Opalec Newbeam 3 LED mini-mag conversion vs. a Princeton Tec Attitude

The Opalec Newbeam is a very nice product. I like it, and will continue to use it even though I have brighter LED lights (Lambda Illuminator (LI) and Inova X5 and soon to have an ARC LS second!)

Summary:
- If you want to convert you Mini-Mag (make sure it is the new style) get the Opalec Newbeam.
- If you want a voltage regulated light so that light output stays constant, get the Opalec Newbeam.
- If you want to support a company that is making high quality modifications of flashlights with the hope that they will make, more, brighter lights, get the Opalec Newbeam (Has a DC to DC converter and voltage regulator built into the electronics, very high tech!).
- If you want a light that has a "low battery" indicator, yet still provides light, get the Opalec Newbeam. (Very nice concept!)
- You can modify the Mag-light to use a tail cap switch (I prefer that)
- However, if you just want a nice, 3 LED light, get the Princeton Tec Attitude. It is much cheaper. 17.95 for the P/T Attitude vs. 27.95 plus shipping plus a mini-mag light for the Opalec Newbeam.
- Also, if you want longer run time on a set of batteries, get the Princeton Tec Attitude. About 40-50 hours of full brightness for the Attitude, vs. about 10 hours for the Opalec Newbeam.
- The P/T Attitude is lighter than a mini-mag / Opalec Newbeam.
- The P/T Attitude is shorter than a mini-mag.
- The P/T Attitude is water proof to 500 feet. The Mag-lite (before conversion) is only water resistant.
- Both are tough lights. Obviously the mag is a tough light, made entirely of aluminum, but the Attitude can withstand abuse too (see below)
- After your Opalec Newbeam conversion, you will loose you ability to turn your mini-mag into an "electric candle" by removing the bezel and projecting light in 180 degrees. The LED's are permanently focused. This should not be a problem for most people, but it is worth mentioning.

Web sites for reference:
http://www.opalec.com/ http://www.princetontec.com/ http://www.maglite.com/ http://www.brightguy.com/detail.tpl?cart=102175396579749&sku=PRILED4AAANY http://www.brightguy.com/detail.tpl?cart=102175396579749&sku=KROAM2A666 http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/newbeam.htm http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/attitude.htm http://thelightsite.cruxial.com/reviews/opalec_newbeam.htm http://thelightsite.cruxial.com/reviews/princetontec_attitude.htm http://www.niteize.com/ http://home.mchsi.com/~lambda/lambda1.htm http://www.inovalight.com/

The LED bug has bitten me. Depending on the light, LED lights work, in my opinion, better than incandescent in the 0-100 foot range. Nice, even, bright, very white (incandescent are yellow by comparison) light. Incandescent are not "bad" however, and are a natural accompaniment to LED's. They pierce the night at long distances. Want to light up a tree at 400 feet, use a high quality incandescent.

Like many people, I own many mini-mags. Now that I have many lights that I consider superior to the mini-mag, I stopped using my mini-mags. When I saw the Opalec Newbeam, I thought this was a good product to purchase to breathe back life into my mini-mag. After all, the MagLite Mini-mag is a very nicely engineered and well built light.

When I first received my Opalec Newbeam, it said that it only worked on new style mini-mags, and in checking my mini-mag, I had the old style, so I had to purchase a new Mini-mag. No big deal, but this gave me a good idea of what the cost of a mini-mag is. About 9.00 dollars. So my cost so far is 9.00 + 27.95 plus shipping so about 39.00. (Note that some people have installed the Opalec Newbeam in an old style mini-mag, but do that at your own risk!)

It took me about 5 minutes or so to install the Opalec Newbeam. Turned it on, and I was impressed. Very nice light. Very nice kit. I actually installed it the wrong way the first time (there is no visual way to actually know the correct orientation of the LED module, it is a 50 – 50 chance of getting it right) and the instructions tell you about that.

