Hi all, i have now completed my first flashlight mod ever, using a 2d maglite as the host and adding an MT-G2 driven at about 3 amps. I know i could drive it a lot harder but this being my first mod I decided to run a lower current until i get used to how hot these things get. I opted for a design where i could make up a couple pills and pull them and drop them in tool-free and i think it turned out pretty good.
I started with the battery tube. It is made of 4 3/4” slip X male threaded PVC pipe fittings, with the points filed down to make it fit snugly into the tube. 1.375 is the ID of the mag tube, so not much has to be removed.
2 of these fittings fit an LG chem 18650 I had lying around that I borrowed from an apple ibook with a blown hard drive. These are unprotected flat top cells. I would use some 26650s but that’s more money than a broke 17 year old has to spare.
The heatsink was made by my lifelong machinist uncle, in his shop which has not been used for more than an odd job in about 6 years. We haven’t bought any cutters for the lathes in about as long so the machining was done with worn out tools, it still turned out pretty good though.
(overkill much? lol its actually not chucked, just sitting in it. The tube is too small for that chuck and the bent rod is an abomination of a chuck wrench)
I have fully potted the zener modded Qlite driver from Mountain electronics (great store btw) in JB weld.
The pill is a tight sliding fit in the tube. Tight enough that it wont fall out under it’s own weight, but loose enough that you can (if you try hard enough) pull it out barehanded.
The lip machined around the edge keeps it from falling too far.
This is what the inside of the tube looks like
The abrasions in the anodizing were from me aborting the idea of sanding it down inside for a better ground. the spring i had laying around and it has some copper braid stuffed in it.
Well that’s pretty much it, the emitter star is being held on by Arctic Silver, and i already have the tailcap spring modded for when i use the 18650s that i have on the way.
Beamshots are coming as soon as i work out all the reflector kinks, and find my standalone camera. Sorry for the poor iphone photos, but its the best i have right now and a lot of this was built at too late o’clock during exam week, so poor photos are to be expected.
My uncle also agreed to make more of those heatsinks, and even some in copper to sell if anyone is interested.I just need a reason to justify buying a couple hundred dollars worth of machine tools lol.
Hope you like it ! Thanks for reading.