Fulton Angle-Head Military Flashlight mods?

One of my first custom builds, I used 32 5mm LED’s wired in series
Direct drive off D alkalines, I ran it non stop for 230 hours when I screwed up and Turned off my phone (that I was timing it with). It never dimmed, I stopped the test and put in a new set of batteries and to my eyes it looked exactly the same brightness as when I stopped the test, I would put money in it lasting >500 hours on a fresh pair of alkalines! I don’t use it, ever, but its in one of my vehicles somewhere, I think maybe the horse trailer, the only thing that worries me now that I think about it is the alkalines leaking, maybe time to upgrade to some LSD NiMH D’s or even just L91’s in adapters.

Since I am not using an angle head, I started a new thread for my liquid cooling experiment, Liquid cooled XM-L Eveready 2D sleeper, here Liquid cooled XM-L Eveready 2D sleeper .

Don’t you mean parallel? That would take a lot of D cells.

I think isopropyl alcohol lights with a match because the heat vaporizes it but its flash point is higher than room temperature. The ignition temperature and heat produced are probably between those of gasoline and methyl alcohol.
The led is nowhere near the ignition temperature nor can I imagine any way to light alcohol with a malfunction of the 3 volt electric circuit, so there would have to be an outside source of ignition for it to burn.
Anyway, there are only a couple of ounces of it so there is no danger if I see it. Making it safe for mass market is a different question but will be solved if liquid cooling turns out to be useful.

Added: It appears that the diode itself may fail by becoming more conducting. The runaway current is limited by the copper leads melting. Their melting point is above the ignition temperature, but like 3 volt inductive sparks their size is too small to cause sustained combustion.

It was a few years ago so I took it apart to check, its 4s8p

I bought a 3 watt 1-3V. PR_based led bulb from Superbrightleds.com. $17 and change, shipped. Sorry I can’t post photos. I put new battteries in the Fulton…about 4X brighter than the original incand. bulb, and about twice as bright as the no-name bulb I bought about 6-7 years ago, with a better tint. it lights up the back yard in fine fashion, and would be great for car, camping, walking the dog, or any other general-purpose thing you might wish to do. Don’t know about run time, but the other bulb ran a good year on the last set of batteries.

When I compared the cost of buying a soldering tool, the components, and the time and aggro of building the mod, no contest. If you have a light that uses PR base bulbs, this just might be what you are looking for.

Would I love to have one of Elektrolumens’ AngleLux lights? O my yes, but economics being what they are, not likely. 8)

Nitroz wrote:

Found this site when I was trying to find a fix for my Fulton which does not work.

Switched the bulb and batteries and still does not work.

Hate the throw away a prefectly good light.

Can anyone repair it?

am more than willing to pay for the repair.

The contacts may be corroded. My 1929 RAY-O-VAC started working when I worked the switch, where things screw together and the tail spring back and forth to rub off corrosion and dirt. Anything that is not gold plated corrodes on the surface.

I have an issue light that crapped out. I ordered an led replacement light from Rothco. When it got here I noticed the new light was cheap compared to the issue light.
So I pulled the led head out and stuck it into the Army light. All I had to do to make it work was bend the switch arm inward a bit to make contact with the new led dropin.
That thing runs for days straight on new batteries and has multi color options for signaling and night vision and map reading.

Oh wow...forgot those bulbs were flanged

these will work

These also work as good replacement for 1-4 cell maglite (or other flanged type incandescent bulb flashlights) and they have a high voltage version that works very well in those hand held 18vdc rechargeable toolkit lights without getting insanely hot

An older thread, but was of interest to me as I have one of these flashlights and have been thinking about putting in one of those Nite Ize 55 lumen upgrades. I did this to two of my Maglites and I liked it quite a bit. Decent output (more than the incandescent they replaced and longer run time). Any issue with doing this to these angle-head lights?

You might get an ugly beam pattern because of the way the led is set further back in the reflector that the filament of the incandescent.

Hey guys, I’m still loving this old flashlight, been doing some searching through the threads… So I got a hold of a couple old Fultons and was wondering if anyone has successfully taken apart the switch and remounted it? If so, can you please explain how it’s done and also post pictures of how it’s done if possible?