My $2.24 triple emitter Mag Mod

5.18€ |Free shipping! Wholesale MR16 LED spotlight spot light lights high bay 12V 3W free shipping Sold by Sunking_China.LTD|led e27 spotlight|led spotlight ip65led warm - AliExpress - here are $2.84 MR16 bulbs :stuck_out_tongue:

Most of them are 60 degree optics.

@dchomak Thanks for the post,
I love the idea of re-purposing stuff.

@antonkochubey Thanks for the link, had to pick up a few. So now for the wait on shipping, ughhhh.

I know DChomak put a pricelimit in the headlines to help all
flashoholics economy(maybe?),but I think I have to tell you there are also
Cree versions of those bulbs. :wink: At least some of those probably are?Remember these are from China.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?\_sacat=0&\_from=R40&\_nkw=mr16%20cree&\_sop=15

Nice to see that you will give it a go. I can’t wait to see what YOU come up with! There are a couple of different versions of what you ordered, there is no way of knowing until you receive it. The outside dimensions will be the same but what might concern you is whether you get an “inny” or an “outy”
Here is what I mean

The “inny version has smaller plate

Here is an example of an “inny” and an “outy” next to each other. Notice that one is a 120v light, the other is 12V. They both are 12V internally, just a different driver.


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I first started getting into these after I read about this: 6 Xm-l light bar build I planned on using several of the 12V lights mounted on the front of my Zero Turn mower, in other words a poor mans light bar.

Maybe these pics will get your creative juices flowing…………


There are a lot of lights out there that beg investigation. Yes, once something gets into the mainstream the price comes down. I can foresee us buying off the self lights just for the parts in the future.
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Very inventive mod, I like it! Time to check out some led bulbs on clearance at the hardware store now...

Beam angle? Seems you can choose on this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-x-MR16-Energy-Saving-3x3W-CREE-LED-Spot-Light-Bulb-Lamp-WHOLESALE-12V-/170833717788?pt=US_Light_Bulbs&var=&hash=item27c67baa1c

Local seller advertise his as 15 degrees.

That it is a GREAT source, with CREE led’s and many options on lense angles! I Bookmarked it. My 3 x 3W replacement led’s have shipped from fasttech.com I am disappointed that it took them 5 days just to get the shipment out. Not very fast so far!

BTW, I ordered a pogoplug off buy.com yesterday morning and it is already at my post office this morning!
Point is that they got it in the mail the same day, not 5 days later.

I got mine in the mail yesterday. I wired each emitter in parallel and put it back together. I direct drove it on an 18650. I checked the current and its only pulling .33a! I’m going to drop it in my 3d mag tonight and see what it does. Not very impressed so far but its for a nightstand light that never leaves the bedroom. I wonder how much current these led’s can handle?

Something is not right, you should get about 1A
BTW, I ordered and replaced the 3 1W LED’s with 3W cool white ones and now get over 2 amps draw and brightness about equal to my P7 drop in.

I got my bulb and it was an "inny" top plate. That's ok, I just incorporated the whole housing into the build. I got the 3w leds, so it's 9w total. I haven't finished the build yet, but I made a copper plug on the underside of the housing, to make it flush and an aluminum heat sink in the body tube, that the housing attaches to (now). It is bright and close to an SSC P7 in brightness and profile. Mine is cool white, but it's a "little too cool" for me, LOL.

Thanks to dchomak for starting this thread. After the holidays, I will post a build thread on mine. It's not XM-L territory, but it is a respectable amount of light at a very reasonable price. Easy build for a Maglite.

So, I want to try this project, what advice would you give for a beam angle on the 3 x 3 watt cool white:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-x-MR16-Energy-Saving-3x3W-CREE-LED-Spot-Light-Bulb-Lamp-WHOLESALE-12V-/170833717788?pt=US_Light_Bulbs&var=&hash=item27c67baa1c

It took AliExpress (per Shadoww’s post) nine days to get those mr16’s in the post :frowning:

Well, it depends on what you want. If you want some throw (not a lot), then 30 degree. The tightest they offer. If you want flood, then 45 degree. If you want a mule, then 120 degree. The larger the degree number, the wider the beam, but I do not feel they are necessarily a direct correlation from stated degree to actual beam degree, from the ones I have tried.

Yeah, something wasn’t right. The 18650 I used was only showing 3.4v on my dmm. I got another 18650 that showed 3.8v (and pulled 2a on my dmm) and tried that. It lit up my backyard! I pulled a fresh one off the charger that was 4.2v and the module was back to barely putting out any light. I then noticed that only one emitter was working. I think the other two got burned up. And I can’t figure out why my dmm was showing such a high amperage.

A gotcha on this light is the possibility of a poor thermal contact between the individual emitters and the star, and/or poor thermal contact between the star and the sink. These emitters were originally running on 12V in series or 4V each. I wouldn’t think 4.2 would be too high. I run mine on 3 Ni-MH or about 3.6-4V

The good news is now you have an excuse to install these:

http://www.fasttech.com/products/1609/10001590/1116609-3w-190-210lm-6000-6500k-white-bridgelux-led-emitte

I’ve tested a LOT of these type of bulbs. No way is it 9W. You will be lucky if it is 5W.

Well, from what I can tell, the leds are bridgelux, not cree and they could be 3w bridgelux, but I don’t know for sure. (they could simply be generic Chinese leds too). No markings that I can see. Once it’s powered I can see what I get for amp draw and maybe go from there. It will be DD with 3 Eneloops. From what I saw with the initial checks, with 3 Alkalines, it was about as bright as what I remember of the old P7 lights I used to build. I won’t be finishing anything till after the first of the year though. This one and the 3-XM-L in a Mag LED reflector…

I bought some of those LED’s from fasttech last night. I find it hard to believe that I fried the ones that were on the star so quickly. I only had them burning for approximately 2 seconds before disconnecting them. How can I test them to see if they blew?