Stinger 74

I am testing a new mod. A stinger 74. It uses five megas
stinger battery adapter, li-ion 18650 non protected cells
a wa 1274 and a stinger hp. I have been carrying it on duty fo rthe last few weeks and wow is all I have to say.
The 1274 is rated a 550 lumens at 7.2 volts. The batteries off the charger are closer to 8.4 and hold that for quite a
while. That is close to 800 lumens. Neither is what I would call too shabby especially when you consider a stock stinger is around a 125 lumens. It does heat it up. After about 4 minutes the head deffinately gets warm. So far it has been an extremely stable setup. everyone tht sees it is like OMG. It throws like nothing I have ever seen. Standing on my front porch I can light up the telephone pole
from the ground to almost the top. That is over 1/4 mile. No handneld light has been capable of doing that. It even out throws my mag charger. Things I have observed: on traffic stops the light appears brighter than the high out spotlights on my cruiser. In fact the people really complain when you use it to light up their mirrors. Last week we used it on a high risk warrant service. The suspect had supposedly been involved in the disappearance and posssible homicide of his girlfirend. He had made threats to kill officers and and was supposedly armed. We made entry and discovered he was upstairs. This tactically was
a nightmare. We announced and got him to come out. One officer used his standard stinger and light him up the I got him him with the stinger 74. It was amazing the difference. Brilliant white light everywhere. he was totally disorietated (he just woke up then got lit up).
Taken into custody without incident. Last night I had an alleged child molester with non related felony warrants run. We cornored him in an attic. We used our hnd held lights to make a light of wall. First light was a standard sitnger, then a stinger hp. I turned my light on and handed to the officer in the entrance and he stopped and looked at it, kind of in dismay, Then another officer handed a streamlight sl 20. I dont know if ti was stock but it was the only thing close in output but it still was not as the bright the 74. Aftrer the subject was in custody /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif the officer with the sl20 came over and looked at it. He shined his on a white houuse then mine. His was bright but the 74's hotspot wast tighter and hotter. He just kind of shook his head. Hopefully my digital camera will be back up soon and I will try to do beamshots coparing it to the ultra stinger, stinger hp and mag charger. thanks five mega

WOW, dual 18650s driving a WA 1274 - that's definitely inspiring! I have always wanted to do that, I asked the incan gods about what would be a nice bulb to drive on two lithium ions. Just to share a little of what I discovered, they told me that a 1111 might be more suitable because of the voltage sag. Unfortunately, lithium ions tend to sag a lot when loaded.

I rigged up a Surefire P91 lamp in a Mag3C re-sleeved to hold two 18650s, and the 2.2A drain pulled a pair of charged cells with 8+ volts down to 6.5V as measured by the DMM I hooked up to gauge voltage drop. It's quite a substantial drop. However, I'm not doubting your experience and the fact that it puts out a lot of light - the P91 continued to shine brightly, which was why I was surprised to find such a substantial drop. Regardless, it was a great combination and it worked great, and as you have mentioned, yours has been proven under operational circumstances. I'm thinking the 1274 is a safer bulb to use especially if you are concerned about instaflash. I am a non-tactical user with other smaller lights available if the big one decides to go pop.

I'd like to try it, I will get the chance when the recent GB completes and my preordered 1274s show up. The rest of the stuff (bipin adapters, reflectors) is all here.

Glad to hear your two incidents ended without violence towards you and yours, especially the first one, in view of the threats and such.

Look forward to seeing your beamshots. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Very nice, I've been using the FM upgrade with the Carley 1499 as a duty light and I thought that was bright! How are you mounting the bulb? Just bending the leads to make them fit? Also, I see on the Welch Allyn site that the 1274 is only rated for a 40 hour life. From the little I've learned here about incan bulbs that means that the 1274 is a little fragile and is not going to like being overdriven. I'd be sure to have a back-up light close while using the Stinger74 for duty.
Keep us updated and stay safe.

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stein said:
I see on the Welch Allyn site that the 1274 is only rated for a 40 hour life. From the little I've learned here about incan bulbs that means that the 1274 is a little fragile and is not going to like being overdriven. I'd be sure to have a back-up light close while using the Stinger74 for duty.

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Stein, I hope you are aware of that the 1499 is only rated for a 20 hour life (this is according to Fivemega), so it should actually be safer to use the 1274. But one should always have a backup light ready, you never know when the bulb is worn out no matter how long it lasts.

Sigbjoern

Has the HP head metal reflector and glass lens? I'm just wondering if there is a limit on how long I can run a 1111 in it. The 1111 should be the brightest of all the Stinger mods.

