SafetyBob
Enlightened
I actually completed my mod to a 3 D Camo Mag earlier this week. Here are some of the pics with way to much information from me on the subject.
First off, my goal was to get rid of all the soldering of small wires on small boards....basically simplify my modifying of the flashlight was the exact goal. I thought the Luxdrive Buckpuck 3021-D-E-1000 would offer me the dimming function (through a dimmer you can order with a wiring harness) and up to 1000mA power.
I decided to use one of fivemega's 9xAA battery holders in the 3 D Mag I got as a Christmas present. During testing with a Cree Q5 and a pentium 4 heatsink and driving it at full power for the 3+ hours or so it will run....it got hot. Hot enought to force me enough to go out and make a slightly bigger heatsink than the normal one you can get from H22A (which I normally use). I also noticed the Buckpuck also got noticably warm too being driven this hard. It did not get warm with the 6xAA or 4XAA battery holders I also tested the one led with too. (note: I did try successfully to use the 9xAA holder and two crees with very good success...I didn't have a third to test, sorry)
First things first if you try doing this. I wanted to keep the mag switch the same and figured I would drill a hole in the side of the flashlight body to hold the very small dimmer. The side of the mag switch easily files down in order to make space for the dimmer, just be sure and ensure you have your switch oriented correctly (unlike me) prior to filing. That said, there is still lots of plastic left to file both sides down to make it fit. Here it is installed:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010020.jpg
The big problem was to make sure the plastic dimmer would not get broke. Not a problem, I just cut some aluminum hex off and milled a hole for a knob. I sanded the bottom with sandpaper reversed on an older flashlight in the garage to form the backside to sit on the curve of the flashlight.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010021.jpg
Here is that backside sanded with the curve:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010022.jpg
Here is the Seoul P4 epoxied, glow power epoxy drying and buckpuck all wired up to the flashlight
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010023.jpg
Now for the fun, to try and keep heat down, I epoxied the buckpuck to the big heatsink and ended up with this. Yes I dremeled the crap out of it since I did not think ahead to get the inside diameter correct.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010026.jpg
The bad news was that because of the extended length of the heatsink I figured it would be a close fit. Well, it was way to close so the nice factory wiring harness went bye-bye and out came the soldering iron and heat shrink in order to have enought room to shove it down the tube. I was around 1/16 of an inch off.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010027.jpg
End result with closeup.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010028.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010029.jpg
If you go close up on the last photo, I later sanded down the set screw so it is now flush. How do you like my first attemp at knurling? I certainly gained a lot of respect for you guys who do it daily. Hopefully my neighbor will make me a new knob out of brass next week.
Overall impressions. With nothing more than the stock reflector at full power this thing will match my Malkoff drop-in. I think it may do better but only because I am driving the led at 1000mA with 9xAA eneloops (I measured it at the led) versus my Malkoff also at 1000mA with 3 alkaline D batteries. I was able to play with it at night and I was very surprised how well it threw the light. Ever so slightly better than the Malkoff.....maybe. That was the part I liked.
The part I didn't like was the dimming function. It wasn't as linear as I was hoping it would be. Yes you can dim it right down to 20 or 30 lumen (compared to my Fenix on low), but a 20 to 40 degree turn on the knob gives you dim to basically full bright. The switch rotates around 320 degrees.
Would I do it again? Probably not. I will be using one of taskled's boards to get the more normal low-med-high functions. I need to ensure the magnifying glass is installed on the third hands before I do that though.
For fixed lighting, I think this buckpuck would be the way to go if you needed dimming control. Easy, simple, fool proof. Perfect undercounter setup.
Hope everyone enjoys looking.
Bob E.
First off, my goal was to get rid of all the soldering of small wires on small boards....basically simplify my modifying of the flashlight was the exact goal. I thought the Luxdrive Buckpuck 3021-D-E-1000 would offer me the dimming function (through a dimmer you can order with a wiring harness) and up to 1000mA power.
I decided to use one of fivemega's 9xAA battery holders in the 3 D Mag I got as a Christmas present. During testing with a Cree Q5 and a pentium 4 heatsink and driving it at full power for the 3+ hours or so it will run....it got hot. Hot enought to force me enough to go out and make a slightly bigger heatsink than the normal one you can get from H22A (which I normally use). I also noticed the Buckpuck also got noticably warm too being driven this hard. It did not get warm with the 6xAA or 4XAA battery holders I also tested the one led with too. (note: I did try successfully to use the 9xAA holder and two crees with very good success...I didn't have a third to test, sorry)
First things first if you try doing this. I wanted to keep the mag switch the same and figured I would drill a hole in the side of the flashlight body to hold the very small dimmer. The side of the mag switch easily files down in order to make space for the dimmer, just be sure and ensure you have your switch oriented correctly (unlike me) prior to filing. That said, there is still lots of plastic left to file both sides down to make it fit. Here it is installed:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010020.jpg
The big problem was to make sure the plastic dimmer would not get broke. Not a problem, I just cut some aluminum hex off and milled a hole for a knob. I sanded the bottom with sandpaper reversed on an older flashlight in the garage to form the backside to sit on the curve of the flashlight.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010021.jpg
Here is that backside sanded with the curve:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010022.jpg
Here is the Seoul P4 epoxied, glow power epoxy drying and buckpuck all wired up to the flashlight
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010023.jpg
Now for the fun, to try and keep heat down, I epoxied the buckpuck to the big heatsink and ended up with this. Yes I dremeled the crap out of it since I did not think ahead to get the inside diameter correct.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010026.jpg
The bad news was that because of the extended length of the heatsink I figured it would be a close fit. Well, it was way to close so the nice factory wiring harness went bye-bye and out came the soldering iron and heat shrink in order to have enought room to shove it down the tube. I was around 1/16 of an inch off.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010027.jpg
End result with closeup.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010028.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/reverding58/P1010029.jpg
If you go close up on the last photo, I later sanded down the set screw so it is now flush. How do you like my first attemp at knurling? I certainly gained a lot of respect for you guys who do it daily. Hopefully my neighbor will make me a new knob out of brass next week.
Overall impressions. With nothing more than the stock reflector at full power this thing will match my Malkoff drop-in. I think it may do better but only because I am driving the led at 1000mA with 9xAA eneloops (I measured it at the led) versus my Malkoff also at 1000mA with 3 alkaline D batteries. I was able to play with it at night and I was very surprised how well it threw the light. Ever so slightly better than the Malkoff.....maybe. That was the part I liked.
The part I didn't like was the dimming function. It wasn't as linear as I was hoping it would be. Yes you can dim it right down to 20 or 30 lumen (compared to my Fenix on low), but a 20 to 40 degree turn on the knob gives you dim to basically full bright. The switch rotates around 320 degrees.
Would I do it again? Probably not. I will be using one of taskled's boards to get the more normal low-med-high functions. I need to ensure the magnifying glass is installed on the third hands before I do that though.
For fixed lighting, I think this buckpuck would be the way to go if you needed dimming control. Easy, simple, fool proof. Perfect undercounter setup.
Hope everyone enjoys looking.
Bob E.
