Thanks for putting this build up here on BLF. It's Much Appreciated. Those reflectors do look like twin sisters.
It's too bad that nothing fits a Mag any more. I remember KD used to carry those two piece Aluminum reflectors for the Incan Mags. Every one of the newer 50, 51 & 52mm reflectors I have tried so far are a PITA to use.
I'm seriously thinking of just buying a few replacement Mag LED reflectors from ZBattery, after seeing those beam shots. A little Krylon would make it to my liking. I'm now convinced that there's nothing wrong with Plastic reflectors for LEDs any more. I had the Incan Hot wire stigma for a long time, but now I see the heat goes into the heatsink with the LEDs and plastic can be used for most LEDs, except maybe extreme instances.
If anything, the hotspot on the V8 seems a little more concentrated than the Rebel reflectored Mag. I will say that as deep as that V8 reflector is, the stock LED reflector is even deeper. Your pic of the two side-by-side shows the difference as you can completely see the LED on the V8 module but can only make out a hint of the LED's corner on the stock reflector. I would guess it to be at least 3/8" of an inch deeper.
It also appears that that's not a 1D Mag on the left but a 1C Mag. I will second Bob's question of how you managed to stuff a rebel reflector in that puppy as I am preparing to do the same.
I see what you are saying looks like a flat area at the bottom of the reflector but Iām thinking that the stock Rebel reflector was further shortened by enlarging the hole for it to into the head better, simulating a flat bottom and likely provide a better beam profile as well since the XM-L appears to like reflectors with a flat area at the base and the only way to accomplish that with the stock Rebel is to make the hole larger like it is on the black Mag.
Extremely nice build. I have a smorgasbord of parts waiting on time to build my own Mag D XML build. Yours is long bar ahead of the pack. Thanks for sharing!
I will give you my reply as well as what TJ gives you. There is only enough room for a total of 24mm depth inside the body of an Incan "D" Mag, if you put in the Rebel LED reflector. I have some photos and some more info here.
The LED reflector is in the Incan head and the bezel is tightened down. I trimmed off the upright, flush with the bottom of the reflector and I trimmed off the outer lip on the bottom of the reflector. The diameter of the reflector will keep the body from screwing down all the way. I did not shorten the reflector. It has way too big a hole to start with and shortening only makes it bigger.
This photo shows a pencil line where the head normally screws down to, with a stock Incan reflector and there it is with an LED reflector. It's plenty far enough to cover the "O" ring.
Measuring from the Snap Ring, to the tail end of the barrel is 170mm + 3mm because of a dead space at the end of my ruler, before the markings start, so it's 173mm from the snap ring to the end.
From the bottom of the LED reflector (with the head screwed all the way in till it stops), the measurement is 195mm (+3 again for my ruler), so it's 198mm total. 198 minus 173 leaves a total of 25mm, but you need to take the 1mm off the thickness of the snap ring, so it's now 24mm total available space.
That does not leave much of a heatsink, but compared to something like a P60, it's still a huge heatsink and plenty of mass. Add the fact that you have a LED on star + a driver and it gets thinner.
I usually make a 15mm thick heatsink and bore the bottom out, so the driver sits in the bottom. That leaves enough room for wires and an XM-L on a star. It also lets me have room to get the whole "pill" in place at the right height (adjustable before final placement).
TJ - if this trashes your thread, please let me know and I will remove this post.
I dropped a stock Mag LED (Rebel) reflector right into my 3C Maglite no problem. My 3C Mag was definitely a newer model and not some old stock if that makes a difference. (I went looking through photos I have of my build and now realize I didn't take any of the completed re-assembled light! Doh!)
Guys, here's how you do it. Remove the cam. Sink a flat HS into the neck. Mount a 20mm star on the HS. The opening of the reflector sits flat on the star surface. The Mag LED reflector is ~40mm from lip to opening, so to get the head to screw on past the gasket, you need the surface of the star to be ~15-20mm below the top of the neck if memory serves. Here's a pic from when that 1C hosted an SST-50:
Build threads here, here and here. (Sorry, those links are to CPF, this is my first build thread on BLF.)
OldLumens, I think your measurements assume the head screwed down all the way. You can buy back at least 10mm by not screwing it down all the way and a few more by trimming the top of the switch assembly (+1 more by leaving out the snap ring). I've done many Mag Ds with the LED reflector this way and there's definitely more room for HS than what you've suggested above.
You might recall this Mag 1D cut-down that I purchased from you, and this 7/8" (23mm) tall heatsink you made for me to go with it:
Between that HS and the Mag switch assembly, I fit 2 AMC7135 regulators side by side. The XML is regulated to 4.4A from the IMR26650 on high and doesn't overheat (or melt the bottom of the Mag LED reflector sitting on top of it).
I'd have used this light for the comparison above, but the XML behind the Mag LED reflector in it is a 5000K neutral white and I didn't want the tint difference throwing anyone off.
Bob, that was a standard LED reflector I bought from zbattery.com and trimmed off the cam. On my XP-G Mag 3C I started to trim down the star, but ended up with the reflector barely resting on the star. I realized afterwards that I should have just left the star alone and left more of the star there for it to sit on.
