Mag951 fit for duty !

Geddinight

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I have recently changed my primary duty light back to a Mag. A very special Mag too. A Mag951 made by Juancho. I got it for my birthday from my girlfriend last month. Since that time I have tested it in the field and am declaring it a winner.

I read some posts on other forums where Juancho posts his Mag modifications for sale. I sent a downpayment in September and waited for my girlfriend to ask me what I wanted for my birthday coming up in October. I ordered extra batteries so I would always have a set ready. I got the charger as well. I began my tests. The Mag951 was bright, but would it hold up I wondered. My biggest concern was runtime. Juan promises 30 minute runtime in his posts. He delivered 40 minutes! I am impressed. It really lights up the dark. I have never had a brighter flashlight.

Juan's build is top notch. I knew the Maglight was solid to begin with and the components Juan uses are the best. I would recommend this light to any LEO who can afford it.

Juan has a fantastic customer service attitude. I had a few questions after recieving the light and he sent me detailed and easy to understand instructions which included photos. There was a slight issue and he took care of it almost immediately with much more than I would have ever expected. He is pleasant to deal with and a real gentleman.

I am very pleased with this light and the fact that it seems very capable for use on duty.
 

pero

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im sorry to be a wet blanket, but i have to say this...

the person who you refer to as juancho is basically using what others have done and calling it something else to make it seem new. The so called Mag951 is basically a Mag85, and most of the posts i see in your thread is all marketing fodder to the brain. No doubt he has excellent service.
 
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juancho

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Pero,



It is evident that you are quite unaware that there are several MAG 85 versions running around that have nothing to do with my light.



We have the very popular 2 D, 8 battery version which outputs about 600 lumens; we also have a 3 D version with 9 batteries running on Electrolumen's first adaptors with high resistance (that is also a 600 lumen light); we have the Magcharger bi-pin modification with the smoke issues, as well as others. So I would prefer not to call my light a MAG 85 and throw it in the diverse pile of those lights.



I build them with ceramic sockets, modified switches, polished switch internals parts, Pro-Gold on contacts, the best reflectors, lenses, modified carriers, and batteries available, and all with watchmaker precision.



It seems you have a problem with my advertising practices in THR thread, as you call them a "fodder for the brain."



I have been building my lights for over a year with 77 of them in my customers' hands and never with a single problem.

I have been in CPF since February 2004 with 1280 threads, and never have had the motive nor the desire to trash someone else's thread and reputation or make a personal attack such as yours.



This is a forum of gentlemen, where we meet to learn and share information, and to which I can proudly say I have contributed a substantial amount.



Perhaps, since you have only been in the forum for 3 months and with only 29 posts, you are not yet familiar with the way things are run here in CPF. You have openly come to thrash another person's thread, whose only intention was to promote the quality of the product and to express his admiration and contentment with the light. This is showing a lack of respect towards fellow forum members, which is a betrayal of the trust given to you in membership.



I hope you will see your error in your actions and be more respectful of fellow forum members and their threads in the future.



Sincerely,

Juan C.
 

onlinewarlord

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I am another of Juancho's happy customers.

Call it a Mag951 or a Mag85, either way it's an awesome light.

To anyone that is not ready to build their own Mag85 the 951 is where it's at.

I was looking for a completely assembled super bright light at a time when Juancho was providing just that.
  • Packaged like a pro from start to finish.
  • Detailed posts describing the light and it's capabilities.
  • A fast answer for every question I had along the way.
  • Printed instructions / warnings included with the light.
  • Top notch service.
  • And most importantly a flawless, super bright light, right out of the box!
 

NextLight

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I'm an Electrical Engineer (by education) and a QA/Test Engineer in practice, but I am still tempted by Juancho's Mag951. One can have an engineering degree, spend a LOT of money on parts, waste months waiting for a dozen builds & group buys, meanwhile scouring CPF, e-mailing, eBaying, & PayPal-ing for hundreds of hours, and still have less output and far less usability & reliability than users apparently get from a Mag951...for less $$ than I paid for one Surefire that still costs me $20/hour to run.

Heck, I paid almost $300 JUST FOR ONE SET OF BATTERIES, for ONE light last month, to get 880 net lumens for 45 minutes.

Q: Do you need the learning, a big time hobby, or just an exceptional light for frequent professional use?

