Help with first mod: Mag85

Tonight I received several 3AA-D converters from CPF-member Waion. I replaced the bulb in a 3D Maglite with a potted WA-1185 bulb. I placed 7 alkaline AA batteries in the adapters with two metal spacers (appropriately sized pieces of metal hardware I found in my garage, I don't have the proper blanks).

At first, the light wouldn't shine. It seems that the adapters don't make proper contact on either end of the Maglite. To get it to work, I had to (a) insert a smaller piece of spring coil into the tailcap spring so that it would contact more towards the center of the adapter's negative terminal (b) tape the nipple from Duracell D onto the positive terminal of the 3AA-D adapter to enhance its protrusion, as it seemed like the adapter wasn't contacting on the switch side of the flashlight. The adapters have less metal on the negative terminal, and a flatter positive terminal, both of which seemed to be an issue.

Is my experience normal? I had assumed these adapters would function in this application without further modification.

In any case, my voltmeter showed about 10.5 volts for the three adapters with batteries placed in series. The batteries were fresh. When I put them into the Maglite, however, the light was much dimmer than my Magcharger with a WA-1160 bulb. What gives?

Is it possible my setup has too much internal resistance, which lowers the voltage across the bulb? Other than the resistance of the 3AA-D adapters, I don't know if the extra spring, or the taped battery top setup would degrade things significantly. Any tips on how to use a multimeter to figure this out? Or how to reduce resistance? Or anything else?

Thanks for any help. Having followed this forum for awhile, and waited for the parts to arrive, I was pretty bummed my poor results. I was expecting a turbo light! (I was going to deal with the lens and the reflector later, just turn it on for a minute at a time.)

THANKS!

Michael

Hi Michael, first of all late "Welcome to CPF".

I'm not a big incan guy, but I'll give it a shot anyhow.

The biggest problem you got is insuffficient current provided.
And the second is the relatively high resistance of the 3AA-1D holder.

1. Use 9AA NiMh or NiCd to provide sufficient 3-4A current to the lamp.
2. Try cleaning the contact of the 3AA-1D holder with achohol wipes.

Then you'll see what you've been waiting for all this time

The alkalines won't be able to provide enough current for the 1185.
Like what modamag says, use 8AA NiMH or 9AA NiMH and you will see bright light /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
I use 9x Sanyo 2300mAH NiMH cells to power my mc85.

For better negative contact of the spring you could squezze the spring close to center with heavy pliers, or do as I do and put a Duracell battery top bewteen the spring and last adaptor. Now in the issue of the lack of nipple in the new version of these adaptors, I like it better!!what it does for me is lower the entyre set up about 4 or 5 mm and make the tai-cap easier to close.
You most have an older Maglite, the one that have a flat contact in the switch body where the battery make contact, them I could see that the flat adaptor top will make poor contact, and your solution of a battery top is a good one.
But if you have one of the new maglites that have a spring in the switch where it contact the adaptor, then it is not an issue.
As the others member pointed out, the proper set-up is 9 Nimhs batteries, the alkalines have too much internal resistance.
I have some of these adaptors and I found some residual oil left by the manufacturer process in the contacts, as Modamag pointed out, they should be cleaned with alcohol and a q-tip, clean also the positive and negative contacts on the outside of the adaptor.
Now for the flashlight: brighthen the end of the body and the matching contact in the tail-cap with a little emery paper, these surfaces have to be free from lubes and cleaned with alcohol. This is also your "safety" when you want the light to be safe specially around children, unscrew the tail-cap half a turn, to break the electrical path.
Hope this help you to see the light of the MAG85!!!
best regards
Juan C.

mdarby: YOU ARE RIGHT. I just chequed my bench where I have several maglite switches ot he new kind (with the spring) and found that some of them were too short to make good contact with the new adaptor. Streching them will be a solution but your nipple top battery end is more efficient, but introducing more resistance into the set up.
So, if the streching of the spring is not sufficient a battery top will be the final solution.
Or we can't tell waion to bring both kinds, so we can use one with the nipple at the switch and the others without for more compact pack and lees resistance when screwing the tail cap.
By the way, welcome to CPF, and congratulations in your "catch" (as nobody has bring this issue before)
cheers
Juan C.

juancho:

Thanks for the tips and the welcome. I used the alkalines because frankly I wasn't sure how fresh my NiMH batteries were, but I didn't think about current capacity.

I am not sure how to make better contact with the spring at the switch side without removing the switch, although perhaps that's what you meant. I can certainly bend the spring at the tail.

Thanks for reminding me about cleaning the contacts, great call.

To figure out how much resistance the batteries and adapters are causing, what's the best approach? Remove the bulb, wire it to the batteries, and measure what? Mearure current or voltage across what section? Sorry, I hadn't previously used a multimeter since highschool (1985).

Thanks!

We know what the resistance at the adaptors is, see this thread link post #881157 02/19/05 11.32 a m .
Now, to take the switch out, take the head and tail-cap off, pinch and remove the rubber switch cover, press down for the "on" position, introduce an 5/64 allen wrench into the center hole and unscrew that hidden screw several turns.
When you feel that the switch is free, remove toward the tail of the flashlight.
With the switch out, place twizer to the first coil from the base of the spring (to hold it and not pull it out) then grasp the top of the spring and strech it.
If you get it long enough it will make contact and you will not need the battery top, thus removing a source of resistance.
Now with the switch out clean with q-tip and alcohol all the contacts surfaces inside and out, the cleaner the better path for electricity, the least resistance and the more voltage to the bulb and the more lumens you are going to get.
If you have old Nimhs batteries clean the negative and positive with alcohol.
You should get Mag85 perfomance, now!!!
cheers
Juan C.
P/S Yes you should do the closing of the spring last coil in the tail-cap to make more intimate contact with the small negative pole of the adaptor.

juancho:

just completed the adjustments: removed switch and pulled out spring contact, bent spring in tail cap, swabbed contacts in and out of adapters, sanded spring in tail cap. put in 9 everyready 2300 mah nimh batteries. it helps have the adapters work just dropped in without having to tape on a battery cap! it's definitely brighter, although suprisingly about the same as my magcharger-1160. perhaps the stock lens is to blame, i read it takes down output by 10%. i'll probably but a ucl or just remove the lens in the meantime.

