No clue where to start

I've got a couple lantern type flashlights. 6V, square battery, largish reflector. You know the type.

Since I'm seriously considering getting bitten by this flashlight thing, I'm looking at them differently now.

What would be a good bulb and/or bulb/reflector combo that would be doable for someone good with a soldering gun and a decent gunsmith (can work with small items) can do without a blueprint and twelve import variations for munitions?

A good starting point is to fill a dead lantern battery with 7 NiMH cells for 8.4V, and for a bulb, try either the Pelican 3854L (called the "RoP Low" on these forums) or the Philips HPR71.

Both are 6v bulbs (at 11w and 10w respectively) which at 8.4v will give a huge amount of light with the stock reflector.

That's your starting point.

Once you have a metal reflector/bulbholder, the sky is your limit.

For big-power mods, a headlight relay can be contained inside your lantern battery shell to buffer the switch, and you can keep adding volts and an NTC.

The main challenge in my mind is how you replace the stock lens when the need arises.

Look forward to this project with interest.

Oh, you rock.

Thanks. I have no idea when I'm going to start screwing with it as it just occurred to me.

Plastic housing so I don't have the built in heat sink. Hmmmm

Thanks!

the ROP low bulb on short burst should be OK I think, I have it in a mag host with the plastic reflector (waiting for my metal one to arrive) and so far it's held up OK.