Coleman Sentinel (Freeplay wind-up) flashlight

Anyone buy this yet?
http://www.coleman.com/coleman/ColemanCom/prod_Detail.asp?Product_id=5322-711&CategoryID=28000&SourcePage=PROD_LIST.ASP&SubmittingPage=Prod_subcategory.asp

I bought it at REI last night. It's kind of neat. Pretty compact and bright on the high mode... Uses 3 nimh cells that each have a capacity of around 1000mah.

I haven't taken it apart yet, but might do so to put in higher capacity nimh cells and also see if I can put a luxeon in it.

It has two brightness levels...and the bulb is a two filament xenon bulb (for the two brightness levels) rated at 3.3V, either 140ma or 1040ma (or around there) for the low/high modes.

Here are my questions....if I put a luxeon in, it seems that 1040ma might be a bit much? I don't know how the light is powered, if it is getting the 3.6V directly...but I plan on finding out. I might just keep the xenon bulb in there anyways...(a bit yellow, though), b/c it's pretty bright. This is a neat little emergency flashlight!

(It takes 24 hours to trickle charge the nimh cells w/ the included plug-in charger or you can crank the handle for 40min to fully charge the batts!!! 40 min!!! Sheesh...)

I'm pretty sure the batteries deliver power directly to the bulb with no power controller. The amount of power is controlled by the resistance in each filament (the high power/brightness one has less resistance). You would think they could've made this have 3 brightness levels with 2 filaments.

So if you still want 2 brightness levels with a Luxeon, you'll need some type of power controller, or at least two different resistors. ;-)

Hmmm...I just might do this....wire in a 2 ohm resistor for the low and maybe direct drive for the high?

3.3V seems perfect...

Hopefully, I could change the nimh (if they're AA) to 1600 mah or 1800 mah ones! But then it would take forever to charge via the freelight winding method!