I've had a Pal Gold for quite some time now (the type with the "chip-style" LED and tighter beam than the regular Pal Light), but haven't used it too much because I found it's beam to be way too tight for much of anything. I discovered that the reflector from a Pel L1 fits very nicely in the buisness end of a Pal Light, so I put one in my Pal Gold and found that the peripheral light from the chip-style LED focuses very nicely in the L1's reflector. Because of the rather weird light pattern of these type of LED's, there were some strange artifacts in the beam produced by the Pal with the L1 reflector. I rectified that by putting a small lens (I've got a bunch of spares laying around from some of the little cheapo lights that I buy to dissect...) with some WriteRight in place of the Pal's magnifying lens, and the beam is now very smooth. (It has to be the Pal body style that has the protective ridge around the lens...the other type didn't work well...) Now my Pal Gold has about the same output as a 2XAAA MiniMag with a Versalux Magma LED. The Magma LED's hotspot is a hair brighter, but the Pal with L1 reflector has much better peripheral light. I've always liked the fit and feel of Pal Lights, but never been crazy about the output of the Pal Gold. I really like it now with this simple "layman's mod"...My Pal Gold now has a new lease on life, and will definitely see some use now!
FYI...
PJD
FYI...
PJD
