I bought this 4D Maglite about 20 years ago...named it Rodney. It's been on many wilderness canoe and camping trips and looks pretty beat up. After seeing the Mag mods on this forum, I decided to try it myself...I couldn't bring myself to using this anemic light any longer...an XM-L it was not. I didn't want to put much $$ into it, so I ordered this from Manafont for $20: http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/triple-cree-q4-led-3mode-memory-white-light-dropin-led-module-84v-max-p-5521
I removed the head and switch
I cut the narrow part of the switch housing off and took apart the internal switch :
Ground the internal lip off with a drum sander attached to a drill press...the drop-in will fit perfectly. I also sanded the face of the head
down about 1mm so that the depth of the lens cover would be correct:
I then soldered wires to one of the clips inside of the switch, and to the grounding strap after I cut it short. I made a mistake in that
I should've reassembled the switch assembly and inserted it into the tube before soldering the wires to the drop-in. I ended up cutting the wires and soldering them together after the switch was inserted. Sorry about this lousy picture, the battery went dead on my main camera:
All done!
Beamshot at approximately 8M, 1/25 sec f1.8 200 ISO:
From approximately 15M, same settings:
It has a very bright tight beam, which surprised me - it's a great thrower, I wish I had a better place to take some pictures. There is also decent spill (doesn't show in the pictures) , making this a good useable light...ready for another 20 years of use! I don't think I could've gotten a brighter upgrade for $20. Not sure about runtime, but with 4D alkalines and a triple Q4, I'd guess it'd run for a long time on high.
WOnder how they got the emitters into the reflector... I cant see a split line between the 2 halves of the aluminium reflector.. but im guessing its there.. where the flat part is
Nice mod! rumtimes should still be good on the LEDs. Not quite the 50 hours, but close enough!
Crazy thing is that here in australia, feeding that torch with 4x D cells alkalines will cost the same as buying 4 18650s Trustfire flames each time.
okwchin, there is a split at the reflector, it seems like it may be glued on. Look at the pic, you can see a darker line on the rim, that's the split. Wow, those are some crazy expensive batteries, get some D rechargeables or adapt it to 18650. Can't imagine paying THAT much for D's. I bought 12 alkalines the other day for this project for just under $9 US...and I thought that was a little expensive
Looks similar to my modded mag. I used XR-E R2s driven at 800mA (underdriven in attempt to control heat).
Definitely makes a useable amount of light; the shed is about 100' (just an estimate). The first shot is with a stock incan 3D MagLite and the second shot is after the mod. Camera settings were the same between shots.
I really need to make some better beamshots someday... The overall spill and throw is much greater than this picture makes it look.
Maplin in the UK was selling off LSD D cells (8,000mAh) for a decent price - think I paid less than £4 each for them. Now they want about £6 (US$9.6) each for 2300mAh rubbish cells which are basically AA NiMH cells of very low quality in D size containers.
