I just de-anoād and cleaned a dirty beaten up old 2C maglite, installed a new reflector and lens, and 7.2V krypton bulb.
Got it running off a couple IMR18490s which fit just perfectly. Normally I enjoy the beam artifacts from an incan, but in this case Iām wondering if I shouldnāt pick up an OP reflector instead?
Next in line is my 3C. I am thinking to bake that one to a nice deep russet/red. Awaiting a G4 socket for that, for some hotwire halogen goodness. A pair of protected 21700s ought to fit just perfectly.
It would be a shame to sputter that immaculately mirror polished alumiunium. Iād never get it that spotless again. I can just pick up a ready made OP one from Kai, keep the SMO for another project.
I just got my first Xenon light. A P60 15W Xenon drop-in from Kaidomain. Seems to be about 100 lumens, gets very hot in about a minute, and just one mode. So pretty much useless, but nice CRI and tint!
I have a couple incandescents that I enjoy using around the house. My favorite has an 8AA -> 2D adapter with a PWM voltage regulator and soft start. Beam stays nice and white until the last 10 minutes of runtime. Iād love to make a high-powered custom incandescent regulator for use with Li-ion cells if I had the skills!
Mostly just regular use tends to keep the switches working well, I did have to do some repairs when a few of them came and replaced some of the corroded brass and copper parts with pure silver sheet metal cut to shape, and of course liberal use of switch cleaner and elbow grease, but once they`re up and running, regular use keeps them in good working order.
Do you use Deoxit? I squirted some of the wrong type of a cheaper switch cleaner into one of my maglite switches and ended up having to tear it apart and clean it out with isoprop. Works flawlessly now though.
āDo you still own any non LED powered lights?ā
yes.
for the reason Katherine already posted.
i am 9 years old again reading a bookā¦.
just not a comic book under the covers.
yea, i have several stock maglites, 2d 4d. and 1aa. surefire g3 mag 85, 200w hotwire mag. and several cheap 2d flashlights with bulbs that i keep as loaners, thou i do not use any of them on regular basis,
Nope. The last incan I owned (a Duracell Durabeam, 2AA side by side) died a loooong time ago. I donāt believe I so much as touched an incan torch in the last 15 years at least, itās all been LED for me. Moreso now with the warm white options in the market.
That stuff looks very good. I was always put off by the price of Deoxit. I ended up buying some other cheap stuff, Kontakt PR, and squirted some into one of my Mag C switches. Made it even worse. Had to strip down the switch completely and clean it with meths.
you have my sympathies, I had to strip down a Mag D switch assembly because an alkaleak ate away almost the entire + contact right into the assembly itself, they`re not the easiest things to understand when you first open them
I made a new contact out of sheet silver and it`s all good again, but it wasn`t the Most fun I`v had repairing a light! LOL
Leading cause of death for old Maglites, the alkaleak. Aluminium + caustic potash is always such an enthusiastic reaction.
I have an itch to build another hotwire Mag. My 5761 3C mod is already starting to feel a little anaemic, and my pal has promised me his old 3D heās not using, once he gets around to finding it. But just how much juice can a standard Mag switch stand before it starts getting all melty and burny inside?
That`s a really good question actually and I have no idea to be honest what it`s rated at, But with it being a fairly low voltage and a non-inductive load then contact arcing shouldn`t be much of an issue, having looked at the insides of a D assembly I would say no more than about 5A constant. I`d like to be wrong though because 5A wont really buy you much without cranking up the voltage.