To finish off this light, I purchased a Kroll "tail-cap" switch (sometimes called a back switch, or a tail switch) from www.brightguy.com. It was 4.50 plus shipping. I prefer tail cap switches as apposed to the "twist off / on" method of turning on a smaller "held in the palm of your hand" sized lights. BTY, the Kroll tail cap is very nice. I did have to tuck the rubberized tail cap "collar" into the maglite with my thumbnail as I was screwing it down.

This adds the price of my mag/ Opalec Newbeam/Kroll light up to about 48.00 (I am approximating shipping costs).

Overall I like this product. The mini-mag with my tail cap and the Opalec Newbeam LED's are great. I have a mountable clamp ordered from Nite-ize, and I will mount this by my bed, for midnight walks (or stumbles) around the house. My Lambda Illuminator is just too bright (I just hate it when that happens!) when you have been sleeping for several hours, and my Attitudes are mounted on my dog leash, plus I like the tail cap on/off that I added to my mini-mag over the twist on/of of the Attitude.

I also hope that Opalec comes out with brighter, high quality "plug in LED mod's" for lights in the future. Brinkmann and Maglight make some very well built, relatively cheap lights that lend themselves very well for flashlight modifications. Why go to the expense to design, and manufacture and test the physical housing of a light, when one can buy these very well built lights at, relatively speaking, a low cost. It seems like voltage regulation and DC to DC converters are found in few but the best lights, and this new feature of a "low battery" indicator, I think is really a cool, useful feature. For regulated lights, this is important, as you have full brightness until almost the very end of the battery life. Even in unregulated LED lights, the "whiteness" of the LED remains the same color (as apposed to incandescent that get more and more yellow, in addition to getting weaker), just loose their intensity.

Now I do have 3 Princeton Tec Attitudes, and I do like them. They are very light weight, and I actually have three of them velcro'ed onto my retractable dog leash. They are very light weight (2.5 ounces each with batteries), and considering that most of the time my dog is pulling on the leash, the weight of the 3 lights are no problem at all. If you are not familiar with the Attitude, is a 3 LED light that takes 4 AAA batteries, so a comparison between the Opalec Newbeam and the Attitude is appropriate.

I was almost going to favor the Mag-light over the Attitude in terms of durability, but in the 2 months that I have had my attitudes, they have been subjected to many leash drops and drags, as well as many of the neighbors small children playing and dropping and throwing and dunking the lights into pools, and there is no noticeable damage on the Attitude's. Also, see the LED Museum's review where he runs over the Attitude with his motorized chair, with no damage (don't know the weight but it "looks" heavy!) However, the toughness of the mini-mag has well proven itself, so I think that they are both very sturdy lights.

In comparing the light color quality of the two lights, I would have to say that the Attitude is slightly "blue-er" than the Opalec Newbeam. The Opalec Newbeam shows illuminates my skin in a more natural color than the Attitude. However, taking both lights outside in the dark, I do not detect any noticeable differences between the two, at least as far as the color goes.

Which one is brighter? I do not have a light meter, so this is all based on visual obsersvation. With fresh batteries installed in the Opalec Newbeam, I compared it to one of my Attitude's that had about 40 or 50 hours (1-2 hours run time per use) on the batteries. How do I know I had about 40 or 50 hours on this set of batteries? Well, this was approximate, but I walk my dog, "on the leash" about 3-4 times a week for 1 -2 hours (we go on "off the leash, walks" the rest of the time, and I do not use the Attitudes then – don't want other fellow dog lovers to say I am not walking my dog enough!) and I have had the Attitude about 8 weeks, so the usage was anywhere from 24 to 64 hours:
(8 weeks x 1 hour x 3 times a week = 24 hours)
to
(8 weeks x 2 hours x 4 times a week = 64 hours),
so I figure 40 – 50 hours is a good average.