I haven't got my Stingers to play with yet, so instead I did a test between a Mag 3C with 1274 and 2 Pila 168A vs FM FatMag with 1185 and FM 3" head running on 3 Pila 168A.
I was really impressed with the 1274 setup, but when turning on the 1185, I was no longer so impressed. It was like comparing a Lux I to a Lux III, that was how big the difference was. The target I pointed the light at was 100 yards away (guesstimate).
But even though the 1185 setup knocked the socks off the 1274 setup, I think the 1274 in a HP Stinger is the one I'm going to use the most of those two setups.

Sigbjoern

oklalawman,

There's no way that two 18650's are holding 8.4 volts against a 1274. They are probably holding closer to 7.2 than to 8.4. The 1274 at 7.2 volts draws almost 3 amps. That's a significant load for a li-ion 18650 cell. At near 5 amps (their limit) two of them are down near 6.8 or less volts.

And if the SL20X was "close" to the Stinger 74, my guess is that you are talking about 400 or less torch lumens (lumens out the front of the light). This is still a lot of light. What you really need to be comparing this against is a SF M6 or Tiger11 or MC60.

As for being overdriven, you can drive a halogen lamp to the point where it has a life of 10 hours and still be "OK" but you are into insta-flash hot off the charger territory.

Sig,

I think the HP heads are metal reflector and plastic lens. If it is the same head as on the UltraStinger, then that is the case. I was recently running an upgraded nimh pack in an US and for the runtime testing, I left the head off. Two hours of running at an elevated voltage, even using the stock bulb, is sure to cause damage to the lens.

Whatever the voltage of the pack, the WA01274 is likely to be the best fit for 2x18650 (or Pila 168A). It's still a pretty demanding load but the overdrive puts it right in a good range for preserving the WA01274. The WA01111 is not likely to survive a 2x18650 pack.

Hmm, I'm a bit perplexed about the SL-20 performance as well.The only way an SL-20X would perform up to the WA01274 is if the user had installed a SL-35X LA. Even so, it should be quite a bit more yellow.

Wilkey

Thanks Ginseng.

Does anyone know if it is possible to buy a replacement glass lens for the HP head? I'm also interested in replacement lens for the normal Stinger head.

I have WA1148 on order that will be interesting to try out in the Stinger mod, it should give over 400 lumens pulling 2.1 A vs the 2.8 A the WA1274 pulls. It also have a smaller filament.

Sigbjoern

Hmmm. I got a few of these 1274's. I wonder if I drill out my polystinger head, will it it handle the heat or will I have to get an HP head replacement?

Jeff

The only mod I did to the bulb was I cut off just a tiny amount to getit to focus. Yes I realized the batteries would sag down to 7.2 volts but that is still 550 lumens. Even with 30 % loss that is still 400 out the front. compared to 100 or so stock?? The stinger hp has a steel head and plastic lense. You can not use a glass lens and mount it in the stock manner. It would break..though a magcharger is about the right size. Yes the bulb is rated at only 40 hours. Surefire hola bulbs are rated at 20. A 74 is about $5. A surefire...$20.That is kind of what I was after was something in the Surefire hola. I think I did it.
Reference the Comparison with the sl20x. His was hot off the charger. Mine had been used the night before on drug interdiction stop ($6000, 1 1/4 pound of marijuna, and 48 grams of ice). It had also been on for twenty minute steady that night. So it was probbly getting low. When I got home I did the light my barn test and it still did it but was not nearly as bright. So the batteries were really low.

Backup flashlights...never
On my person, Streamlight stylus, white leds on taser, m6
streamlight on 45 plus the stinger 74. Which it is very much being tested.

Flashlights in car tigerlight, magcharger, Stinger hP
sL M3 on 12 gauge, SL tl3 on M4. Sl240 blitz for when nothing else will do.

I dont think you could enlarge a poly to fit. The bulb is longer.

I had not heard of the 1148 let me know how it turns out.

Js I actually figured that they would only hold that 8.4 for a very few minutes. While I have no scientific wayt of
determining whe they begin to fade you can notice it. My original plan was just to get the 550 lumens and a stable bulb combination. It actually suprised me how white it was.

I did learn one thing tonight though I did stop a car. Dont use it to read a drivers license...I am still seing stars.
My car has two unity halogen spotlights the new brighter ones and two 12 volt take down lights.It is bright out there. I can turn the 74 on and actually see its beem overimpose on those. That shocked me. I also did a highbeam test on my patrol car. The stinger 74 outthrows the highbeams and appears brighter at distance.

oklalawman,

At 3 amps, the li-ions won't hold 8.4 even for a few seconds. Now don't take my posts the wrong way. I'm not saying the light isn't bright and white. As you point out, even at 7.2 volts, the 1274 is still driven fairly hard (40 hours of life) and still puts out 500 bulb-lumens.

