Love my Mag 2c 
I think maybe there is a little patriotism there. First off I do not hate Mags, I have 3 of them, 2x 3D cells and a minimag. But if I need to go into the garden, I pick up One of my Solarforces or my Klarus, because the Mag is too big and heavy. Both of the D cell Mags have been upgraded to XPG R5 with 200lm, made a big difference but still for the size of it, it is just not practical, or bright enough.
As for reliability all of my Solarforces, my Klarus and my Jetbeam work Flawlessly and the crazy thing is, my Jetbean BC40 cost me less than a 3D Mag! So as far as cost goes the Mag loses in a big way. Run time is irrelevant as it’s relative to the output. My Klarus has 33 hours on 2 Eneloops.
Now I agree that Most people will buy a Mag, simply because it is there, But the same could be said about my Klarus, If it was stocked on shelves in every shop. The Klarus wipes the floor of the Mag for quality. It is HAIII, it has a far superior switch, it’s far smaller and far brighter and runs on double AAs, £2 for 4 Duracells (I use eneloops) as opposed to £4 for 2 D cells, £8 for mine as I need 3 cells.
The Mag has a place but it’s no longer a real torch IMO. You must however compare them with high end Chinese torches, because I agree that there is a lot of crap from China, that will not work in 12 months or even out the box. The crazy thing is a Solarforce is only a couple of dollars more than a cheap copy.
Oh, and by the way when I ordered my last Solarforce, it arrived in 4 days.
Marc.
Aloha and welcome to BLF CamoNinja!
Hi and welcome to BLF!
Now, can you give us more pics of heatsink, driver, switch, or can you give us a link to more details of that build?
Viktor
Welcome aboard, CamoNinja!
Hi guys,
I found this thread via Google, I didn’t know of this forum. I think it’s a pity that Maglite is so underrated, so I just wanted to make this comparison between Maglite and Fenix, a much more renowned brand (at least among flashlight enthusiasts). The comparison is between similar lights, not between a 2XAA and a 4xD, so it is a relevant comparison of the know-how of these manufacturers. Here it is:
I think the Fenix is slightly more recent. It has a newer generation LED, 4 cells instead of 3, but still, is far behind the Maglite in terms of output and runtime. But it is 4 times more expensive. The only thing that is better with the TK60 is that it has several other modes.
Some people may say that the Fenix uses aluminium of a better grade, etc. Yes, maybe. But the Maglite is really well made, and it is really solid. I have been using mine for 12 years, using it to do speleology. I treated it rather badly, dropped it several times, and it still works flawlessly. So maybe you can see that the build of the Fenix is better if you use a microscope, but I think it is not relevant. The Maglite is well designed, well built, and seems indestructible. What else do we need?
I lost the rubber switch cover of my 4D once, and my retailer gave me one for free, here in France. Spare parts can be obtained easily, cheaply, in many places. Everything can be taken apart in the flashlight, I’m not sure the same is true about the TK60.
About the output. To do speleology, the krypton bulb was enough for me. A few years later, the Luxeon LED upgrade came out and was even better. Now with the Cree LED, the output is really great. I will never need more light. And the runtime is insane.
In my opinion, Maglite is by far the best manufacturer when it comes to quality-price ratio.
Welcome to BLF, racomir!
First of all, welcome aboard racomir.
Your comparison table seems a little bit biased to me, because it doesn't take into account that the fenix can pump out 800 lumens when you need it. Or if you need an emergency light, it can give you 10 lumens for 400h according to manufacturer specs.
Besides, I would think that if 130 lumens is enough for you, there'd be better options than a 3D light. Or do you actually spend 80 hours in a cave? (not a rhetorical question, I'm really curious.)
^^This! +1!
No, but I’d rather get in the head with a Maglite than with a Fenix TK70 or even Olight SR90.
raccoon city and Steve_the_Chief : thanks!