In comparing the two lights, it appeared to me that they were about the same brightness. Over the next several days, in using both lights, it seemed that the Attitude became ever so slightly dimmer than the Opalec Newbeam. It was a difference that was only noticeable when shining both beams at a white wall, and comparing the two. This seems to be what I recall reading about the Attitude elsewhere on CPF's where the first 40 or 50 hours or so, it runs at full brightness, and then diminishes over the next 100 hours.

As the Opalec Newbeam should remain at the same brightness until the little LED indicator comes in (and it has not yet) I wanted to see what a new set of AAA Alkaline batteries would do in the Attitude. With new AAA batteries, the Attitude appeared to be about 10 - 15% brighter than the Opalec Newbeam. Again, I took them both outside, and compared the two in my dark back yard (as opposed to shining the beams on the white wall), and, there was a noticeable difference. Not much, but it was noticeable. I don't know who the winner is here, I think that they are both different, yet equal. The Opalec Newbeam give constant light output for about 10 hours or so until the red LED comes on, and the Attitude is slightly brighter at first, and will diminish to slightly less brighter than the Opalec Newbeam at about 40 or 50 hours or so. Just to let you know, I put the batteries that had 40-50 hours on the Attitude back into the Attitude. Probably use my three Attitudes for another couple of weeks, then change the batteries on all three.

The reason for me writing this is to be fair to both products, and to help people make an informed buying decision. Like I said, I like both, and use both products. However, if all I wanted was a 3 led light, I would get the Attitude. Cheaper, smaller, lighter, and longer run time at full brightness than the Opalec Newbeam / mini-mag. Even without the voltage regulation and DC to DC converter, it is still a nice light, it just works well. However, it you want to convert your mini-mag into an LED light, and take advantage of all the wonderful technology that is built into this conversion, and be able to use all the third party products offered for the mini-mag, then by all means, get the Opalec Newbeam conversion kit.

I do think that the price of the Opalec Newbeam is just a little high. Not that 27.95 plus shipping is going to break a person, but 28 + 9 for the light = 37 dollars. Now you are in the Inova X5 price range. To choose between the Inova and the Opalec Newbeam, that is a tough choice. The Inova is brighter (5 LED's compared to 3), and the new style has a tail cap and is about 15 % brighter than the current model, but it also uses more expensive 123 Lithium batteries. Some people might want brighter, some might want cheaper batteries. I have both lights, but I prefer to use the Opalec Newbeam to roam the house at midnight over the Inova X5. I do respect that there were probably a lot of start-up costs that have to be re-couped, in developing this little kit, however I am looking at market value. Just a note, I did not "need" to purchase this light! I already liked my 3 Attitudes, and I knew that the Attitude was 17.95 vs. 27.95 for the Opalec Newbeam. If monitory issues were my only concern, I would have purchased another Attitude in a second. I wanted to see this product, and bring my mini-mag back to life.

There are probably a lot of non-monitory reasons for purchasing the Opalec Newbeam. Some that I can think of are:
Lots of 3rd party products for the Mini-mag. Nite-ize and my Kroll Tail cap are just two product categories that come to mind, but there are lots of pouches and belt tools and holders etc that are specifically designed for the mini-mag. Like I stated earlier, I have on order, a Nite-ize mountable clamp that I will install close to my bed for those midnight trips in the dark.
Less conspicuous. If your co-workers might be inclined to "permanently borrow" anything that looks different, cool, or new, the mini-mag would be much more mundane than the Attitude.
It looks more durable. I don't agree that it actually IS more durable, but some people might prefer the heavier Aluminum over the composite plastic.
Also, the Opalec Newbeam is a very well designed product. I think we would all agree that there is lots of room in the market place for more high quality, well made lights. Voltage regulation and DC to DC converters are highly thought of in flashlights. Hopefully, this company will produce more drop-in replacements. I really like my Lambda Illuminator (to say the least, this is one awesome light!), but Lambda can only make so many units at a time, and there are only so many hours in a day. Wouldn't it be great to have a drop in replacement to your Brinkmann Legend AA (I prefer the Brinkmann Legend AA and LX over the Mag-Lite Mini-mag for conversions) that one could install in 3 minutes, that would make it the equivalent to the Lambda Illuminator? Imagine that instead of a handful of people getting to enjoy the LI, thousands and thousands could enjoy.

