2d mag mod?

http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1782

this looks like a good mod for simplicity and output. i want it for my mag 2D LED flashlight, i wanted a glass lens anyway so it seems like a sheap kit! has anyone here tried it, could you share your thoughts....

or make similar recommendations?

cheers:thumbsup:

mag only said:

this looks like a good mod for simplicity and output. i want it for my mag 2D LED flashlight, i wanted a glass lens anyway so it seems like a sheap kit! has anyone here tried it, could you share your thoughts....

or make similar recommendations?

cheers:thumbsup:

Click to expand...

:welcome:

Have you seen the Aspheric Kit Kai sells? Same LED but with Aspheric lens instead. It's a little cheaper. If you really need the spill too, take a saw to the back of your plastic cammed Mag reflector and buy just the LED Module instead. LED's don't create enough heat to require a metal reflector. You can get a good UCL cover glass here (52.1 x 1.90mm for Mag).

thanks for the welcome, you make a fair point i think i will go for the single led upgrade as that is all i will need! is this one of the best for that sort of money, or could i do better?

cheers! to bad the delivery of my my new mag has been delayed by the xmas hols

well i prob go for that then!

You can buy better (Malkoff) but NOT at the price of the KD dropin
Get the aspheric lens as well, its a great "Wowww" light.
You will not regret it :thumbsup:

AFAIK, Kai's Mag dropin is the only thing in that price category. Have you seen LuxLuthor's Aspheric Mag Shootout? While not specifically about the Mag Q5 dropin, he talks about it in the second thread. The only reason I saved this one was for the comparison of Aspherics.

Gene's dropins are a better grade of quality, but also more expensive. I'm guessing his regulators are buck since the two cell one only puts 600ma to the LED. You only reach 240 lumens from the 3-D or above dropins. You could get a 4-5-6 D cell dropin and use a AA adapter with 6 eneloops.

yes i have seen the malkoff drop in, sounds good but is it worth another $30? i could stretch the budget for a malkoff.
the asperical beams dont give the flood that i want and does it protrude beyond the beyond the bezel? as the flashlight will get a battering, and must have a useable beam.
so to run the 5d malkoff the aa battery mod is required to bump the current i guess!

appreciate all the help!
sorry about all the questions!
cheers

Well OK, you only get 600ma with 2D's and it takes 3D's to get 1,000ma at the LED. SSC says 1 amp is the absolute max rating of the LED. So there's not enough current. But the reason is actually the voltage of the battery pack isn't high enough with just 2 D cells. It takes about 3.7 volts for either the SSC P4 (Malkoff) or the Cree XR-E Q5 (Kai) to reach full power. The regulator in the Malkoff is buck only which are generally more efficient. The regulator in Kai's dropin is buck/boost, so it will give full power with 2 D cells.

Yeah pretty much any aspheric you get will stick out quite a bit beyond the Mag bezel. If it's going to have a hard life, they're too thick to break but it would get all scratched up. Kai had originally said he would make a new bezel for the Mag long enough to extend beyond the lens. Don't know what happened to that.

If you're asking what I would do, I'd buy the Malkoff. But that's just me. Gene's has a customer service reputation of being on par with his excellent product.

Good luck:twothumbs

KD = cheap and "questionable" business practices

Malkoff = expensive and first class service

I have both dropins, money aside, if I had to pick one, I would go for the
KD (I have been lucky ) The reason being, I prefer the tint of the Q5 (netural white) more
than the P4 (warmer white) that the Malkoff uses.

ok thanks for your opinions, sum really interesting stuff there. might just go for the malkoff, the 5d one and convert to AA batts, hopefully homemade, shall see how that goes! seen some eneloops for sale, seems like that is the way to go. now i gotta spend some money

cheers guys

If you're going purely for simplicity and output, you might look into the TerraLUX TLE-300, ~550 lumens for $70:

http://www.batteryjunction.com/tle-300.html

It's essentially just three LEDs, each with its own optic, all in a self-contained drop-in puck with all the necessary circuitry. It's a minimal difficulty install, you remove the stock Mag reflector and bulb, put the TLE-300 in the socket, done.

Optic lenses mean *serious throw* and the TLE-300 doesn't disappoint, projecting a big fat hotspot with no corona or spill to speak of. You lose the Mag's focusing ability, but when you've got a glaring hotspot that's over two feet across from only ten feet away, you don't need it. The only con is that the hotspot looks a bit like a round, multi-pointed star (the optics to some degree project the square shape of the LEDs) but in normal use, especially outdoors, you don't notice it.

