modified my issued light

I got sick of putting 2 Ds in this light every other week so I modified it "abit". We had to carry it every morning to tech school down at keesler afb. When I got to ft meade we had to carry them durrying pt in the mornings. This would roll through batteries like crazy. I dont use it anymore, but I thought someone might get a kick out of it.
the inside
the cone

I pulled the guts out and used the hole that the switch was in to mount the new switch. I drilled a small hole in the center of the lense and glued the led in place. When I did it the first time I had two leds. One white and one red. I always got in troubble for being the only pearson with a red light so when it broke the first time I just used 1 white led. I threw out the Ds and replaced them with a single 9 volt. I played around a while trying to find the right current limiting resistor and I believe I ended up with a single 100ohm cheepie from radio shack. I used a lot of heat shrink as you can see, really helped hold it together. The led was 6 bucks at an electronics store down the street from keesler.

It didnt have to be bright enough to be really useable but it had to be bright enough to light up the cone so I didnt get in trouble. One 9 volt would last me about 10 months. I only used 2 9 volts while in tech school. I accidently left it on for a week and a half while on christmas vacation. It was still on and working when I got back. It wasnt as bright as new but still on. The lense broke one time when I threw the light at something. The light still worked but the led flops around un supported. It was a lot lighter too without the two d cells.

Neat idea. Another way would be use use a couple of Li AAs.

A couple of D to AA adapters and rechargeable batteries would keep it light and economical too.

-LT

badahab said:

...We had to carry it every morning to tech school down at keesler afb....

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DEJA VU...Man are you bringing back memories!!! I too had one of those lights (looks the same - I think I still have it somewhere!) that I had to carry "marching to school at Keesler AFB" (though it was in 1975-1976 during my Comm/Nav/Crypto schooling for the AF.)

We didn't do the battery mod as you did, but a friend and I put a slide switch and a green LED in ours. When we were marching we had to have the incandescent bulb on - but just prior to the execution command "Forward March" - we lit our little LEDs up and then slid the switch to light up the bulb when we started forward.

People around us asked what was with our flashlights. We told them that we had vacuum tubes in ours and they had to "warm up" first! Yeah, we got a lot of "those strange looks" after that answer - that was the best part!

Sick - rebellious type attitude/humor I guess - too much time on our hands and needed something to do. Oh yeah, we were the ones plugging capacitors into wall outlets and then running...(never got caught though!).

Ive thought about a lot of different ways I could make it better, but I dont use it at all anymore. I really just did what I could with what I could find at the time. Im just happy that it held together that long.

Keesler can definatly be a lot of fun if you make it a lot of fun. Too bad its all underwater now. I got out of there in FEB.
Some pics of keesler the other day that someone sent me.
http://www.badahab.com/katrina.htm

Sigman said:

Oh yeah, we were the ones plugging capacitors into wall outlets and then running...(never got caught though!).

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Wow, I thought I was slick when I thought of that in high school. Little did I know that you guys did the same thing a generation before! Too funny!!!

My old man used to say, "you do realize I've been there, done that, right?" What's old is new...

Adam

Sigman said:

Oh yeah, we were the ones plugging capacitors into wall outlets and then running...(never got caught though!).

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For those not in the know, what actually happens? I'm guessing a big bang and the power goes out.

If I'm seeing that picture correctly, you were carrying the legendary "Lackland Laser". Probably has sold more flashlights than any other in the world. Of course, it's complete crap in it's standard form- glad to see someone modded one.

About the last month of my tech school I took all of the guts out of mine and carried it in formation. Made it much lighter....although the lumen output was kinda lacking. I also used that cone to hold partially chewed gum for later consumption.

What can I say, I was barely 18 and a bit of a tard at the time.

Who knows, I might go buy a new one of those just to mod it.....the BX at Travis still sells them cheap.

Yep lackland laser it is. It was definatly one of the worst flashlights ive ever owned. Before I modded it I pulled everything out but the spring and droped in my 2aa mini mag light, fit just right with the spring. Every now and then though the lense would fold and the light would fall out, uh oh BUSTED. That little mag light has put up with so much abuse.

Caps... sometimes they explode sometimes they just get really hot and ooze stuff out the ends. Caps act as a short to ac, so its like hooking up a wire accross the wall plug.