I had done a minimini m@g of sorts a while back. I cut one down to run on 2 N cells and a BB500, but abandoned it. The runtime was too short. The light got too hot. The batteries were a pain in the butt to deal with.
After having run across another minimini thread, I decided to give it another try, but this time with a MadMax+ converter and a single AA batt. I dug throw my junk box and found a blue head and a silver body, so I starting chopping it up. It's amazing how much smoother things go the second time around. In no time, I had shortened the body, whipped the MM+ sandwiche together, and stripped the anodizing off of the parts. After, couldn't have a light that didn't match.
While working on the sandwiche, I took some current readings and got ~300mA on a semi fresh AA alkaline. That was about as expected.
After everything was together, I started playing with it. I left it on sitting in my lap. It didn't get anything more than warm to the touch. After about half an hour, it's still going strong. I'm sure that the light has dimmed, but I haven't noticed it. I'm really surprised at the amount of light that this very inexpensive and convenient setup provides.
I'm really surprised that there aren't thousands of these things floating around. Well, maybe there are and I just don't know it. This thing was really easy to do and I love it. The level of light that I'm getting is perfect for going out to check on the dog or taking the garbage out.
Now I have some questions to those of you that have one of these. Do you get better output from a NiMH cell? Do you get better output from lithium cells? Are lithium cells really worth it? Where do I find the 3v AA's? Are the 3v AA's difficult to mess with?
Thanks,
After having run across another minimini thread, I decided to give it another try, but this time with a MadMax+ converter and a single AA batt. I dug throw my junk box and found a blue head and a silver body, so I starting chopping it up. It's amazing how much smoother things go the second time around. In no time, I had shortened the body, whipped the MM+ sandwiche together, and stripped the anodizing off of the parts. After, couldn't have a light that didn't match.
While working on the sandwiche, I took some current readings and got ~300mA on a semi fresh AA alkaline. That was about as expected.
After everything was together, I started playing with it. I left it on sitting in my lap. It didn't get anything more than warm to the touch. After about half an hour, it's still going strong. I'm sure that the light has dimmed, but I haven't noticed it. I'm really surprised at the amount of light that this very inexpensive and convenient setup provides.
I'm really surprised that there aren't thousands of these things floating around. Well, maybe there are and I just don't know it. This thing was really easy to do and I love it. The level of light that I'm getting is perfect for going out to check on the dog or taking the garbage out.
Now I have some questions to those of you that have one of these. Do you get better output from a NiMH cell? Do you get better output from lithium cells? Are lithium cells really worth it? Where do I find the 3v AA's? Are the 3v AA's difficult to mess with?
Thanks,