The TLE-300 is my fave Mag drop-in based on its ease of install, use of standard batteries, and good old "damn that's bright"-ness. I've always liked the idea of an LED hotwire/ROP that doesn't require any modding, and this certainly fills the bill.

My 2D TLE-300 Mag:

oh i wish you hadnt showed me that! it looks real neat, and i have found it as as cheap as the malkoff! but sounds quite juicy, eating lots of batteries. if i had the 7.2v 6 eneloop battery setup i am planning then what sort battery life could i expect?

cheers

The 2D mag is a wonderful host for the Big Boy LEDs--P7 or MC-E. Preferrably a warm or neutral white MC-E.

The 3-gang setups work well there too.

Sorry, but I just see a single LED in a 2D mag as not much light for a whole lotta weight.

$.02

Welcome mag only:welcome:

Some great ideas here, but lets go back to the start. What do you plan to use the mag for? Do you require floodlight across a wide area close up (ish), or a focused spot to see in the distance (throw)? Or a bit of both?

There are just soooo many mag mods around, you can go round in circles trying to find the "perfect" light.

Try to think about how much you want to spend and STICK to it, it's easy to get carried away buying the next best thing.

Once you know what you want, then you/we can work out what the best mods are to fit your needs.

All the best

hi there essexman, yeh i would definately say that it needs to have a useable amount of spill, as long as there is spill then i am looking for as much distance for my money as possible! so you could say a bit of both really. i only require a single led!
i can make a 6aa series adapter quite cheaply, that wont break the budget, so that means i can fit a 4-6D mod! i am aiming for a good runtime, but would running 6aa batts increase that or not?

mag only said:

if i had the 7.2v 6 eneloop battery setup i am planning then what sort battery life could i expect?

Click to expand...

I've used that battery config before, and you'd get ~1 hour runtime. The TLE-300 is more about output than runtime.

mag only said:

yeh i would definately say that it needs to have a useable amount of spill, as long as there is spill then i am looking for as much distance for my money as possible! so you could say a bit of both really. i only require a single led!
i can make a 6aa series adapter quite cheaply, that wont break the budget, so that means i can fit a 4-6D mod! i am aiming for a good runtime, but would running 6aa batts increase that or not?

Click to expand...

It sounds like you want a powerful standard beam, but with decent runtime. I'd go with the Malkoff (http://www.malkoffdevices.com/shop2...s_id=1&zenid=vaer37adacvt0vkk99evt0u1q97pm21s), which will give you usably strong output with very decent runtime.

If you're looking to up your runtime using a 2D config, skip the AAs and adapters, and go with a pair of Li-Ion D cells. More voltage, more capacity, and more current in the same amount of space.

The other problem with the KD, is going to be the beam, you have to get MOP reflector to make it nice, otherwise the Cree LED is VERY nasty in the standard smooth reflector of the Mag, the SSC works very nicely on the other hand.

You didn't say if you were willing to mod, but if you got a DHS heatsink, and an SSC P4, and converted the 2D to a 3C (needs a PVC pipe, and cutdown tailspring), and just direct drive it, that's IMO the most simple, perfect, and bright mod for the 2D. Probably be cheaper than the KD drop-in, and comparable to the Malkoff on fresh batts.

*wrong thread*

wildstar87 "The other problem with the KD, is going to be the beam, you have to get MOP reflector to make it nice, otherwise the Cree LED is VERY nasty in the standard smooth reflector of the Mag, the SSC works very nicely on the other hand."

hi i have this drop-in from KD on using a STD reflector, cut the angle bit off and then open up the small end to fit over the LED this will give you a very tight beam very much like asperical beams have fun DocD

DocD said:

wildstar87 "The other problem with the KD, is going to be the beam, you have to get MOP reflector to make it nice, otherwise the Cree LED is VERY nasty in the standard smooth reflector of the Mag, the SSC works very nicely on the other hand."

hi i have this drop-in from KD on using a STD reflector, cut the angle bit off and then open up the small end to fit over the LED this will give you a very tight beam very much like asperical beams have fun DocD

Click to expand...

I don't have the KD drop-in, but I have a Cree Q5 in a Mag, and while you can get the focus relatively tight, it isn't anywhere near the aspherical tightness, and is not a smooth hotspot, lots of rings. The SSC P4 is definitely a nicer beam than the Cree in a standard Mag. Not quite sure what you mean by open up the small end, once you cut the cam off it fits right over a DHS heatsink properly. I'm guessing the KD drop-in has a wider post? There is a reason KD has a MOP reflector in that kit, it really needs it, and it is a nice reflector, and works nicely to smooth out the beam of a P7 as well..