would work right?

Yup, that's around the Vf of those little LED's, IIRC. I don't know about the current, though.

current is 20ma on all 5mm I have ever seen. Some 10mm finally reach the 100-150ma range.

I was wondering how much current the li-ion cell would deliver in DD, not the LED's spec If.

I am not sure if he is still around, but LedASAP made me a lovely little pill for a Solitairre that is a tiny boost circuit and a s-bin lux 1. I put that in a HA3 solitairre a got from a group buy ages ago and put a McR11 reflector in it. It is a perfect little EDC and gives loads of light.

greenLED said:

Yeah, you could do that. Personally, I can't resist tinkering with lights, even if they pay the ultimate price in the process.

Click to expand...

I think I've lost more money in wrecked lights, blown leds (4 crees on a CPU hotsink!) , and fried boards just simply replacing 5mm leds, than if I had bought the desired light for each project.

Will I stop? No way. Its all learning I guess and hopefully I wiil one day be able to mod lights to my specs not the manufacturers.

Robert

datiLED said:

How about an easier solution? The Sandwich Shoppe sells the SMJ2 AAA Solitaire modules. It is "plug and play".

No modification to the is Solitaire required, and you can even carry your spare bulb in the tailcap as a backup.

Click to expand...

Has anyone used this drop in or knows how bright it is?

I bought several of the original ones and they are much brighter than a stock bulb, but still not all that bright. They are great in the fact that they simply plug right in. Can't comment on the newer versions.....

But now-a-days anything under "Burn yer' eyes out" just simply wont do...

Overall I thought they were a good deal for the money, and made a usefull light out of the solitare. They're on all my keychains.

That's the spirit, Robert!! Don't be fooled by all these über-cool and perfect mods people post about - the ones that don't make it are swept under the rug.

can i just use an red 3mm led and a regular aaa batery?

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to do this modification? I did it because I wanted a bright-ish LED powered light that would fit on my keyring.

However, I have since discovered the Fenix L0D-CE (AAA-powered Cree LED). Same size as a Maglite Solitaire, but blows it out of the water in terms of output!

A white LED requires at least 2.5v to light up visibly and at least 3v for usable light. A 1.5v AAA would not light up the LED.

Why not a L0D-CE, it has more overall light on high then the Maglite 3D. It runs for 5 hours on low. Low has 6 something lumen on and alkaline cell, compared to the 1.6 something of the Solitaire. The solitaire runs for 11 minutes to 50 output.

A cheaper light would be the Fenix E0, 12 something hour runtime at 4 lumens.

If you want to keep your Solitaire and use a AAA battery, you best choice would be this Drop-in at around 6 something lumen output.

MikeSalt said:

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to do this modification?

Click to expand...

Simple: some of us like to tinker with stuff.

greenLED said:

Welcome to CPF, poppeye.

That particular mod entails exchanging the stock bulb for a 3mm LED. To power the little beast, you'll need an A23 battery (they're 12V, used in garage door openers). That battery is the same thickness as a AAA, but it's shorter, so you'll need to make up a spacer to make up for the missing length. The spring from a mechanical pen, a screw cut to size, or even a long wad of aluminum foil should work.

Hope that helps. That mod is not very bright, but the LED will glow for a looooooong time.

Click to expand...

what keeps the 12 volt battery from blowing the 3mm LED? Isnt 3.6 - 3.8 about the maximum listed voltage for a white LED? :thinking:

poppeye said:

i dont understand the 3mm soltaire mod on flashlight review 2?

Click to expand...

can somebody post the link to this mod? I cant find it in the reviews forum.