Juancho & the Mag951 look like a real pro deal to me, whether or not one reads his full bibliography.
 

litho123

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Congratulations to all of you that have purchased one of Juancho's lights. In addition to buying a great product, you have had the opportunity to befriend a person who has worked very hard to establish an outstanding, helpful reputation both here at CPF and in other forums.

Pero -
Sorry to be your wet blanket but Juancho doesn't promote or advertise his lights here on CPF (that I've seen) but has pursued a tough, non-flashaholic market on other forums and been very successful at it. He has also been very helpful with new folks here on CPF. He has also been helpful with field-testing new products/items, sometimes bringing to light potential problems which get discussed behind the scenes until they are made right.

Quality and Reputations are earned the old fashioned way - one satisfied customer at a time. Juancho is one of those who has accumulated a stellar record.


My apologies to Geddinight for getting a bit off topic. I'm off my soapbox now.
 

Geddinight

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No apology needed litho123. I liked what you said.

It's nice to see other great praise for Juancho and his products. In my book he earned it. If I really like the product and/or the service, I am inclined to write a letter to the company or the individual's boss. An aquaintance owns a computer store. He provides me with excellent products and service. I wrote him his first letter and he hung it on his wall. It was the first letter his year old business had gotten. Now there are several on his wall. He deserves them. Juancho earned and deserves my praise.

I'm fairly new to CPF, not flashlights. Juancho's Mag951 is first rate as I have already stated. I want to share my opinion with people who read and post on CPF. I am a 20+ yr LEO. I want especially to share with any other LEOs what I have found and experianced.
 

pero

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i shall be very frank here.. as u pointed out, im just a newbie, i got nothing to lose at all.


Bragging that your light is the most powerful in the world has failed to impress me. Whether it is true or not i cannot care less. I for one cannot tolerate over exaggeration of marketing talk.

Juancho since you have taken this to a personal level by saying i have a motive/desire to trash your thread and reputation or make a personal attack, i feel i have to defend myself.


Firstly, 3 months ain't exactly a newbie. I quote you:

"Perhaps, since you have only been in the forum for 3 months and with only 29 posts, you are not yet familiar with the way things are run here in CPF."

maybe it will take you longer than 3 months to familiarise yourself with a simple forum, but im sorry, im not that dumb thank you very much. low posts only mean that i read the forums passively, doesnt mean i dont know anything. just because im a newbie doesnt mean you can push me over like this. if you read carefully, my post does not harbour any ill about you or your products. its most likely that you have misinterpreted my post, despite probably having a higher understanding in English than i do. Point out what part is offensive to you and i shall explain it slowly in simple english for you if thats what you need.


I quote you:
"I have been in CPF since February 2004 with 1280 threads"

er ok... good for you. Being in this forums long with lots of posts prove nothing. a fine example would be Sslavers, who cheated 2 people out of USD170 despite having 378 posts and being in CPF since june 2003 and praised by many reputable members in CPF.



I can be more offensive if i want to, but i will decide not to. I believe this to be a slight misunderstanding, and i hope this will be settled in an amicable way. But if you are still to continue to call me a " betrayer of the trust given to me in membership" and still try to push yourself into the I-am-right-you-are-wrong status by saying things like "
I hope you will see your error in your actions and be more respectful of fellow forum members and their threads in the future." , i will not hold back.


ps: if anyone is going to flame me on how poor my english is or whatever, please do note, ive never bragged on my command of this language.
 

NotEnoughLight

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Gentlemen, this thread was originally started by Geddinight to announce his joy in finding a light which suits his needs when he is on duty. Let us not proceed further in the discussion of how long it takes for a newbie to mature or how much a mag 951 or mag 85 should cost. As for the price of the lights, let the free market decide, shall we?
 

AndrewL

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I've just come across these lights on britishblades (search for posts by black bear) I got help from this guy when I was modding my bike lights to give a similar output and requiring help on the powersupply. This help was given when he knew it wouldn't help him make any sales.
I think Cones is doing a review and I look forward to reading it becasue I'm a bit of a geek and find it interesting.
 

Luna

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suits his needs when he is on duty.

I have issues with a 1185 based light being used as a duty light. They are not the most dependable (mine decided to vent a few Energizer2500s just the other day and we won't speak of instaflash)
 

litho123

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I see this thread heading in the wrong direction, away from its intended purpose. I have a suggestion Pero – why not take your comments offline and PM Juancho to discuss them. I would hope that the two of you can still respect each other when all is said and done. Thanks!



