Flood to Throw?? Mini Maglite? Well, it's....... done.

I have played with aspherics in the 2AA Mini Mags, but I never really liked the means or the results. Finally I decided to back up a little and figure a new way to get a good heat sink and still be able to adjust flood to throw, with the head.

ftt1

I decided that I would go ahead and put the heat sink in the body and have the LED sit on the top of the body. Since I have been doing lights where they would work with one 14500, why not go ahead and make a heat sink instead of a dummy cell. Here I have a 3/8" copper end cap with two 3/8" copper couplings. They come out just about the right length for a heat sink. I also have a piece of 1/2" aluminum rod to put inside, instead of messing with all that copper shot and solder.

ftt2

This mess contains the copper end cap, copper couplings, the aluminum inside and a nickel silver top spacer. I figured I would show you what the solder job really looked like, before I clean it up. I hardly ever show the ugly stuff.

ftt3

Here it is after cleaning it up.

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The heat sink in place. The top nickel silver round is there to give a flush surface for the LED/star to sit on.

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The positive terminal inside the body, is a plastic bushing and another nickel silver round.

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The positive goes thru the heat sink. The negative is sandwiched in between the heat sink and the underside of the body's top lip where the stock negative contact would touch. The right side photo is just the heat sink inside the body.

ftt9

With the aspheric lens on.

ftt10

I still have to put the tail switch in.

I thought I would go ahead and show some beam shots. I am using a Nichia LED on this. It's what I had. I would use an XR-E, but I don't have any, so the Nichia is it.

fttb1

I don't think I have to tell you which one is flood and which one is throw. This shows the extent of travel with the twist in/out of the head. This is only a 20mm lens (well 23mm, but the bezel covers some of it).

fttb2

Flood shot along the side of the house.

fttb3

fttb4

2 shots of how it throws. I have not tried long distance, but I feel it will not go much past about 100 yards and it will not be really bright until a 14500 is put in it.

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That's all for now. Once I get the switch done, I will show some shots of that.

The switch is done. Weird, but done.

ftt2a

I just used two drills to open up the tail cap. One for the button and the other for the switch body.

ftt2b

I have no idea what this is, but it is what it is. I guess I could say it's left this way to protect the button. It's strange, but I'm leaving it that way.

The light is done.

This is really cool. Nice work!

Do you have to turn it many times (as in a stock MiniMag) to go from flood to throw?

Yes. It turns from all the way down, to where it almost exposes the “O” ring, so it’s just about full extent from flood to throw.

That Mini Mag is lookin' pretty sweet, Old-Lumens! :love:

Awesome work O-L! I especially enjoyed the before/after clean-up shots. :slight_smile:

Damn, you’re right. We are thinking along similar lines. Nice work. I’ll have to soup up my ride to the patent office.

OL..... Some days you scare me a little.... other days A LOT!!!! Thats nothing less than COOL! I just wish I had half...or would actually settle for 25% of your creativity. !!! The beam shots are stunners. That piece sure cleaned up nice!!! NICE MOD!!!

Dan.

Very neat stuff!

Longest . Heatsink . Ever .

that is pretty dam cool

Well, RBD, the truth is that anything any of us do, has probably been done before, especially if you do a search on CPF. There’s nothing new under the sun and many times I think I have a “new idea”, only to do some searching and find out that it has already been done. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but there’s only so many ways to skin a cat. It’s just like the mod to the Solitaire you did, with the brass for a heat sink, fantastic approach there! Everyone has their own style and that’s what it’s about. I have no problem if someone else tries something I do, because to me, that means someone else is now modding and that’s what it’s all about. I don’t worry about possibly copying someone else either, if they post it on the internet for all to see, then it usually means they want to share and help to give others “new ideas”. I think whatever you do will be different than I, even if it’s along the same lines and you do some great stuff in the way of modding.

Awesome little light, Old! Nice work on that heatsink, it sure cleaned up nice n’ pretty.

OL, you are an inspiration to all of us! THANKS!!! Dan.

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OL, you are an inspiration to all of us! THANKS!!! Dan.
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OL. I agree with Texas here wholeheartedly but would like to add that some days you confuse the c-----p out of me a lot. Dear wheres the Bex.

Wife responds. ''I wish you would stop reading OL threads. You know it does this to you everytime. One day you'll have a heart attack trying to work out what he's doing. Now get of before it kills you''.

Ok dear just 5 more minutes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my heart??????????


This is just one of the topics from Old-Lumens responsible for: me getting mini malite the other day :) Their incandescent bulb sucks (I am tempted to insert one 14500) and that's why I ordered 10mm XP-G R5's I just need to find driver and put that thing together :D

I’m minded of Harvey Korman and Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles, all I can say is “Ditto”. The patent office thing was just a nod to the coincidence of us working on the same idea at the same time.

Ha! Rufus, you're like I was a few weeks back when I put that little light on here (still not finished) that I was making in a two piece body instead of our normal 3 or 4 piece... That same day I found a post where MRs DNF had just finished one!! That is an odd feeling!! Like OL said... it's hard to do something that someone else hasn't already done!

Dan.

Just beautiful. Love how you think. The beamshots show a great result from a great idea. Well done.

Aww, Blazing Saddles. A great movie in which I acted. Good times were had on that set with the rest of the famous people with which I co-starred. * Reminisces *

(Had to do it)

Without trying to hijack OL thread anymore, I love it how we all feed of each others ideas. A bit like a dirty pond full of piranhas. No more from me. Carry on with this amazing mod OL. Cheers.