High-power bulb solution for screw-base bulbs

This quest to find a suitable hotwire bulb for my new vintage Eveready Daylo (3D) is proving much more difficult than I thought. At present I'm looking for two things: a bulb which will work with 3xD-cells and put out as much light as possible and a bulb which will work with 9xAA-cells and put out as much light as possible.

So far the best I can find for the 3xD bulb is the GH140 from Reflectalite, which puts out a claimed 48 lumens on 4V and pulling 1.0A.
Also so far... I can't find a daggone think for the 9AA bulb.

This all got me thinking though... what if I could "make" a screw-base bulb? So far I thought of two ways to go about this:
1) Find an online supplier of E10 screw bases, buy some bi-pins of the appropriate size/voltage/wattage, and solder them in.
2) Find the ANSI standard dimensions for E10 bases, compare them to the PR bi-pin holders made by FiveMega and Kaidomain, and if possible use my dremel tool to actually add threads to a PR bi-pin holder.

So far, I have failed magnificently. The only supplier I could find of E10 bases sold them in lots of 10000 or more, and I have been totally unable to find the standard base dimensions for E10 bulbs. I've been trying to avoid taking an E10 bulb to work and measuring it with calipers because I'm not sure how precise that would be, although I imagine a few thousandths here or there wouldn't hurt things too much.

I guess my question is... has anybody else had this problem? Did anybody else find a solution? Anybody know where to find E10 screw bases or know the nominal dimensions for them? How about the diameter of the PR bi-pin holders?

For bulb base engineering drawings and dimensions, go to www.donsbulbs.com

They also have good bulb data of what's out there.

The only bulb that I have found for 9AA is the 7114/5 from http://www.lampsguerra.com
which is 8V 10W but I don't know how many lumens, but I'm guessing 200-odd. More when overdriven to 10.8V.

Don't know where you'd find one, though.

Just me but in the old vintage lights I like using the 51/2D battery stick like you use in the mag charger or streamlight. Using the right bulb you can get good usable light, it's easy, and I don't screw anything up.

Hey, I got one - how hard would it be to make a bi-pin adapter for MES style screw-base sockets? It seems no more fundamentally difficult than an adapter for potted bulbs, and it'd allow the use of Welch-Allyn and Polaris bulbs in older screw-base lights.

Chrontius said:

Hey, I got one - how hard would it be to make a bi-pin adapter for MES style screw-base sockets? It seems no more fundamentally difficult than an adapter for potted bulbs, and it'd allow the use of Welch-Allyn and Polaris bulbs in older screw-base lights.

Click to expand...

I'm looking into doing the same type of thing for a vintage 8 d cell light i picked up.

If you figure anything out, please let me know!

I've mostly set mine aside because it had no less than three serious reasons it was a bad idea to use as a mod host, but that doesn't mean I don't want to finish it anyway!

If E10 screwbase means like the old #222 penlight bulbs, I have a few empty bases and can send you a couple if you want (PM me your address), assuming I can find them. They were sent to me a while back by Scott from Tektite who sells LED upgrades for those old bulbs, for the purpose of modding a Tekna Splashlite, but I never got around to doing such a mod. The other approach is to take an existing bulb and gut it out with pliers, desoldering the filament leads etc. and re-using the base.

Hi,

I don't know if this addresses the immediate question, however PETZL has screw base bulbs for some of their lights that use a standard screw base. These are available at REI for 2 and 3 cell alkaline lights. One of these is a halogen bulb that is more expensive than the other bulbs. Don't know or remember whether the other bulbs were krypton or xenon.

Thanks,
Bob

Cool - good place to start. Unfortunately, I don't think I could make it work in a 7-cell light. Or a 21-cell light, should I decide to stack AA batteries in it to make a *real* monster... maybe overdrive 24-volt bulbs?