I am looking forward to seeing what future products that Opalec will produce in the future!

VERY nice post, BuddTX.

I ignored the Opalec due to cost and no perceived advantage, but am now actually considering getting one. Only thing is, I too have the old-style Minimag. And I already have a tailswitch coming in (visible plastic button centered inside a screw-in aluminum housing, won't know the maker till I get it, but different from Kroll), so I guess I am well on my way to a $48 MiniMag like yourself.

Thanks (a lot!).

opalec should make a 2aa mag Luxeon Star kit.

My Minimag collection recently increased to 4 plus a couple of clones because I have purchased a couple of Mag 3D's recently (One has 9 AA's in 3 packs and the other has a 5-cell Mag Charger battery) Since Home Depot bundles a 3D with a Minimag for $18.99 I wasn't willing to buy a 3D any other way.

These lights are OK placed in drawers in various rooms around the house with the Radio Shack .43A replacement bulb, lithium AA's, and WriteRight.

In the next week or two I finally expect to make my large bulb order from Welch Allyn. Included in that order will be a significant number of #01121 2.4 V 1.10 A Halogen wire terminal bulbs. Driven by 2 AA NiMHs, these bulbs should provide 28 L in the Minimag for more than 1 1/2 hours.

This mod will make the MiniMag about as bright as an E1. That's enough light that I'll start carying them in my briefcase and in my car glove compartments. The emergency lights will stick with the .43 A bulb and lithiums.

I guess my Minimags cost about $5 of the combo package price and the W/A bulb is $4.69. Assume that I used $0.31 of WriteRight on each. That brings the cost of my poor man's extra long E1 wannabe to $10 plus the cost of NiMH's.

I'd really would need to generate more light than 3 LED's out of the MiniMag before I'd make than kind of conversion. I'd be delighted to have a regulated LS. At the moment, the low-end for me on a useable non-emergency medium run time LED light is a lightwave 2000 driven by lithiums. A step up is any light in which I run one of John Bechtold's 4 LED PR bulbs with Nichia white 6400's. I just can't persuade myself to spend more than the cost of an X5 for a modified 3 LED Minimag.

Hey Lemlux, your MiniMag plan sounds great! Are you ordering the 01121 bulbs directly from Welch Allyn? I may have to look into that myself based on the information you've presented. Thanks!

John

kubolaw:

Yes, I'll order directly from W/A. W/A has a $100 minimum.

If you order on the Web, every bulb sells at a flat rate of $7.50 @.

If you order on telephone, prices vary. The bulbs I'm interested in vary from just under $2 to just over $7. As a hobbyist, getting quotes for various bulb numbers is not the easiest thing to do. (Just ask Klaus)

Group buys are definitely worth considering.

Since I'm converting many Energizer Double Barrels to serial to run higher wattage bulbs in serial with A or AA NiMH's I'll get to the minimum.

I'm not volunteering to mail single bulbs to a zillion people. If there's enough interest, maybe Tim Flanigan at NorEast Knives can be persuaded to stock them. (Tim's previously said he hasn't stocked bi-pin bulbs before, but there's a first time for everything.)


Buddtx:

I also thorougly enjoyed and appreciated your comprehensive dissertation, BTW.
A well designed, regulated LED product is very seductive.

lemlux, can I jam in for a few bulbs for the mini-mag? I wanna try it too, but don't need $100 worth of bulbs. If it's fine with you, will send you a check with shipping cost.

thanks,
Ake

ake:

If you volunteer to be the distribution center for other interested parties, I'll deliver the order for the you and the rest of the group to you for redistribution at cost.

If I mail bulbs to Klaus and to you I feel I'll have done my share of the effort.

Mr. Bulk, was wondering where you ordered your tailswitch? Thanks!

