old school vs new school

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Toni found my 3d maglite recently, and I found it tonight :bigsmile: so I had to have a play. I had to take the bins out, a task that really requires no torches what so ever, but what the hell, I grabbed the maglite and my 2a u2 modded trustfire t1. It’s a like for like in that their both single mode, but the t1 is not a zoomy, I’ll try that another time.

My maglite has not been switched on for two years, the alkaline’s are older than that, it just about reached the church 200’ - 300’ away, the t1 lit the whole damm thing up, up close the t1’s hot spot is intense, but at that distance its huge.

Carrying wise they both slipped into my work pants screwdriver pocket, the mag bottoming out and the weight noticable, the t1 stopping at the head and with 2 18650’s, it was barely noticable.

Playing them about, the maglite has that familiar incan yellow glow, the t1 has a bright, white light. The mag gives easily enough light for my task, plenty of throw if you needed it, but you pay a penalty in the weight of 3 d cells. The t1 gives a possibly offensive amount of light - flashing it about could probably piss the neighbour’s off, and would certainly attract attention.

Defensively, ok the t1 has a bright light to stun someone and a crenelated bezel would spoil their day, but that weight I was complaining about before would probably break their arm or collar bone if you had too, and to be fair, I bet the damm thing would still be fine afterwards, the t1 may be worse for wear after using it as a blunt object.

If your honest, the t1 pretty much wins hands down, output, throw, convenience, its got the mag licked. However, the mag is just special. The iconic design, the solid construction. It’s timeless, and as the first torch I aspired to own, it was and still is all that it promised. What I really want to do now is stuff it with a pill, u2 emitter and 3 mode board, possibly some li-ions and drag it screaming and kicking into the new century. Till then it holds a warm spot in my heart that I don’t think any Chinese light could occupy.

Thanks for reading the incoherent ramblings of a smitten man, feel free to comment. :heart_eyes:

They make some nice drop=ins for the Maglites, but they will set you back $70 or so for a good one.
Might kick around the idea of the Showerhead drop-in for maglites. Lots and lots of flood…

There’s lots of good reads here & at C.P.F. about what you’d like to do.
Some require only a minimum amount of skill to complete.
Others aren’t particularly budget friendly, but you can achieve the desired results.
Old Lumens , Johnny Mac and others here have done some pretty amazing
things with a Maglite

Keep us up on your progress. We’ll be interested to see the results.

I still have my black 3D Mag beside my bed, I don’t have the heart to part with it. It was my second decent alloy light, the first was an older model 2D, blue and much thicker walls, really solid. An ex claimed that one when we separated, I was sorry to see it go :wink:

The only thing that stopped me upgrading mine was the cost, which I think is utterly ridiculous considering what you can buy in a complete Chinese light for a third of the price. New LED Mags are now cheaper than the drop ins here. Sad, it seems such a waste.

I wonder though, when the zombie apocalypse comes, and after all the EMP’s go off, which light will still work?

I’ve looked at a few mods, it’d be a long term project but I like the pill mod that comes up when you google 3d mag mods

I can live without the volt monitor and wiith access to a lathe and a father who’s a tool maker machining a pill should be achievable, we shall see :bigsmile:

Yes, I remember seeing that mod, and a couple of similar ones, when I first started getting interested in high output lights. Looks like a fun project. I have an old watchmakers lathe I bought at an auction years ago which would do the job nicely. If I had done this mod a couple of years ago, I would have been pretty happy, but there are so many good cheap lights around now. Hmmm, decisions, something I am not good at

I agree, an xintd c8 or uf-980l would be cheaper easier to carry, likely brighter and less effort. But that’s not the point, I don’t think you mod a maglight because it makes sense, just like you don’t drop a monster engine in a family car because it makes sense, you do it for the unexpected “wow factor” you do it for fun. :bigsmile:

When I get my shed up and have a proper workshop I might get around to it, for now I don’t fancy getting swarf and cutting oil all over the kitchen table :slight_smile:

Cheers bob, its filed away as a future project, going to lay in some supplies over the next couple of months, one thought I did have was that a 3d Maglite battery bay is like an aircraft hanger compared to 18650’s, so perhaps there is scope to make a 3p 18* delrin battery holder, obviously this means you wouldn’t need a buck driver, you could just use a kd 3a 17mm driver. Or am I over thinking things?

Keep us updated, a 3p battery holder would be awesome. I would buy one. :slight_smile:

Since 26650s are sleeved into a d cell mag, maybe it could be made to carry them, I’d have to do some measuring, but surely you’d gain by not shedding the voltage down as heat, although there must be a reason no ones done it before? :8)

I believe it has been done on cpf just not in a maglite. I may be wrong though.

If someone can machine an aluminum pill, I’m sure they could turn and mill a delrin rod, then its just 3 negative copper/brass tabs with springs soldered on, 3 positive’s with dimples hammered in and 4 pieces of cable (two neg, two pos) its hardly rocket science, there just must be a reason for not having done it, I’m just buggered if I can think of that reason, if you had 3 4000mah 26650’s in parallel, does that not mean you actually end up with a 12000mah pack, capable of delivering at least six amps? It sounds good to me but its all pie in the sky at this point.

I guess the reason is that noone ever had the idea before. I mean, parallel lights havent been that famous.. buttload of serial setups but only a handful of parallel.

It’s hardly ground breaking though, hell it hit me while I was feeding my two month old (only other distraction was big brother on tv, I hate big brother so my mind could wander) plus in a typical light, there’s barely the room for the cells, like I said, the mag body is an aircraft hanger in comparison, considering everything else, I can’t see why its not been tried, it simplifies the driver choice/issues, reduces the driver heat since your nearer the emitters voltage level and you increase the power pack capacity if I remember right, parallel add the mah together, series the mah remains the same as one cell but the voltage increases so current halves.

Must find delrin and ally now, I have access to a machine shop, tool makers and my dads boss is one hell of a clever bloke that specializes in precision engineering, so this should all be doable. I just need to convince toni that I should buy some material, have a day off and spend it in a workshop playing with torches……one day should see a d mag pill, mini mag pill, mini mag head bored and the battery pack machined………I’m sure she’ll understand 0:)

Hasn’t been done publicly because it’s too easy to just make them in series. No reason it wouldn’t work and work well. 3 18650 cells is a 3D mag is still a tight fit lengthwise but I’m sure it’s doable.

I was wondering about that, may have to be **500 or less……

It’s still a concept so far, till I drop a steel rule down and spend some time with a sketch book and/or some material, who knows….

3 of the 18650 batteries would fit in a 3D with a shortened spring and possibly having to open the ID of the tail cap and move the spring in deeper, but it would fit. With 26650 batteries, you couldn’t have them extend into the tail cap area. They would fit, but just barely.

That doesn’t allow for how much room would be needed between batteries for the springs and tabs to hold them in. I would say that making a holder to fit would be a real challenge as far as overall length. Just measure the OAL of your 3D from the switch to just before the threads in the body first. A holder can’t go past the threads, so that’s the limiting factor of length.

Parallel can be done and yes it increases the ma, not the V. Only problem would be is if one cell shorted. It might draw the other batteries down really fast, as in too fast. Of course there can be problems in series too, so that’s a mute point. I would want to use a good set of matched batteries for parallel. Ones that draw the same amps or as close as possible.

I was wondering that ol, might be necessary to go either 2p 26****/18**** and make a more substantial battery holder or 3p 18/26,500 or 350. Who knows, who cares? It’ll be a fun project either way.

Cains IPA, looks like you had en enjoyable evening, on a school night too…. :wink: