Juggernaut
Flashlight Enthusiast
So technically this light is still not finished yet but is working and on the way to being complete so here it is in this thread so that I don't end up talking about it in another and thread jacking
.
Ok The light is the Bigbeam 1000 Ultra Mod. The idea was simple, to build the ultimate long term survival / emergency type light.
I had little / no info on this light so I was mostly hopping I could make something out of it. When I got it from UPS in a huge box I found this inside.
The light was mostly a dirty wreck of rust and grime from the last 40 plus years of use:sick2:. I opened it up to find that the battery box besides having rust inside also held a 903 battery perfectly with wise with a good amount of room up front and over head. As I examined it most of my fears were not meet and I found it to have good potential. The window was made of solid 4.5mm thick glass and steel wool cleaned it up nicely. The reflector was made of chrome plated steel and it was so tuff that I could shine it up with mild steel wool too! It took about 3 hours to mostly refurbish it. The reflector housed two bulbs: A main 6.4 volt 13 watt bulb and one 7 volt 3.85 watt BA9s bulb located on the upper section of the reflector. My 903 7.5 volt battery tuned on the low bulb but not high "found out later that a faulty switch was at fault which I replaced". I shined up the light nicely and went about tiring to make it a "super light".
It begins:devil:: First off I could perhaps have used a 6 volt SLA battery in it but they are pricy for the Ah I wanted, and then I would just have a "good" light but I wanted more:naughty:. So I went about converting it to 12 volts. I found a 1507 bulb that fit which was 12 volts "and to my luck so happened to be in focus with the reflector:sweat:. This new bulb was rated a much more potent 36.5 watts, 625 lumens, and was rated for 300 hours vs. it's original 75 hour 13 watt bulb. The bulb would be powered by anyone of my many, many 18 Ah SLA batteries. As for as the secondary bulb I bought a crazy back up 1,500 hour rated 4 watt snowmobile running bulb. Though to get the most for run time I opted to go the LED rout. I first bought a single LED but I stumbled across this neat little 6x warm white LED"on a board" 2x front and back and 1x each side. It was rated for 22 lumens at 3300 K. This is the primary low bulb I use.
Power:twothumbs: Now that I had the light engine figured out it was time for power. I was already going to use a 18 Ah SLA which would give me 6 hour run time high and 750 low but I wanted to add something I had never had heard of in a flashlight before…..auxiliary power. I hooked 16 AA batteries up in two 8x cell holders and ran them parallel. I could now hit a internal 3 way switch that would go from main to back up power! This would give my another 250! hours of run time on low. If that isn't over kill enough I have planed "would have done by now but no Radio shack around here has them" an auxiliary, auxiliary power source by having 8x C cells. This would give me a total run time on low "22 lumens" of 1416 hours, now if I use the low LED I will get 1888 hours or 236 nights of 8 hours each. I also have planed putting in a cheap solar panel in the box for the SLA.
I have even added a 6 amp fuse, and a red LED flasher, light on back.
Main and secondary light sources. LED board on top.
Still plenty of room left for the 8x C cells, even with the 16 AAs up front, an 18 Ah SLA, switches, and even a fuse box.
Auxiliary switch with fuse on left in box
6D Maglite VS. The 1000
As you can see the 1000 produces just as intense hotspot as the Mag except it's much larger and has a huge cornea to:twothumbs.
So there it sits in all it's glory, all 21.5 pounds of American steel. This light could be the heaviest single contained light I have ever seen
. Every time you go to pick it up it's feels like it's magnetically attached to the surface underneath:huh2:. Though it's incredibly massive size and weight is not much of a problem since it is mainly meant for stationary jobs and at least when your jump starting your car from this light you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it over
.
. Ok The light is the Bigbeam 1000 Ultra Mod. The idea was simple, to build the ultimate long term survival / emergency type light.
I had little / no info on this light so I was mostly hopping I could make something out of it. When I got it from UPS in a huge box I found this inside.