Why I ordered 2 New Beams while I already have 9 3-LED lights? Let's compare New Beam to the popular 3-LED light - Attitude or other AAA based 3-LED lights.

1) 2 AA has more juice than 3 or 4 AAA (2850 x 2 vs 1250 x 4)
2) 4 AAA waste little energy on resistor which is bad especially for small battery like AAA.
3) In some countries, price of AA is the same as AAA. It means 4AAA will cost double for same juice of 2AA.
4) No, Attitude couldn't provide 40 to 50 hrs in full brigtness, neither do New Beam. 90ma (full brigtness - 30ma x 3) x 40 hrs = 3600ma which way exceeds capacity of AAA (1250ma) even if the light suck up last drop of juice
5) Options to use either NiMH or Alkaline on New Beam and still have full brightness. NiMH will not have full brightness on non-regulated light.
6) When I carry a regulated 3-LED light, I could have real brightness of 3-LED light and not 1/5 of runtime in 3-LED brightness; 2/5 of runtime in 2-LED brightness and the rest in 1 LED brightness. Of course, you have the option to throw away the half-used alkaline and get full brightness again (the runtime ratio on brightness is only for illustration and not a real observed percentage)
7) New Beam is brighter than Attitude according to Brock and Chris M. review site (blame them not me if the information is wrong )

Alan

Yup, my new beam is brighter, but the Attitude has a bit wider area of light. I agree about the runtime issue. I don't think you are going to get 50 hours out of 4 AAA cells. I think it will make light that long, but about 1/4 the brightness of an infinity.

I guess for me it is the true regulation issue and the ability to use NiMH or used AA cells to their death. Seems like a good idea to me.

New Beam is brighter than Attitude according to Brock and Chris M. review site

Do you not mean the LED Museum? I`m pretty sure I havn`t uploaded my as-yet unfinished page on the Newbeam. And regrettably I don`t have an Attitude yet, though I would like one some day.

NewBeam page coming to the Torch Reviews Site by the end of the week assuming work doesn`t get too busy....

No worries, I only wish it was the Torch Reviews Site you saw the Newbeam on- but unfortunately, I have to write that review first!

If only they wrote themselves....

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alan:
Why I ordered 2 New Beams while I already have 9 3-LED lights? Let's compare New Beam to the popular 3-LED light - Attitude or other AAA based 3-LED lights.

1) 2 AA has more juice than 3 or 4 AAA (2850 x 2 vs 1250 x 4)
2) 4 AAA waste little energy on resistor which is bad especially for small battery like AAA.
3) In some countries, price of AA is the same as AAA. It means 4AAA will cost double for same juice of 2AA.
4) No, Attitude couldn't provide 40 to 50 hrs in full brigtness, neither do New Beam. 90ma (full brigtness - 30ma x 3) x 40 hrs = 3600ma which way exceeds capacity of AAA (1250ma) even if the light suck up last drop of juice

5) Options to use either NiMH or Alkaline on New Beam and still have full brightness. NiMH will not have full brightness on non-regulated light.
6) When I carry a regulated 3-LED light, I could have real brightness of 3-LED light and not 1/5 of runtime in 3-LED brightness; 2/5 of runtime in 2-LED brightness and the rest in 1 LED brightness. Of course, you have the option to throw away the half-used alkaline and get full brightness again (the runtime ratio on brightness is only for illustration and not a real observed percentage)
7) New Beam is brighter than Attitude according to Brock and Chris M. review site (blame them not me if the information is wrong

)

Alan<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Some good points. I did not know about the AAA being the same price as the AA in some countries.

I found two "dead" batteries that I put into my Opalec Newbeam, just to see if the red indicator light would turn on, and low and behold, the thing was still running at full brightness. This will be a great light to "finish up" batteries from my Surge!

Also, as you and others have noted, the Opalec Newbeam gives the same brightness on rechargable batteries, another important plus.