Ordinarily, I'd pop the driver out and measure current to the emitter with a clamp meter. In the case of this light, this was supposed to be a "simple" slap-it-together mod and instead ended up being a hell of a lot of work. I know myself too well, if I start messing with it, I'll be changing the star/tint/grease/driver, etc. More time and money and not different enough from my XML+Mag LED creations to be worth it. Here's a really rough estimate... Those cells really don't sag much at all under the measly 1.16A load. If you assume 8.3V under that load * 1.16A, that's 9.628W of Pin. A 90% efficient driver would deliver 8.665W to the LED. An XM-L pulls that much power at ~2.7A. That's close enough for me for what it is. As you can see from the pics, at this drive current it's already nearly as bright as the one driven much harder in the plastic reflector and the batteries will last 3x as long. Lux measurements I have not, only beamshots.
Yes, I was quoting the bare minimum amount of room. Screwing the head up does give more. Maybe I should have added the range from min to max, just before the head goes above the āOā ring.
This thread, which was meant to discuss the V8 drop-in has instead gone off track and turned into a discussion about using the Mag LED reflector to which I compared it to. Without intentionally taking the conversation further off course, I will add that it is a challenge to get perfect focus in the D Maglite LED reflector, even using my method, because the LED must be perfectly centered and perfectly level. A hair in any direction, even a little too much solder paste between one side of the emitter and the star is noticeable in the beam profile. That said, when it is perfectly focused, it's the best I've seen in a 2" head.
OL, that's a great question. Thanks for asking. Here's a rundown of TJ's top 10 SMO reflectors for XML in order of decreasing preference, and more or less, decreasing throw.
The 77mm SST-90 reflector from DX shimmed in the Gordon 3" head with a flashlightlens 78mm borofloat lens. (Detailed in my "super thrower" CPF link above). You've never seen anything else like it. Simply amazing the way it puts everything else I've got to shame. None of the others are in its class, really.
Unconfirmed: the 65mm SST90 SMO reflector from KD. I've yet to use it, but I can imagine it displacing all the others below. I've got one on the way that I intend to install in a Gordon 95 LED head with a slice of 2" PVC coupler as a shim. Still searching for a ~2mmx73mm glass lens to go with. I think you've used this one in your lens-filter build, no?
The single-emitter HD2010 reflector. It's debatable if this one actually out-throws the V6 & V8 drop-in reflectors at the same drive current, because the HD2010 puts so much more current to the emitter than those drop-ins. It's hotspot is sooo pretty though and at ~$40 for the whole light with no modding necessary, it's an instant favorite. Not really for "modding", I suppose. What would the point be in taking it out of that host?
This spot is a toss-up between the Maglite LED reflector and the V8 drop-in. The plastic reflector is free with host or $3 on its own and throws as well as the V8, but it's a bitch to focus and building the proper heatsink, driver, etc. is high on the difficulty/skill scale. The V8 on the other hand is a bitch to fit into a Mag D head, but once you have, everything else is preassembled and prefocused for you, for comparable cost.
The V6 drop-in. In truth, this reflector probably out-throws the #4 spot at the same drive current, but there's no fitting it into a conventional 2" head host and whitewall hunting reveals a bullseye pattern inside the hotspot on mine. This one's biggest drawback is lack of a well balanced / ergonomic host to put it in.
The KD/DX 51mm SST50 smooth reflector, and the nearly identical XML reflector included in the CNQualityGoods 2x26650 host kit (the one with the larger head).
The UltraFire C9-T60 (UniqueFire HS-802). A bit tall/long for a single 18650 light, but completely unique & out-thows everything below it + brighter (although narrower) spill.
C8 SMO reflectors and nearly identical ones such as the KD XPG 41mmx31mm SMO reflector (reamed opening) and the MCU-C88 reflector
Unconfirmed: the Romisen RC-U8 reflector. This is basically a deeper SMO version of C2 reflectors that does amazing things for the XP-E. I haven't dropped a bigger LED in either of mine yet, but can imagine it out-throwing #10, but the hotspot would be larger, like that of the C8 reflectors.
The UltraFire C308 reflector. These are the narrowest in the top 10, but are super deep and a cinch to focus. They cast a perfect tight hotspot and a really "full"/bright spill. Hotspot intensity is traded off for a closer spot to spill ratio. The host is top quality and easily modded to accept a 22650 IMR cell from B.I.O. or BatterySpace.
So basically, you prefer throw instead of flood? Are there any that you feel are the best as a smooth flood instead of throw?
Also it seems like the larger diameter reflectors do better overall. Is there any real test data that suggests the "optimum reflector size" for an XM-L. What I mean to say is that maybe a small reflector is not utilizing the output of a well driven XM-L, because it's too small a surface area to do it justice?
I think as a general rule, the bigger the LED die, the bigger reflector you need to wrangle all its light and focus it somehow. Bigger, and especially wider reflectors produce a more concentrated hotspot that throws better (more lux at the center). Compared to reflectors of equal diameter, deeper reflectors produce a narrower, more concentrated (i.e. brighter) spill. This is especially evident when the depth exceeds the width, like in the C9-T60/HS-802 and the C308.
For me, the cutoff size for a single XM-L in a light is the reflector from the UF C308, which has an inner diameter of 29mm and a depth of 41mm. I've never seen an XM-L in a conventional 26mm P60 sized drop-in, which is considerably smaller. I can imagine based on how perfectly mated they appear to be for the much smaller XP-G LED, that I would consider the output of pairing one with an XM-L as having a hotspot that's too soft and squishy (large and lacking in intensity).
IMO, the best flooders are multiple emitter lights using small optics, like you've seen in some of my Mag mods. For a single LED flooder, I suppose a large wide-angle optic would perform the best.
