Cheap power for 5w needed.

Ok, I'm sure you guys can offer me a few suggetions at least. I really want to make the brightest 5w'er I can. I want to use a 5w Cyan for this and put it in a 2D pewter mag. I don't want to use cr123's. I'd like a bit more capacity than they hold and a lot cheaper solution.
The only things I can think of right now is: 6 AA's, 2D's w/boost, or 2 or more 9v's in parallel.
But as for cost I want cheap so none really seem viable other than maybe the AA's if they were NiMH.
I'm thinking 6 AA's made into a shrink wrap battery pack with either a charging jack built into the mag or just slide the pack out with wires for charging.
If so, though, where do I get NiMH AA's for cheap, how much are they, and how do I charge them? also how would I wire the battery pack for charging? diffren't than what I'd use to power the flashlight??

Any ideas are welcome PLEASE!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

NiMH AA's are definitely the way to go for what you're asking. You're basically trying to build a Blaster VI.

There's a group buy for NiMH AA's on the B/S/T forum that closes today I think. They're around $1 each. If you miss out on that, www.thomas-distributing.com is a good supplier but you'll end up paying $2 per cell or so depending on capacity and quantity (the highest capacity cells costs quite a bit more, like the fastest Pentiums, so usually aren't as good a value).

The simplest way to charge them is take them out of the light and put them in a charger. Thomas Distributing has lots of chargers too. If you put a charging jack into the light, charge at C/10 (i.e. 1/10th the cell capacity, say 180 mA if you use 1800 mAH cells) for 12-14 hours, don't try to fast charge.

The simplest way to put the batteries in the light is with Wayne's 3toD adapter (www.elektrolumens.com). Those aren't available yet but supposedly should be ready sometime this month. The 3toD adapter lets you put three AA's into a holder that fits into the space of one D.

Another tidbit to point out: Wayne's 3toDs are also configured in parellel, as well as series... And IIRC, when you parellel batteries, wierd things happen, and your capacity's unusually stronger... So a 1.35V 6600mah 3toD can offload better than a 1.35 9000mah single D.

Right, but I need series for the voltage /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I don't really want to use 3-D's as I kind of want this light to be a permanently built project. I don't want to take out 2D holders, and then take out 6 AA's and put them each into a charger... As rechargeable AA's are great for a ton of things, I'd probably only use them in this flashlight though.

So charge each one at 1/10th their capacicty. At what voltage? Say I have them all wired in series, should I have another wiring config for charging them (like in parallel)?