Some Comments:
- The Attitude is a 4-AAA flashlight
- Not disagreeing with your math. However, I DO have 40-50 hours of run time on mmy three Attitudes. However, it is intermittent use,(30 min - 2 hours at a time). Alkalines seem to "recover" after a rest, so that might be some of the difference. I had the new Ultra Duracell batteries in the Attitude, and that might also matter. And, the Attitudes are rated by the manufacturer as "up to 140 hours" or run time. Obviously, not at full brightness.
- Also, I stand by my obversations on brightness, but there are individual differences in two products. As they say in commercials "Your mileage may vary!" With new Batteries, the Attitude appeared to be brighter than the Opalec, but slightly Blue-er. With the batteries that had been used for 2 months, the light was about the same, and in playing with the lights the Attitude started getting slightly dimmer.

I tested the Opalec vs Attitude with Nimh batteries so I don't know how that compares to alkalines. Both started out at the same brightness, but the attitude was less than half as bright after 5 hrs or so. The Opalec seemed to be just as bright as when I started.

The Aurora hdlamp was even worse. With Nimh it dimmed out to 1/2 brightness after 3.5hrs of constant on. And was infinity bright after 6hrs.

I really like the Opalec. I bought a new mag switched out the internals to my old mag and gave the "new" mag to my 14yr Nephew.

Reason I like the opalec.
-AA's cost half as much, wider variety (ie lithium) and more common from other devices.
-Better performance with Nimh rechargables.
-Constant output.
-Works incredable well with dead batterys.

PS the cheapest place I could find a Mini mag was Target for $8.99.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chris M.:
New Beam is brighter than Attitude according to Brock and Chris M. review site

Do you not mean the LED Museum? I`m pretty sure I havn`t uploaded my as-yet unfinished page on the Newbeam. And regrettably I don`t have an Attitude yet, though I would like one some day.

NewBeam page coming to the Torch Reviews Site by the end of the week assuming work doesn`t get too busy....

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oops... it should be Quickbeam. Apologize to you and Quickbeam for the confusion.

Alan

So now I am confused. Can someone verify if the Newbeam or the Attitude maintain the max. brightness at longer time? I thought attitude is nice, but if it only maintains the max. brightness for only 5 hrs (on NiMh), then the Newbeam seems to be a better choice. I alread have the Aurora on NiMh and plan to get either of these and use it mainly with NiMh.

Thanks,
Ake

Popluar NiMH AA are mostly rated 1600ma to 1800ma while AAA are rated 650ma to 700ma.

Double of capacity normally will provide MORE than double of runtime for the same load. Higher current the load is, bigger difference it will be. Say 1600ma battery provide 1 hr of runtime for a specific light, 3200ma battery could be able to provide 2.5 hrs or more of runtime.

Alan

Alan:

GP now has 750 mAh NiMH AAA's. I'm running two DB 4AAA's with them with the DB 6AA bulb rated at 4.20 V 0.70 A. I now can run this bulb in the small DB at < C.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ake:
So now I am confused. Can someone verify if the Newbeam or the Attitude maintain the max. brightness at longer time? I thought attitude is nice, but if it only maintains the max. brightness for only 5 hrs (on NiMh), then the Newbeam seems to be a better choice. I alread have the Aurora on NiMh and plan to get either of these and use it mainly with NiMh.

Thanks,
Ake<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would think that the newbeam would be a better light to use with rechargables. I think I read somewhere that someone had put lithium, alkaline and rechargables and there was no difference in the light output. I think I have read several times that voltage regulation and DC to DC converts really work well with rechargables.

As far as which one is brighter, there seems to be some conflicting views, and that's fine. Different tests, different physical products, different eyes! I am not going to repeat what I have already posted.

I think everyone would agree that the light output is CLOSE. In a given situation where one would work, the other one would work also. They are both 3 LED lights.

I am not an expert in NiMH batteries, but what is the storage of 4 NiMH AAA vs 2 AA NiMH? I think I read somewhere that 2 AA have more power than 4 AAA?