To expound further on "name calling" so to speak, the modded Mag with an 1185 bulb has been called many things over the years…Here are a few that I can recall…


Mag85 (back when this bulb was driven off of twin stacks of Lithium 123 batteries)
Mag85-R (used to mean rechargeable a few years ago, will now resurface to mean REGULATION)
Mag85-BP (modded with a plastic MagCharger bi-pin slug, the one that had all those "smoking/melting" problems
Juancho has his Mag951
Fivemega has several lights using the 1185 bulb in different body sizes naming them the xxx-L (I assume L is for Li-Ion based lights)
I'm sure I've forgotten to name a few.



Luna -
Re: insta-flashing issues ... regulation will be the solution for that. Regulated Kiu/awr sockets are being field tested as we speak - in fact juancho will be receiving one of the prototypes in a few weeks to help debug it (torture test it) before it is released to the CPF community at large. As I said before, there are a lot of things which happen behind the scenes to help make great ideas a reality.


RE: Energizers, I personally have not been fond of their products over the years. Maybe it's because I hate their wabbit. :laughing: At least batteries are easily replaceable.
 

Luna

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litho123 said:
Luna -
Re: insta-flashing issues ... regulation will be the solution for that. Regulated Kiu/awr sockets are being field tested as we speak - in fact juancho will be receiving one of the prototypes in a few weeks to help debug it (torture test it) before it is released to the CPF community at large. As I said before, there are a lot of things which happen behind the scenes to help make great ideas a reality.


I've been watching the progress on the reg circuit (though it has been tempting to do it myself)

I hope they include a multivoltage swich so that the 9cell pack can be used to drive a 1111 or 1160 for instance. I still don't like the 1185s life (battery and bulb longevity) in a hotwire configuration even with softstart in place.
 

dougmccoy

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I have read and re-read Juancho's post and can't find anything which could have required such a touchy retort as Pero's!

I believe very sincerely that reputations are like respect and have to be earnt? In this regard Juancho/Black Bear has by his dealings and manner on CPF/ British Blades gained my repect and I've not yet bought any of his products and so don't feel I could be called particularly biased?

Membership of CPF, is to me at least, a privilage. I have seen a great comarardarie from people from all types of background and of all types of ability on this forum and I would agree with Juancho that Pero's post was ungentlemanly and provocative?

I wish that I was in a position to buy one of Juancho's products because I believe that he is providing members of this forum who may lack the ability (or in my case the necessary time to collect the appropriate parts together easily) to make great products.

I only hope that Juancho hasn't been too offended by this unwarranted, and may I say uncharacteristic attack by another member of CPF.

Doug
 

vontech

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litho123 said:
As I said before, there are a lot of things which happen behind the scenes to help make great ideas a reality.

Litho,

Tremendous information, well presented -- Nice to see some POSITIVE information in a thread that has otherwise gone ugly.

Thanks for representing the kind of CPF member I have come to respect so much!

Tom
 

pero

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dougmccoy said:
I have read and re-read Juancho's post and can't find anything which could have required such a touchy retort as Pero's!

I believe very sincerely that reputations are like respect and have to be earnt?

Membership of CPF, is to me at least, a privilage. I have seen a great comarardarie from people from all types of background and of all types of ability on this forum and I would agree with Juancho that Pero's post was ungentlemanly and provocative?

I only hope that Juancho hasn't been too offended by this unwarranted, and may I say uncharacteristic attack by another member of CPF.

Doug


Dear Doug,

your comments are obviously VERY BIASED against me. you re-read juancho's post over and over again and cant find why i replied him? why not do this. re-read my first post and find for anything which could have required such a touchy retort as juancho's.


this is not a bloody attack on any other member. for goodnesssake CPF, grow up. i cannot believe that you guys took offence at my post which had no ill intentions, and after that, calling me bad names and refusing to look at MY point of view. are you all that stuck up that if Juancho is a veteran here and im just a newbie, juancho must be right?


Doug, i dont know who you are. But one things for sure. I AM offended by YOUR unwarranted, and may I say uncharacteristic attack by you.
 

Somy Nex

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Dude, Pero,

this thread is OT enough as it is already :tsk: take it to PMs or the underground. :thumbsdow

back OT, thanks for your informative and useful story Geddinight :goodjob: . I've seen Juancho's lights before on the other forums, and though they have sparked my interest, I've still been sitting on the fence. Your experience has pushed me that little bit closer to getting one of his lights... as soon as my wallet allows of course :)

p.s. i would love to see some beamshots if you got some ;)
 
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