Is anyone doing Maglite solitaire size stuff?

Is any one here making or selling anything that is tiny...Like Maglite solitaire size but with an R2 or MCE or Ostar, anything really, rreally bright.

Double bonus if it's already dive standard water tight..

Willing to spend upto $100.

gav6280 said:

Is any one here making or selling anything that is tiny...Like Maglite solitaire size but with an R2 or MCE or Ostar, anything really, rreally bright.

Double bonus if it's already dive standard water tight..

Willing to spend upto $100.

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Ostar 6 die in a solitaire sized package?

Please read up a bit, try the Welcome Mat.

Try a Fenix L0D Q4 or LD01 Q5 and pop in a 10440 size rechargeable lithium battery. You'll be shocked when you see what it will do from a AAA size battery.

I amazed one of our campus police when I challenged him that my little tiny keychain light was brighter than his big policeman's duty light.

Maxa go some place useful please. I was just trying to convey my thoughts as i normally just do big stuff, im working on a 7 xre at the moment actually.

The last post above is like what im after. Something very very small and very very throwie and bright to use as a signalling device.

hmm.. the mc-e would have to be run pretty low, but that would make it pretty efficient.. and would be more floody..
hmm.. circuitry shrinking? rate of failure?

Ok update, so i now know that i am looking for single 18650 battery light with straight thin design peferable R2 or Q5 at 1000ma.

So what's the choices for high output and long throw lights in this range? Looked at fenix LD01 Q5, 80 lumen you having a laugh, shouldn't it be over 200?

gav6280 said:

Ok update, so i now know that i am looking for single 18650 battery light with straight thin design peferable R2 or Q5 at 1000ma.

So what's the choices for high output and long throw lights in this range? Looked at fenix LD01 Q5, 80 lumen you having a laugh, shouldn't it be over 200?

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Perhaps you should read the Welcome Mat. There is a HUGE difference between a little 1xAAA light and a 18650 light. You also cannot get a throwy light in a slim design without a significant size reflector wider than the body.

And you can get close to 200lms out of a LD01 size light, but you have to use 10440 cells, not AAA.

Our modern high-output LEDs are marvels of efficiency, however they still put out a whole lot of heat. You don't notice it so much in many lights, because the light was specifically built to keep the LED cool - the LED sits on the thickest part of the flashlight assembly, which acts as a heat sink and draws heat away from the LED. The flashlight feels a bit warm, letting you know the design is working.

Say we actually do put an MC-E in a Mag Solitaire host, we give it a power source with the proper voltage and current, and fire it up - the light comes on normally, and moments later we notice the light getting hot. Very hot. SCALDING hot, hot enough that you can no longer hold it.. not long thereafter, the light begins to dim, some smoke comes out of the head of the flashlight, darkness, and that would be it, one completely fried flashlight.

It would fail because there's not enough of a heat sink - a tiny flashlight doesn't have enough metal mass to wick heat away from the LED, so it just gets hotter and hotter until it melts down. That's why all the brightest flashlights aren't very small, you need the size to manage the heat.

You do still have some impressive size-to-output-surprise flashlight choices; one perennial favorite is the Fenix P1D, a 2.8" x 0.8" 1x123 light that puts out 180 lumens: https://www.fenix-store.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_65&products_id=354 , and Lummi features the Raw (1.8" x 0.7", up to 200 lumens) and Wee (1.3" x 0.6", up to 100 lumens) models: http://web.mac.com/Lummii/Lummi2/Lummi_Home.html

For 18650 straight tube design the JetBeam-III ST comes to mind.

StarHalo, what i didn't make clear is that whatever i get, it is going to be mod to make it totally water tight and thne it's going scuba diving. Biggest heat sink in the world!!

Lummi's Raw looks like about the sort of thing, but it's far to fussy with all those ridges and fancy machined grooves etc.

It's a nice size and has a good output but i would ideally like something a lot more plain on the outside. Like a straight tube design.

Would be a bonus if it had only one opening and only just slightly wider than the optic.

You should only use a scuba-specific light for diving, they're the only thing truly built for the purprose.

That being said, you can use another, smaller light *as a backup*. One of the scuba hobbyists here has used the aforementioned Fenix P1D on dives and reported that it works beautifully.

You could have one of the builders here make a flashlight to your specifications - they'd probably be overjoyed to build a very small, completely plain lipstick-tube flashlight (as opposed to the complex and ornate designs they usually build that require huge amounts of time and money).

Can anyoine recommend a specific builder, are any of the good one's here in the UK?

I have just seen this, it looks really tasty but OMG the price!

http://www.divingniknaks.com/proddetail.php?prod=10.102.909

Ganp is very talented, and UK based. Decide your battery preferences, output and beam pattern, then PM him.

Not many custom builders will make you a dive light, if any, and NONE will be that powerful in that small a package.

The other thing to consider is that dive-specific lights can have a powerful LED in a very small package because the cool water acts as a far better heatsink than air, so a light that would fry itself on land would probably be fine underwater.

pipspeak said:

The other thing to consider is that dive-specific lights can have a powerful LED in a very small package because the cool water acts as a far better heatsink than air, so a light that would fry itself on land would probably be fine underwater.

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You still won't have ostars in solitaire bodies.

maxa beam said:

You still won't have ostars in solitaire bodies.

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True. You'd probably want copper.

There's no reason why, properly done, you can't get a single IMR!6340 (or even a normal li-ion 10440, though the IMR would take the load better), some copper, a parallel MC-E, a teeny weeny reflector, thick lens, and have no problems. Heck, I've just thought of a design that should work. On land it'd be about 20 seconds for the light to get blisteringly hot, but moving it in water should give it pretty decent cooling.

Well it appears i have opened a right can of worms here.

As for not getting an MCE or similar into a tiny package, well watch this space as i think i have just figured it out!!

What is an IMR!6340?

Hi Gav6280,

It may be possible to install a P7 or MC-E in a small package, like the Solitaire. But unless you run it at very low current the led will overheat very quickly. The IMR battery you mention may be capable of quick discharge of energy, but it still doesn't get around the fact that a solitaire has very little surface area to dissipate the heat...

To be honest even, a 2xAA sized light would probably overheat, if running a 4 die LED at 2.8A...