New member here. I’m hoping this is the right subforum for my question, if not, Mods feel free to move it.
Many moons ago I built a Mag85 3D Maglite setup using a FiveMega 9x14500 battery holder fed by 9 AW IC Li-ion 750mAh 14500 batteries sourced off CPF way back in 2006.
I cannot find the charger for this battery setup as there have been several house moves in the past 12 years. I know I had one that plugged directly into the battery holder’s female charging jack and charged all 9 14500’s together.
Does anyone know of a charger that will work with this holder, and where to get it?
Only (major) downside is that it will take 3 charging cycles to charge all 9 batteries, since it can only do 4 at a time, and I have to disassemble the battery holder to charge them. Also from my foggy memory I believe I need to let the batteries sit for 24hrs after a full charge before using them in the flashlight, for fear of blowing bulb?
Here are the parts I bought from FiveMega via CPF for this build in 2006.
9x14500 to 3D adapter $38
Golden PR to Bin-Pin Ceramic socket $30
Bi-pin WA1185 $6 each (qty 2)
Boro lens $5.50
HS Aluminum reflector $25
Any help or pointing in the right direction is greatly appreciated as I’d like to get this light back up and running.
Charging 9 Li-ion cells in series without balancing or at least individually charging them is a dangerous practise! Li-Ion cells will drift apart over time which can lead to unsafe situations during charging and discharging. Even if the protection circuits in the cells prevent this you will still get shorter runtimes than you should be getting (the light will turn off when the first cell prematurely goes empty).
It’s good that you bought a charger for individual cells! You could either buy more of those or charge the cells in parallel using a hobby charger (parallel charging makes their voltages match).
Also, using 10 year old cells doesn’t make much sense either. They will be very weak and the bulb will be dimmer and more yellow than you might be used to. Have you checked the voltage of each cell?
Do you still have enough 1185 bulbs? They are not available anymore.
Letting the voltage of the cells fall before using the light is a good idea with this bulb. :+1: It’s also advisable to check each cell with a multimeter after charging (unless your charger has a display which shows the voltage).
Driver - thanks for the reply and advice. I didn’t know the 1185 bulbs were not longer available. That definitely changes things.
I haven’t attempted to mess with the 14500 batteries yet, as I’m still waiting on the charger to arrive (thank you Prime!).
Is there an updated version, if you will, to the Mag85 that can use the FiveMega battery pack and a new bulb or LED set up? I think I have around $200 or so invested into this build. Would be great if it could be updated / refreshed with newer tech.
It produces around 1000 Lumens. You can get ready made mag modules from adventure sport flashlights with much more lumens than that (but not warm-white with high-cri).
Thanks again for the lead. The charger came in and believe it or not, some of the batteries still had a charge and put out light in a single 14500 light.
Out of the 9 batts, only 4 would charge. Not bad though for over 11 years old!
