Red LED for Mini Maglite 2AA

Hi all! First time posting on this forum (I have a new found obsession with flashlights, so I think I’m in the right place :slight_smile: ). I have an old Mini Maglite 2AA that I’d like to repurpose into a red light for night photography. Does anybody know a site that sells a red LED conversion kit for this light? I know that The Torch Site has a kit, but unfortunately they do not ship outside the EU at the moment. If not, is there maybe a red filter that fits this light? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Mike

Dunno how bright you want it but i’ve shoved 5mm LEDs into mini maglites before as an almost direct replacement for the bulb. From memory i cut the legs to size, made sure i plugged it in with right polarity, and had to slightly enlarge the centre hole in the reflector and might have even sanded down the reflector slightly for height because of a lip on the LED. Pretty straightforward stuff though if you’re up for it.

Mag sells red filters for the Mini Mag. Mag also has factory red LED Mini Mags as part of their spectrum series.

Thank you both for the suggestions! I think I’m going to try to hunt down an appropriate LED. If I can’t come across one, I just might go with the filter or try a package re-shipping service and order from that website. Thanks again!

Mike

When I try the 5mm LED hack with a red LED in my minimag it burns out. No issues when various white 5mm LEDs… Excellent use for a Yuji/Sophia high CRI LED. I did a continuous runtime test with 2AA NIMH and a Nichia GS and it ran for something like a month of usable light. Sure it got dim but would be enough to read, find your way to the toilet without tripping, etc.

Has anybody done an emitter swap on the newer magLED mini mags? Looks like it might be easy but I’m not sure how the switch assembly comes out.

Yeah, I did something like that way back. Small piece of perfboard with 3 or 4 clear red 5mm LEDs, soldered in parallel, small on-end ballast resistor in the middle to not suck down too much current, and 2 “legs” out the other end to stick into the teeny holes on the plastic doodad the regular bulb sticks into.

Worked okay, but never really needed red light, so no idea where it even disappeared to. Hope it wasn’t with the alkaleaks inside, else I might as well just toss it if I ever find it. :confounded:

Those teeny little LEDs, I wouldn’t DD them, as they’d likely just pop after a while. Across a coin-cell, like for a throwy, fine, but not from a pair of AAs.