I've been playing with my Carley aluminum reflectors and Welch Allyn high output incandescent bulbs and having lots of fun. The WA01318, 9.6V, 1.93A 534 lumen bulb in a Mag 3D body powered by 9xAA nimhs in modded Elektrolumens 3-D adapters creates the poor man's MagCharger in terms of raw output, throw, runtime and rechargeability.
As is sometimes the case with homebrew mods, there can be the occasional fitment or function issue. In this case, I found that unless one is extremely careful about how deep to machine out the rear of the reflector, it's possible for the filament to end up below the focal point of the reflector before all the head/body threads are properly engaged and O-ringed. This means you might never get the laser spot so desirable to some.
My first solution was to jam as many bulb shimming washers between the bulb flange and locking collar as possible to push the filament down. 4 CA1594 washers was all I could fit and still engage the screw threads to lock the bulb down. I then tried relocating the O-ring from the face-cap side of the lens to under the newly machined lip of the reflector. This bought another 1 mm or so. Now I was able to focus down to a tight spot, However, the head was so far up that the body O-ring was exposed. This was obviously not desirable.
I then reasoned that the filament height per se was not the problem. The problem was the fact that without a cam at the back of my reflector, the spring loaded bulb pedestal would rest in its default position at the very top of its travel. Not particularly enjoying the grinding sound of aluminum on steel, I set out to find a way to force the pedestal to stay at a lower position.
And so I wandered my basement looking for things that I could use to push and lock the pedestal down with. I finally found an air-core aluminum cookie sheet my wife had thrown away but that I had squirreled away for, um, projects. Since I couldn't very well hold the pedestal down by hand, I decided to fashion a spacer that would lock the pedestal down to whatever height I wanted. So I grabbed the cookie sheet, a pair of cutting pliers and set about snipping out some stock.
I cut out a small piece and then pounded it flat with a hammer. I then used a 9/64" bit to drill a hole in the piece. Then I used ultra snips to snip out a small strip about 1/4" wide and 5/8" long containing the hole. Why 9/64"? Because the bolt on the lamp pedestal that mounts the bearing that rides on the reflector cam is about 9/64" in diameter. And the channel that the bolt rides in as it's driven by the cam is a little over 1/4" wide. I used a mill file to round the edges and finish it to the exact size to fit in the sliding channel. I drilled the hole first because there is so little material around the hole that if you try to drill the trimmed strip, you'll tear out.
Here is a picture of the spacer made out of a piece of cookie sheet.
At the top of this next picture is the lamp pedestal "Before" without the spacer. You can see that the internal spring forces the bulb holder to the topmost range of its travel. This can drastically diminish your focusing capability with aftermarket reflectors. The bottom photo is of the pedestal with the spacer in place. It forces the pedestal and bulb holder to be a little less than 3/8" of an inch below its topmost position. You have to remove the roller cam follower but you can set that aside for a day when you might want to return the torch to stock (yeah right!)
The nice thing about this approach is that I can make the spacer long and then trim back as much as I need to get the head to seat firmly while providing tight focus. Also, while the stock Mag head will rotate around and lose focus, I have trimmed my spacer to allow me to lock in the exact pinpoint focal point with the head fully screwed down. This means I can defocus at will but there is a fixed point of maximum focus. This mod is cheap, 100% reversible and fully adjustable.
Now excuse me while I fry some ants with the sizzling beam from my homemade MagCharger+TigerLight.
Wilkey
Restored on 12/21/06
As is sometimes the case with homebrew mods, there can be the occasional fitment or function issue. In this case, I found that unless one is extremely careful about how deep to machine out the rear of the reflector, it's possible for the filament to end up below the focal point of the reflector before all the head/body threads are properly engaged and O-ringed. This means you might never get the laser spot so desirable to some.
My first solution was to jam as many bulb shimming washers between the bulb flange and locking collar as possible to push the filament down. 4 CA1594 washers was all I could fit and still engage the screw threads to lock the bulb down. I then tried relocating the O-ring from the face-cap side of the lens to under the newly machined lip of the reflector. This bought another 1 mm or so. Now I was able to focus down to a tight spot, However, the head was so far up that the body O-ring was exposed. This was obviously not desirable.
I then reasoned that the filament height per se was not the problem. The problem was the fact that without a cam at the back of my reflector, the spring loaded bulb pedestal would rest in its default position at the very top of its travel. Not particularly enjoying the grinding sound of aluminum on steel, I set out to find a way to force the pedestal to stay at a lower position.
And so I wandered my basement looking for things that I could use to push and lock the pedestal down with. I finally found an air-core aluminum cookie sheet my wife had thrown away but that I had squirreled away for, um, projects. Since I couldn't very well hold the pedestal down by hand, I decided to fashion a spacer that would lock the pedestal down to whatever height I wanted. So I grabbed the cookie sheet, a pair of cutting pliers and set about snipping out some stock.
I cut out a small piece and then pounded it flat with a hammer. I then used a 9/64" bit to drill a hole in the piece. Then I used ultra snips to snip out a small strip about 1/4" wide and 5/8" long containing the hole. Why 9/64"? Because the bolt on the lamp pedestal that mounts the bearing that rides on the reflector cam is about 9/64" in diameter. And the channel that the bolt rides in as it's driven by the cam is a little over 1/4" wide. I used a mill file to round the edges and finish it to the exact size to fit in the sliding channel. I drilled the hole first because there is so little material around the hole that if you try to drill the trimmed strip, you'll tear out.
Here is a picture of the spacer made out of a piece of cookie sheet.
At the top of this next picture is the lamp pedestal "Before" without the spacer. You can see that the internal spring forces the bulb holder to the topmost range of its travel. This can drastically diminish your focusing capability with aftermarket reflectors. The bottom photo is of the pedestal with the spacer in place. It forces the pedestal and bulb holder to be a little less than 3/8" of an inch below its topmost position. You have to remove the roller cam follower but you can set that aside for a day when you might want to return the torch to stock (yeah right!)
The nice thing about this approach is that I can make the spacer long and then trim back as much as I need to get the head to seat firmly while providing tight focus. Also, while the stock Mag head will rotate around and lose focus, I have trimmed my spacer to allow me to lock in the exact pinpoint focal point with the head fully screwed down. This means I can defocus at will but there is a fixed point of maximum focus. This mod is cheap, 100% reversible and fully adjustable.
Now excuse me while I fry some ants with the sizzling beam from my homemade MagCharger+TigerLight.
Wilkey
Restored on 12/21/06
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