I have a cheap flashlight/ Lantern combo that is made by Garrity. I like that it switches to a lantern. I noticed that it has a 2 cell mag light type bulb in it. I was just wondering if I could swap this out for a Led bulb to make it brighter. It runs on 4 AA batteries. Any suggestions would be greatly apprecited.
thanks
Chad
With 4aa as your power source, you can use your average linear driver, such as those based on AMC7135 chips. You will have a wide range of current choices and single modes or multi modes, etc. As for the led, my personal recommendation would be a nichia 219. Use eneloop or another low self discharge ni-mh AA. I’d suggest powering the 219 at 1.2 amp or less and heatsink it well. The less you feed it the more efficient it is.
Sounds good. Have you got any practical tips on how to use a 219 in place of a standard krypton MagLite bulb?
Are the 4 AA batteries wired in parallel, 1.5 volts or series, 6 volts?
Good question MRsDNF, though it should be pretty easy to modify the arrangement.
As for an actual bulb swap, you should look into maglight led drop ins such as those made by maglight themselves, or terralux for instance. I didn’t realize you were looking for more of a plug and play solution.
To use the 219 in place of the bulb you would have to modify the light. Buy the 219 on a star and glue it to a piece of aluminum rod (or square stock) using thermal adhesive. The aluminum piece would be responsible for all of your heatsinking so hopefully your light would have some room for a decent chunk. This upgrade would involve soldering and some modifications to the light housing but it would get you one of the best led’s for color quality.
using an LED may be difficult
if that’s important to you.
I’ve used these in several small camping lights. They drop right in, are a bit brighter and drasticly increase runtime.
Mag lite style replacement led bulbs are available at Walmart for $2.50 mixed in with the flashlight replacement bulbs…brighter than Krypton and a lot longer runtime.