I am baffled by the poor output of your Mag 85. The Magcharger you compare it with is a 500 lumen light; the Mag 85 has a minimum of 800 lumens. Those extra 300 lumens have to be there somehow!!
Do a ceiling bounce test in a dark room with both lights, first one, then the other, to see if you could possibly find those missing 300 lumens.
I am sorry to say that your choice of batteries is not the recommended one. 2300 mah is more capacity and less high current than you need. Ginseng recommends the 2100 Sanyo/ Energizer batteries and nothing higher than that.
This bulb is taking 3 1/2 amps and needs all the high current it can get. Now if you want brighter, you could go to the CBP 1600 (Cheap battery Packs) that can take care of bulbs that put even 10 amps!!!
But you are in dangerous territory there. You could get an insta-flash of your 1185, but then that is of little consequence when you can get them thru www.light-edge for $8.00 (We had to wait MONTHS to get those very DEAR 1185's not long ago).
If you are going to use the CBP 1600's make sure they are well rested after taking them down from the charger (10 hours minimum).

Don't buy a UCL. It is a very nice lens but is not the proper one for this mod, as the 1185 produces so much heat that is going to cook a halo in the center of the lens (the coating will deform). The proper one is the borofloat from www.flashlightlens.com or the sodalime from the Magcharger.
All of the above is of course IMHO, I am not guru, and I wish bwaites, Litho123, JS, or Ginseng will come out to give you a hand.
Best of luck.

Juan C.

How much actual difference is there between 2100 and 2300 cells? Is it actually visible?

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davidra said:
How much actual difference is there between 2100 and 2300 cells? Is it actually visible?

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A 2300 cell from one brand can be better than a 2100 cell from another brand.
There can be a huge difference in voltage sag between different brands of cells, clearly shown by this graph from Silverfox:


when using many cells as in a Mag85 setup, a small difference in voltage sag will quickly add up to be very noticable, a difference of only 0.1 V will add up to almost 1 V and you will have no problem noticing this on the light output.

Sigbjoern

Awesome info, Sigbjoern. Thanks to you, Silverfox for providing the chart, and Juancho for the switch procedure and resistance tips.
I just read up on the Titanium PowPower's, and if they're as good as they say, I'm placing an order for 9 immediately (guess what they're going into... hehe). I also like that they're OEM Panasonic. The double quality control stuff, etc., could just be marketing-speak, but I do like the elevated quality claims, and they seem to hold up to sag real well according to Silverfox's graph.
Quick question before I buy. The Titanium TG1000 charger sounds like a pretty good unit for a good price, but the info only shows charging time for up to 2100 mah batteries. Will this charger work for their 2400 mah batteries also? If it does but just takes a little longer, that's perfectly fine. I'm just wondering if the charger is able to give the 2400's a full charge as I don't know enough about these things yet.

EDIT: I'm now looking into the recommended Sanyo/Energizer 2100's and will compare current ratings to the PowPower's. Hopefully, I'll find out and have something to contribute to the thread.

Thanks again. As always, the people here are much appreciated.

P.S. This charger only does 4 at a time. There's no problem charging 4, then 4, then 1, as long as they're done basically on the same day (to minimize differences in self-discharge times), right?

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Bimmerboy said:
I also like that they're OEM Panasonic.


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I didn't know they were Panasonics, I have always liked Panasonic products, usually very high quality.

[ QUOTE ]

The Titanium TG1000 charger sounds like a pretty good unit for a good price, but the info only shows charging time for up to 2100 mah batteries. Will this charger work for their 2400 mah batteries also?

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It will fully charge the cells, but how good a full charge is on this charger I don't know. There is a lot of difference in how full the different chargers charges the cells. Another goody from Silverfox:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB6&Number=818782&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1

[ QUOTE ]

EDIT: I'm now looking into the recommended Sanyo/Energizer 2100's and will compare current ratings to the PowPower's. Hopefully, I'll find out and have something to contribute to the thread.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think you will see a big difference between the Energizer 2300 and 2100, both have high internal resistance and will sag much.

Datasheet 2300:
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/nh15-2300mAh.pdf

Datasheet 2100:
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/nh15-2100mAh.pdf

Looking at the discharge curves at the datasheets, the 2100 actually perform worse than the 2300. However, the discharge curve in the datasheet for 2 A load shows much less sag than what Silverfox measured, so I don't know how much one should trust those data sheets.

Sidenote, I just discovered a bad cell amongst my Energizer 2100, it gets fully charged but self discharges completely in a couple of days.

[ QUOTE ]
P.S. This charger only does 4 at a time. There's no problem charging 4, then 4, then 1, as long as they're done basically on the same day (to minimize differences in self-discharge times), right?

[/ QUOTE ]

It has independent charging channels so it should not be a problem charging the last cell for itself. I only buy chargers with independent channels because of the added flexibility (and for not destroying any cells).
Another charger with the same feature set, but with much faster charging times than the TG1000, is the Vanson V6000. I have this and have been happy with it so far, but I have no clue how good it fills the cells. When I get my AccuManager 20 I will be able to compare it to something and see if it is any good.

Sigbjoern