Maglite mini 2xAA as a zoomie

It just occurred to me that the maglite focusing system is a natural zooming mechanism so I took one of my minies, replaced the bulb by a 3200K Yuji LED, replaced the lens by an aspheric lens which I had borrowed from a Sipik clone (perfect fit BTW), removed the reflector, and voila:


https://imgur.com/LB7n4iL
https://imgur.com/JZAka7c
https://imgur.com/fTyvjVr
https://imgur.com/cq5cG0Y

:thumbsup: great econo mod. I'm sure I have spare mini somewhere I could try
this work.

Nice econo mod

Great idea! :thumbsup:

Simple and effective. Nicely done!

Very cool! If I remember correctly the Minimag lens is 22.5mm. I hope that's a common size for aspheric lenses, I have a bag of Yuji's to try this out with.

Just wanted to add a bit of insanity: I removed the yuji and reinstalled the stock hotwire bulb behind the aspheric lens. Here is what I got (same scale).

https://imgur.com/a/9mWbgsy

https://imgur.com/a/r74agfv

This is a close up of the spot mode. It may look quite faint under daylight, but the throw is amazing. I easily see it from as far as at least 200 meters at night, in urban environment!

https://imgur.com/a/6A480Td

And here is the wide beam. It is not as flat as from the yuji, but it is dramatically more uniform than that of a stock mag

https://imgur.com/a/7OBB6uv

Has always wanted to have a decent incand zoomie, for indoor use. Will add the miser 3-level tail switch and here it is.

I am now thinking of making the bulb frosted so that the output beams at all zooming levels become completely smooth.

Nice.

I've always loved the amazing color rendition the incandescent bulbs have. Megahigh lumen LED flashlights are cool and all, but nothing beats perfect tint.

I've been looking around trying to find some of those Yuji 95CRI 5mm LED's to replace the very blueish ones in an old Petzl headlamp, but all I could find was at Mountainelectronics and they don't plan on restocking them.