So this is a lot of light! It's just that so many people are quick to jump to the mega high lumens figures out the front of the light if they haven't experienced any other of the super-bulb type lights. People talk about their "MagXX" being so many times brighter than a SF M6 and so on. But a SF M6 puts out more light than even an 1111 at 7.2 volts, which is like 880 bulb-lumens! I'm not trying to put your combo down, only trying to put it in perspective.

Also, a 35 percent loss is probably the least loss you can hope for. I use this figure (as does Ginseng) with the WA ratings and re-rating formulas, and it led me to 520 lumens for a Tiger11. But I think that is still maybe a little high. Based on a lumens estimator box, and comparison to the SF M6, I think the Tiger11 on batteries that have been used for any length of time, is closer to 500 or slightly less lumens. So even 65 percent out the front is maybe a bit optimistic.

But as I said, that still means at least 325 lumens out the front for your combo, and that is just a whole lot of light. And I'm pretty sure that your batteries will be likely to be above 7.2 volts for a good part of the run. Not sure how far above, but still. In any case, I would be very surprised if this combo delivers more than 400 lumens. But again, that's a whole LOT OF LIGHT! People are too cavalier with tossing lumens figures around. Call it lumens-inflation, maybe, but whatever you call it, it's definitely a real phenomenon.

How does this compare to the variations using Fivemega's adapter and the various bulb combinations? Check out
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=814972&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

Js I appreciate your comments as I am new I read your posts deiligently. I was using the 35 percent because I had heard you and Ginseng had used it. Like I said I am new and dont have the test equipment nor time really. The were purely subjective. It does seem the output drops after a few minutes but it still is awfully white. I am aware of lumen or candlepower inflation (15 million candlepower thor?? yet the the smaller night suns on helicopoters are rated just a lil more than that and their output aint close to the same) I was not trying to be over zealous. I carefully chose this combination based on run time, output and stability. I was wanting something in the
area of a mag 1160 in output/ stability but with a smaller size. I think I may have succeded. I do appreciate all input or suggestions.

Jerimoth I have not tried the the standard head mods thought I plan too in the near future. I used the ultrastinger bulb untill I got some 1274's and it is a awsome.It does not have as much throw nor is it as bright.
Going by bulb manufactures rating the 1274 is 550 lumens and I beleive the US bulb is like 150. Being overdriven 1.2
volts should make it considerably brighter but still not up to the 1274. Like I said five megas adapters are great. I wish I had a couple more to play with.

I had a chance to look at an sl20x tonight and do a little more research. The hotspot is gawd awful brigther and a lot
smaller. It is definately a thrower. I had a littler more time, and fresher batteries.

This is most interesting! Will this mod work with pila 168a?
Where do you get the bulbs from? We have 3 stingers and an US and would definately be interested in this upgrade. After doing FiveMega's mod you just can not go back to the stock stinger.

Way to go Oklalawman! Keep us up to date on this.

I called Welch Allyn and asked about buying two or three 1274s. They didn't laugh but took my number and promised to call me back. Of course they never did. I have some of Jim's potted 1274s but no bare ones and I'm sure that Redbird and I aren't the only folks looking for them. Does anyone know of a source for small quantities? (Jim?)

Brightnorm

Light-edge.com has the bi-pin 1274's.

Brightnorm, Light Edge sells them in smaller quantities. http://www.light-edge.com

Currently the only potted ones are the 1185, but they are hoping to be able to bring us other WA bulbs with the PR base.

[ QUOTE ]
brightnorm said:
I called Welch Allyn and asked about buying two or three 1274s. They didn't laugh but took my number and promised to call me back. Of course they never did. I have some of Jim's potted 1274s but no bare ones and I'm sure that Redbird and I aren't the only folks looking for them. Does anyone know of a source for small quantities? (Jim?)

Brightnorm

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How many do you want, BN? PM sent.

This setup will only work with 18650 2400 mah. The pilas or other 2000 mah batteries dont have enough to drive it.
Besides I bought 4 unprotected cells and a smart charger for what two pila batteries cost. True if you dont stop using them when they begin to dim they may be toast but $14 a pair versus $62 a pair...hmmmm

I am wondering if this will work?

Mag2C + 2 16850 + PROTECTION MODULE FROM batteryspace.com

The module should fit inside the tube since 16850 is slim compared to the 2C tube.

Henry