It’s true. There are two possibilities about the poor runtime (compared to the Maglite) of the middle mode on the Fenix:
1) it has poor runtime because they poorly designed it
or
2) it has poor runtime because you can’t do otherwise when you want to have several modes
In the first case, I wouldn’t say that “the Chinese make better lights”, because the difference with the Maglite is huge (half the runtime with a more efficient LED and 4 batteries instead of 3). In the second case, I would say that this light is better only if you intend to use it mostly on high mode.
But when do you need 800 lumens so much that you prefer:
- to have 4 hours of light rather than 79 hours
- to pay four times the price
- to use 4 batteries instead of 3
?
I guess that people in such a case are pretty rare.
No, 10 hours at most. But I really love lights with huge runtime. It feels like the runtime is unlimited because you have to change the batteries so rarely. I have a Mag 4D with the Luxeon LED, which has a runtime of 43 hours “only”. But I’m considering buying the new 3D, because it’s a huge improvement over my 4D both in runtime and output, and it’s lighter and smaller. And so cheap.
Thank you for your further explanations.
But concerning the runtimes given from the manufacturer, there is something else to consider and that is the type of regulation.
In an unregulated light, the current consumption (and light output) goes down with the batteries depleting. This leads to very long runtimes, but with usually significantly less output after half the stated runtime. I would expect the TK60 to be regulated for constant output.
Since the TK60 uses a more efficient LED than the Mag, and I highly doubt that Fenix would use a driver that is 50% less efficient than the one Maglite uses, I assume that these runtimes cannot be compared directly. But before anyone takes the time and effort to provide regulation/runtime diagrams of both the TK60 and the Mag, I don't think we can come to a final conclusion here.
It’s true. The Mag 4D with the Luxeon LED is regulated for constant output. So I hope the same is true of the new 3D. Maglite’s website says “Intelligent Energy Source Management - continuously monitors the balance between high brightness and efficient power usage allowing for prolonged battery life”. I don’t understand what that means.
I just checked Maglites website and it says that runtimes are given in compliance with ANSI FL1 standard. That means, the given runtime is the time until the light output goes down to 10% of the initial value.
So, the Maglite may give you 80 hours of runtime, but with constanly diminishing output. Now, Fenix provides a runtime diagram only for low mode, but it's most likely the same type of regulation in the medium mode. And that is where the missing energy goes, it is used to maintain the same brightness over the runtime.
Of course it is totally up to you if you prefer a flashlight that gives you very long runtimes but cheats with the output, or one that gives constant brightness over less time.
Maglite has chinalumens, Fenix has true lumens. That’s the main difference.
So… I guess the Chinese make better lights. I’ll try to think more next time I read some manufacturer’s specs. Thank you for having found this. Now I have to chose between sticking to my old Mag and throwing it to the trash :-).
I'd say, if it works for you, stick with it 
But in your situation, I would probably prefer a lighter flashlight and just recharge the batteries after every cave trip.
I do like them - great hosts for modding.
A Mini-M@glite Pro is still on my list (as is a SureFire E2L-AA, but seriously, I am NOT going to pay 150 dollars for that!!!)
A big welcome from me to you Racomir.
But I must point something out. I bought a drop in for my 3D Mag, it’s an XPG R5, runs at 200lm and has a run time of 17 hours. So based on the fact that the XPG is a more efficient LED I would suggest the run times would be very similar. Maybe 20 hours or so. But Mag does have a habit of exaggerating a little. Their new Mini Mag has 220lm, but only for a few minutes when it ramps down to 80lm. So I wouldn’t trust anything they claim.
Marc.
Keep in mind that Flashaholics have been bashing Maglites for years, and mostly with good reason. The current bashing is likely just because its always been that way.
The Maglites have lately been using some modern emitters and the minimag pro is quite solid. 200+ lumens on ALKALINES which is decent. They are modernizing quite nicely, incorporating multiple brightness levels, etc while keeping good quality and ease of use for the average joe.
But this is a pretty recent thing. 2 years ago, Maglite’s best was a 3 watt Rebel LED or some crap that was wayyy outclassed by Cree emitters. Most maglites at that time were incans and xenons which were just awful. Maglite put out their LED variant really late to the game and far behind modern standards.