JohnJack
Newly Enlightened
Just made one with a makeshift lightbox and want to share it.
The power is a pair of zinc-carbon D cells of Chinese origin so absolute runtime is pretty low, much lower than stated 9 hours 15 minutes at alkalines. More interesting is the character of graph.
Surprisingly, Maglite is well regulated. It starts from ~150 lumens, at 3 minutes output is 114 lumens and after 10 minutes of continuous work output drops to ~95 lumens and stays at that level for most part of runtime. Temperature at LED's module shell goes to ~77⁰C (measured separetely, I had made another graph for temperature buildup) and stays there until drive current begins to drop.
At 110 minutes regulation ends and to 130 minutes output rapidly drops to ~12 lumens. And there is undocumented low mode - light does not go off but continues to illuminate, even after two more hours it still makes ~2 lumens of light.
The point of that thread is to state two facts: 2D Maglite have a hidden low mode with a great runtime and LED Maglites have a temperature sensor that limits drive current and saves LED from frying even if there are no heatsinking.
The power is a pair of zinc-carbon D cells of Chinese origin so absolute runtime is pretty low, much lower than stated 9 hours 15 minutes at alkalines. More interesting is the character of graph.
Surprisingly, Maglite is well regulated. It starts from ~150 lumens, at 3 minutes output is 114 lumens and after 10 minutes of continuous work output drops to ~95 lumens and stays at that level for most part of runtime. Temperature at LED's module shell goes to ~77⁰C (measured separetely, I had made another graph for temperature buildup) and stays there until drive current begins to drop.
At 110 minutes regulation ends and to 130 minutes output rapidly drops to ~12 lumens. And there is undocumented low mode - light does not go off but continues to illuminate, even after two more hours it still makes ~2 lumens of light.
The point of that thread is to state two facts: 2D Maglite have a hidden low mode with a great runtime and LED Maglites have a temperature sensor that limits drive current and saves LED from frying even if there are no heatsinking.