The light was mostly a dirty wreck of rust and grime from the last 40 plus years of use:sick2:. I opened it up to find that the battery box besides having rust inside also held a 903 battery perfectly with wise with a good amount of room up front and over head. As I examined it most of my fears were not meet and I found it to have good potential. The window was made of solid 4.5mm thick glass and steel wool cleaned it up nicely. The reflector was made of chrome plated steel and it was so tuff that I could shine it up with mild steel wool too! It took about 3 hours to mostly refurbish it. The reflector housed two bulbs: A main 6.4 volt 13 watt bulb and one 7 volt 3.85 watt BA9s bulb located on the upper section of the reflector. My 903 7.5 volt battery tuned on the low bulb but not high "found out later that a faulty switch was at fault which I replaced". I shined up the light nicely and went about tiring to make it a "super light".
It begins:devil:: First off I could perhaps have used a 6 volt SLA battery in it but they are pricy for the Ah I wanted, and then I would just have a "good" light but I wanted more:naughty:. So I went about converting it to 12 volts. I found a 1507 bulb that fit which was 12 volts "and to my luck so happened to be in focus with the reflector:sweat:. This new bulb was rated a much more potent 36.5 watts, 625 lumens, and was rated for 300 hours vs. it's original 75 hour 13 watt bulb. The bulb would be powered by anyone of my many, many 18 Ah SLA batteries. As for as the secondary bulb I bought a crazy back up 1,500 hour rated 4 watt snowmobile running bulb. Though to get the most for run time I opted to go the LED rout. I first bought a single LED but I stumbled across this neat little 6x warm white LED"on a board" 2x front and back and 1x each side. It was rated for 22 lumens at 3300 K. This is the primary low bulb I use.
Power:twothumbs: Now that I had the light engine figured out it was time for power. I was already going to use a 18 Ah SLA which would give me 6 hour run time high and 750 low but I wanted to add something I had never had heard of in a flashlight before…..auxiliary power. I hooked 16 AA batteries up in two 8x cell holders and ran them parallel. I could now hit a internal 3 way switch that would go from main to back up power! This would give my another 250! hours of run time on low. If that isn't over kill enough I have planed "would have done by now but no Radio shack around here has them" an auxiliary, auxiliary power source by having 8x C cells. This would give me a total run time on low "22 lumens" of 1416 hours, now if I use the low LED I will get 1888 hours or 236 nights of 8 hours each. I also have planed putting in a cheap solar panel in the box for the SLA.
I have even added a 6 amp fuse, and a red LED flasher, light on back.
Main and secondary light sources. LED board on top.
Still plenty of room left for the 8x C cells, even with the 16 AAs up front, an 18 Ah SLA, switches, and even a fuse box.
Auxiliary switch with fuse on left in box
6D Maglite VS. The 1000
As you can see the 1000 produces just as intense hotspot as the Mag except it's much larger and has a huge cornea to:twothumbs.
So there it sits in all it's glory, all 21.5 pounds of American steel. This light could be the heaviest single contained light I have ever seen
. Every time you go to pick it up it's feels like it's magnetically attached to the surface underneath:huh2:. Though it's incredibly massive size and weight is not much of a problem since it is mainly meant for stationary jobs and at least when your jump starting your car from this light you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it over.
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. The reflector was steelwooled and then cleaned off with eye glass rag. It is about 93% perfect on a very few blemishes in the plating are noticeable during very close inspection. The Lens on the other hand has a small scratch on one side but after cleaning for an hour, and applying Windex it turned into the most beautiful piece of glass work I have ever seen. It is many times clearer then even the sealed glass on a conventional sealed beam bulb! There is no distortion and when you pick it up you can not even see it sitting in your hands
!
and I would suggest using a 6volt SLA. I have not yet test one out on it "all mine are dead
" but I would gather it would run fine since most 6 volt bulbs are meant for 6 volt SLA batteries. Now you can do my mod with the 37.5 watt (1507) bulb though you will need to replace the secondary bulb with one rated for 12 volts like the main bulb. Honestly If you don't have a stock pile of 12 volt SLA batteries I would go the 6 volt rout because you could get a SLA with twice the Ah "say 36 or more with the extra room" and that running a 14.1 watt bulb would give you 15 hours of battery Power! Which is dang good for this level of power "around an honest 300+ Lumens "6D Mag only makes 95 lumens for 8 hours"". 
HOLY…..muffins
