I was hoping to get some beamshots at longer range tomorrow night, but apparently the place I was planning to go would involve walking over a mile in chest deep snow (There is 1.5 metres of the stuff). So as a consolation prize I'll give you something to snigger at. A local electrical store had 2D Mags on clearance for £7.47 (US$11.88) which is incredibly cheap for a Maglite here - full price is about 3x that much.
Not that I needed another Maglite - I already own 2 6D's, a 3D, a 2D and a 3AA Mini Maglite (Luxeon 3). I used to own more 3AA ones but one of my neighbours was having grief from a stalker who was escaping through my garden. Watching the K9 unit struggling with incandescent mini-maglites (The local cops only issue AA batteries) was just too painful to watch so I gave away all but one of the 3AA minis.
Well, I now own two more 2Ds. All I have to do now is think of a use for them.
Most of my Mags have ROP bulbs in them but i thought I'd put them back to stock and take some beamshots. All of them except the 2D which is brand new have metal reflectors and have had assorted fixes to lower internal resistance, i.e., they are all a bit brighter than stock Mags. I even dragged out the totally unused spare bulbs from the tailcaps so all of them are using brand new stock Mag bulbs. All of them are focussed as tightly as I can get them to - I'll do one pic of a defocussed one just to show how ugly a beam can get. Then I'll do some beamshots with assorted mods.
It started to rain or there would have been more pics, but rain is bad for cameras and freezing rain is bad for me as well as cameras...
Well, let's start with wall shots.
2D 3D 6D 3AA About 3" from wall
About 6" from wall
Ceiling shot (About 8' / 2.5m)
Outside - at which point it started to rain.
Control
2D
You can see the hole in the beam even at tightest focus, just below the first brownish knot in the tree trunk. Maglite beams are UGLY!
3D
6D
3AA LED (Luxeon 3 - i.e., hopelessly obsolete)
ROP High
Just how huge a 6D is:
Fizzy weighed 49kg today (110lb) and that's a 2 seater settee.
Wow, this really convinces me of the reasons why I prefer budget Chinese LED flashlights. They are cheaper, more functional, and more practical. And that 6D Mag is the most ridiculously long flashlight I've ever seen, they should require an Mag Operator's License to carry that thing. Thanks a lot for the interesting shots! Are Maglites still made in the U.S.A?
I used to have the 3AAA Magled......i loved it til my cousin came over one weekend and begged for it. When the family and i go too walmart i still check out the light, still wanting another i guess. 6D's are nice, bright and long and can be used as a defensive weapon if need be from an attacker.
I've seen adverts for side handles for Mag 6Ds so they can be used as batons. The bulb tends not to survive such usage though. But if you must use a torch as a weapon, a 6D is better than most - especially when filled with heavy rechargeable D cells. According to the packaging on the latest ones, they are still made in the US. I've never seen the C cell Maglites on sale here, it has always been the Ds - in fact, I've never seen a C Maglite except in pictures. In fact, C batteries in general seem to be a minority thing here.
It is often said that AA cells are the world's most ubiquitous - I'm still not convinced, in my limited experience of really poor places, the only batteries that could be had were carbon-zinc Ds.
Will go for some comparison shots of assorted mods, I have an ROP low, a 9AA-3D adapter with a 12V 20W bulb in it (Which doesn't work all that well) and whatever else I can find knocking around - I have an LED bulb for a 2D that should run for ever. On 4,000mAh NiCd Ds it would run continually for over a week. With the 8000mAh cells I have now, that'd be 2 weeks - and 2 weeks of useful light at that.
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j282/dulridge/Maglites/DSC_0006.jpgGot a bipin bulb adaptor, the simpler alternative to modding a Mag switch and trying to find a high temperature socket. Since I’ve never got around to getting an WW1185 bulbs, I took a 12V 20W bulb intended for my desk lamp. I have a 3D-9AA adapter so put the whole lot together. The battery adapter cost more than the liight - I never spend more than a tenner (US$16) on a Maglite. So here it is
The head with a too long 12V 20W bulb - this is pushing it for 9 NiMH cells. Maybe 9 NiZn cells when they make it to the market here and are available at no higher cost than Eneloops.
The bulb actually sits too high for focus to be really possible. Fixable by locking up the focussing cam lower in the column it sits in.
The battery pack
The beam at about 5 feet.
As you can see, not really worth the effort. Note to self: Get some WA1185 bulbs. Not a huge amount brighter than a ROP, and a much shorter run time but fun nevertheless.
Now this one should be right up Mr. Admin's street. It is an LED replacement bulb for any 2 cell light using PR2 bulbs.
Just take out the Mag bulb and drop this in. Modding doesn't get any easier.
Installed
Doesn't produce a whole lot of light, but perfectly usable. With a pair of 8,000mAh NiMH cells I confidently expect a couple of weeks of light. Turned on at 19:42 GMT on 14th Feb. Bright it isn't but it does give enough light to find your way around in the dark. It is best to defocus it a bit or you get a very, very narrow spot and no detectable spill.
Here it is lit. The camera was determined to use flash so taped over the flashgun. It is hugely underexposed but I can comfortably shine this thing in my eyes.
Anyone can. They are actually pretty well made for the money, just not very good as they come out of the packaging. Simple things like using a 5 cell bulb in a 6 cell light gets a fair bit brighter for no real effort. Let's sacrifice a bulb to science and try a 2 cell bulb in a 3 cell light. Quite bright. Briefly... Blew in under a second. Well, a 50% overdrive was pushing it.
There are people running bulbs of over 250W in them - OK for about 8 minutes at a time and with the sort of expenditure on fancy batteries that I normally reckon to spend on a car.
But there are lots and lots of bits and pieces available for them to run any LED or collection of LEDs of your choice.
And as far as I can tell without using a meter as bright as it was at the beginning. Will check battery voltages tonight to make sure I'm not over discharging them. Those 8000mAh LSD D cells aren't cheap enough to treat as consumables.
Not because the cells gave out, but because the dog was clearly desperate to waken me to let her out at about 4am and the contents of the bedside table got scattered everywhere. Now need to see what broke - the batteries weren't flat when I stuck a meter across them so we'll need to check whether the bulb or the Maglite didn't enjoy 50 kg of dog scattering stuff.
