12 lights - 2 days and 1 very tired old guy - Maglite Mania! 11:00 PM it's DONE!!!

Day two and the day isn't starting well at all. I woke up from a sound sleep with my wife calling my name. Then I heard the shower running. I panicked. She knows not to try to take a shower by herself. In my half sleep stupor, I immediately envisioned the worst (I'm a card carrying pessimist). I floundered around for my glasses and rushed to the shower. She's sitting down and wants me to wash her hair for her... right now!...

OMG, I had to do all this when I was a kid and my grandmother was bad, now.... well you just gotta love it or go crazy.

I didn't get to the garage till about 11 AM and all of a sudden I'm way behind. Behind the 8 ball and the next shooter is a champion at 8 ball!

Later on I will produce some more photos of the build, that is if I can get my wits together. I'm supposed to be reflowing this morning and already got the heebie jeebies from the early morning fun!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 AM - Behind already. Time to reflow those nasty little stars.

s1

First I have to flow solder on the stars. They are bare stars. I am running at about 600 degrees F. I use just a tiny bit of solder and just touch it to the pads.

w1

I use these tweezers to hold the leds and move them. It's nerve wracking with these tiny things and I'm doing 12 of them? Who the hell thought this up?

q1

Sitting on a star waiting to be reflowed. I turn my iron up to 790 degrees F, for the heating of the star. I dab some solder on the iron and hold it against the underside. It takes all of about 4 to 8 seconds to heat the star. I wait till the led sucks down fully and evenly on the star.

z1

11:45 AM - Stars are done. Move on old man, time's a wasting!

Heat sinks all need to be drilled. I'll just save time and "do them by eye". Yep, you know how that's going to turn out. After three f*&%$# bad holes, it's time to mark them all. I have to drill them at an angle, so the wires are on the inside of the center post. It's nerve wracking with a hand drill.

x1

1:00 PM - Heat sinks are finally drilled. A couple are off, but still workable. It will have to do. They're functional and time's a wastin! Especially when it's lunchtime! What, you say? Lunch? Dammed right!

2:00 PM Back from lunch. Lunch for the wife I mean, you didn't think it was for my lunch.

2:30 PM - Put all the stars on the heat sinks with AA.

c1

3:00 PM - Done - As I said, some of the holes are a little off, but it works and the wires go in. Ready to wire them up.

3:30 PM - Had to break, to check on the household. Now it's time to start soldering. I'm looking at it all and the time and I'm gettin very nervous. That doesn't help when you're wiring.

e1

Leads Cut.

r1

Positive contacts have to have a drop of solder on them.

d1

Pre-soldering sub-assemblies is done. Ready to start putting them to the stars.

4:00 PM - Starting to solder the leads.

f1

I solder the ground inside the center post and then to the star.

g1

I double check each one for continuity.

BUT - I didn't bother to do something did I? I didn't test out all the stars to see if the leds work! Damn, here I go again. Hurry up and rig up two AA batteries, to test each star! Know what? One of them isn't working!!! Ratten frassen *$&#^@. Now I have to take it back off the heat sink and try to salvage it.

I found that one of the pads didn't settle right. I took the led and dabbed some solder right on the led pads as well as the star pads. I have seen problems with these Nichias before. Same issue, solder not sticking to the led pads. I even used flux on all these too. I fluxed them after the star pads were soldered, to help this issue. Well... 11 out of 12 is probably pretty good, for my soldering. Guess I should be glad, but time is slipping by, by ,by.

5:30 PM - Finally! The pills are all done and they all work!

v1

Now I can put a few lights together. The two Camo lights and the 5 lights with polished bezels can go together!

6:00 PM - 7 down and five to go.

h1

n1

Wrong camera for real beam shots, but they work!!!

Five more to go. I need to do some minor embellishments to these five, but it usually take me about 1-1/2 hours each to do that. I just haven't got time for that! I've got less than 5 hours left! Damn it's been touch and go all the way! I got to get back to it and try to knock them out! One slip and it will ruin one, so fast but perfect! Right!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11:00 PM and they are ALL DONE!!!!

I spent the last couple hours of the build polishing and filing on the last 5 lights.

end1

I cut grooves in the tail caps and polished the very ends. I also added copper rings to all five.

end2

For the bezel, I just flattened it and polished just the end. Kinda simple, but I was running out of time.

Here's some shots of all the lights.

a1

a2

a3

a4

a5

Here's beam shots of 15 degree, 30 degree and 45 degree TIR optics.

151

15 degree at 6 feet.

301

30 degree at 6 feet

451

45 degree at 6 feet

152

15 degree at 20 feet

302

30 degree at 20 feet

452

45 degree at 20 feet

I really wasn't sure I could get this done in the time I had, which ended up being considerably less than 48 hours. I set the goal, to see if I could do it and just to give y'all a smile to see O-L bust his butt to get it done. I thought it would be a fun thread.

These are the lights I am offering for holiday sales. I am early for that, but I'm not a holiday guy anyhow. Never celebrated any holidays all my life, so it's better if I just do this now rather than later.

I will be putting up a sale thread in the next couple hours. Yes, it's late, but it gives some of the other countries a chance at one of these lights.

Thank you everyone for watching this thread. I hope you got a kick or a laugh out of it.

Components

3/4" and 5/8" Copper discs were from "bopper" on Etsy. I buy Copper Sheet there too.

TIR Optics come from CNQG. The 20mm diameter ones were used for the 2AA lights.

Solder from Radio Shack 60/40 with flux in the center.

Lights from Wal-Mart and hard to find lights from Zbattery.

Nichias and Stars from Illumination Supply.

A marathon!! 8)

Looking good, Justin!

Wow! You can do it OL!

So does this mean I need to be awake at midnight when they are posted? :P Nie work though.

This will definitely be going in the mod reference thread, old lumens can probably have a post all to himself tbh… :bigsmile:

fokin niiiiiiiiiiice :smiley:

Very cool!

O-L is a one-man MagModdingMachine !!!

Very nice.

Wife? Sleep? tsk, tsk, tsk… young whippersnapper just can’t handle it :wink:

If so, at least my chances are a bit better now!
Too bad they usually pop in the market just at the time when I’m in bed :bigsmile:

Slow down OL. I have sworn off buying any new lights until after the holidays and I want one of your Nichia 219 builds.

I will probably revive that Flaglite interest thread you posted a few weeks ago. Save your strength. :slight_smile:

Go O.L. Go, looking good!

Yep, he will probably post them up monday morning at 3 in the morning to make sure I don't get them all. ;) I'll admit I'm tempted by whatever he is doing with the greased lightning.

A mag light modding factory………. :slight_smile:

See the interest thread. Yes they will be sold. All 12 will be sold in the same thread, so there’s a better chance for people to get one.

Justin, you are a MODDING MACHINE!!! a danged maniac…but a MODDING MACHINE! :slight_smile:

You inspire us all. THANKS! Dan.

More photos in the OP.

Finished for tonight. The first 24 hours is declared dead and gone. I will go back to it tomorrow. Still got a lot to do, maybe too much.

Time waits for no man.

I am trying to put these lights out before the holidays. I figured people might want something like this for gifts, as they will use 2AA Alkalines and still be nice and bright. Plus they are built tough enough that they should last a good long while.

I just thought the reality build would be a little fun.