Please help New to flashlight mods...

Okay, first off forgive me for being so green on these topics. Seems for every one question I find an answer to there are five new ones that come up.

A week ago I saw an led bulb for mag-lites on ebay. Never really gave any thought to leds in flashlights and this has given my life meaning all over again!

Next day I went to radio shack just to see what I could do. That night I had my 1aaa maglite running on 1 button cells, my 2aa running on 3 N batteries, every two cell flashlight in the house got the bulb broken and modified to fit anything from one 10mm white to five 3mm red to greens.

Now that I have some of the basics down I want MORE POWER! But I have all these questions:



Hotlips heatsinks, where do I find them?



What is SWOK, TWAK, TWOK, POTTED, PR Base and any of the other shorts that are used? I know none of the flashlight lingo so please help with any you can think of that I'll see in here.



What type of Luxeon works best? 1, 3 or 5 watt? Is the 3 watt worth the extra $5 and the 5 worth almost three times the 3? Emitters or Stars? Lambertian, Batwing or Side Emitting?



Do you have to use a heatsink?



Any good 10mm bulbs that are as good or better then the normal maglite bulbs? Is it worth messing with anything other then the Luxeons?



Is there a good wholesale source for leds out there or are the 10mm leds just a waste of time?



I see the 1 watt stars can be found at Led Supply for $8, is that the best value out there and the best place to start?



I'm super sorry for all the questions I just get more lost looking for answers so anything you can tell a new flashlight freak would be very nice and would give me a great headstart into something new to waste all my money on.

Adam

PS Whoever thought to start this site, THANK YOU!

Welcome to the CPF Adam

Hotlips can be found here

Info on SWOK, TWAK, TWOK, etc.... here

Luxeon I & III: Use 3.5v to ~4.5v. Narrow beam.
Luxeon V: Use ~7.5v to ~9v. Flood beam.

Heatsinks: Definately.

10mm bulbs... sure. Go ahead and experiment.

Led Supply: $8 Luxeons. That's pretty good.

Good luck!

Get a Luxeon, any one of them, and i garuantee you'll soon be hooked. They are so much brighter and the white ones whiter than the 5mm types, you'll never look back.

I started out by just experimenting also.I got some cheap Dorcy 1-AAAs as they have a pretty good LED and circuit board.I then began just taking them apart and trying to find ways to fit the board into other hosts.I even used this board for a few Luxeon mods using single 123 cell for power.
It was fun for me to find doner lights and just find ways to improve them or change them from one form or another.
I even spent many hours soldering 2 or 3 LEDs to one board for a 3 LED setup.Sometimes it worked and most of the time it did not but it was a good way to learn and have a good time.
I usually could find a cheap light at WallyWorld every visit.I then found myself looking at every light and thinking what a good mod host or doner.
You will learn much here and the members are all very good at teaching the new people the ropes.
Good luck and welcome aboard

Okay, the more options you have the harder life can sometimes be. I'll guess like any hobby there are better and worse batches of things and that's what all those letters mean.

There are far too many led options for me to understand right off the bat what's going to work best. Can you please do me a favor and answer these few questions:

Should I start playing with emitters or stars to get a feel for what can be done?

Do you need a heatsink with stars?

Is one better for modding with or not really?

what's best in maglites, Lambertian, Batwing or Side Emitting?

This would be a huge help right off the bat!

Anybody have some spare Luxeons they aren't going to use and can cut me a deal on?

The thing about emitters/stars is something like this:
Heat transfer is most efficient without the star (using just the emitter, which can be removed from it's star board) because it eliminates one more junction between surfaces. Also with the hotlips heatsinks, which are excellent by the way, the pedestal is made for the emitter, and not the star of course. I consider emitters superior for a mag mod that uses the original reflector.

Side Emitting Luxeons can surely work well in Mag Lites, though Lambertians (high domes) are more common and will produce just as much (perhaps more?) throw. You have a greater chance of finding a good binned 5w in HD format, I believe.