About a month ago a BLF member contacted me and asked me to build a micro mag thrower to complement his rather floody triple Nichia 219 micro. To be honest my first thought was that it couldn't be done. The truth turned out to be that it couldn't be done...easily. Some builds are pretty easy in that the same old techniques and parts are used. In those cases it's just a matter of going through the motions without screwing anything up too badly or burning my elbow on the iron again.
We're only dealing with about 0.8" of available vertical space inside the mag head so each component must be as short as possible. The plan was to use a short aluminum heatsink hollowed out to accept a 17mm driver topped with a dedomed XP-G2 and a 20 mm reflector. Flashlightlens.com supplied a rather skinny AR coated lens. I intended to use Wight's single sided FET driver so a noctigon was a must-use item. All sort of went to plan in that I could tell that it was going to work but the build fought me the whole way.
First I ran short of alcohol for the post-dedome dip and forgot to put the cap on the jar. The end result was a layer of krudge angling in a diagonal fashion right across half the phosphor layer. Perfectly functional, nice tint, and fugly as heck. Fortunately RMM ships fast and I had a new emitter in a few days. I won't list the other bits of folly as they're just things that happen to everyone. On with the pics.
The basic parts of the innards.
The reflector is the 20mm x 13mm OP unit from Fasttech. I needed to reduce the height of the reflector while simultaneously finding optimal focus and centering the emitter. The trick with this reflector was to file the back riser flat, angle the square edges to clear the wires, drill the hole to XM-L size, and shorten an XM to XP adapter to achieve perfect focus.
The driver is glued to the plastic insulator ring inside the pill shown in the first photo. I think the final stack looks kinda pretty!
The stack is finally installed.
I'm fairly pleased with the function of this light. The beam is well focused, and has a pleasing neutral white tint. The light draws 4.5 amps off an IMR 14500 cell. The question now is does the final product qualify as a thrower? The pic below shows the beam profile of this light next to the Fenix TK41. I'll leave it up to the reader to tell which is which!
Sweeeeeeeet. This will be a little brother to my rather floody triple xpl micro beast. Wow, it looks like a thrower to me! I am super excited. Thanks for all of your hard work on this one!
Each time you post a new build thread, I have another light to add to the wish list. Keep up the awesome work. Can not wait to see my builds completed.
-I'm shipping this light tomorrow but I'll try to get some beamshots tonight. If it's still snowing after dark it may not look like much... or it could be awesome!
-I use incan mini mags for my builds. They're half the cost of the LED version and just look nicer in the 1AA format.
-I've tried a couple methods of making the pill tight to the head but the best method I've found is to wrap the pill with strips of aluminum soda can till it's a very tight press fit. Sunkist works best because it tastes best. Usually only one wrap does it. It's not an elegant solution but owners my builds will tell you the thermal connection is very good.
- BigC, my local Walmart has a couple 3AA LED minimags up on a high shelf for something like $22. I'm guessing they'll never be rid of them.
I also get the incan versions. I’d rather do a mod than spend the extra$. If added depth is needed then after boring the inside to ~20mm you can cut the head below the bezel threads and add in a section of DIY fins. I’ve only needed to do this on AAA minis but it looks good. Pairing an aspheric lens with a AA host might require this to gain the depth needed for square die focus but I haven’t tried that mod yet.
I sell most of the lights I build to fund more flashlight modding. I did mod one of the 3AA minimags for 3 nimh and XM-L but couldn't sell it until I made a shorty out of it. Hmm, maybe if I made one into a 3s triple XP-L run off 3s 14500?
I want a 3aa mag but there over $40 on eBay
Nice build i am going to guess the beam on the left is the new build while the beam on the right is the fenix…?
I scrapped a Nitecore P10 and used the bezel and reflector on a mini mag with a 12v XML2 5500K, it throws a little more then the p12 now i just need to get someone to anodize the bezel blue for me.
i just need to get someone to anodize the bezel blue for me.