I just finished one of these except I cut it down and am running it off of 1 14500. Bright and tiny. :)
Still one of the best mods around. Everybody loves Minimags, everybody has one and it can be "Matched" to todays standards with a couple of dollars. :)
That’s where I just got my latest batch.
I finally got around to doing this one. Works great, thanks Match. I did not have the correct drill bit and didn't want to buy one just to use once so I used a dremel 115 bit. It takes more patience for sure but it does work. That bit works for every step of this mod. If I was going to do more than a few of these I would get the bit.
Be careful if you use the driver Match' recommended.. Dont tighten the light too hard or the upper part of the coil on the PCB might break off. No negative effect so far, but that rattling was annoying so I had to take it apart once again.. :D
I finally managed to complete my mod, "Match"ed 2AA Maglite for my dad's birthday.
After reading about QTC, I wanted to implement it in my mod and asked other people how they did it. Thanks to all the people I molested via PN and thanks to ruffles for selling me some pads. :)
First step, modify the host:
Tailcap: grinded flat, removed ano from threads
Head: bored open to about 20mm so a p60 dropin fits, then removed ano on the inside
Body: made it about 5mm short to get rid of the half threads
Next the QTC part. I placed the QTC between two 4*3mm magnets and they will go into a plastic spacer my grandpa made on a lathe. One side is a 4mm hole, the other side is M6 threaded. Then I cut a short piece off of a threaded rod, drilled a 2.5mm hole in the middle and placed a shorted and grinded flat nail in it. I also cut a slit into the threaded part to be able to screw it in with tweezers.
Two pics to show dimensions:
QTC setup that will go into the white spacer:
White spacer glued to the dropin:
That rather small piece wont hurt the battery, before you manage to screw it that tight, the driver will crack.
Fully tightened, its about as bright as my non-QTC Mag I also modded (silver one).
I used a Carclo medium frosted lens, so no beamshots, because someone else already posted some. :)
Advantage of QTC: variable brightness
Why the hassle with spacers and magnets and stuff? The magnets keep constant pressure on the QTC and wont allow it to move. So it wont see much stress and therefore last longer. The nail part is to make the light hasslefree. You can swap the batterys without thinking much.
As Justin would say, its really a "hack job" and took very very long. I spent hours on this and I dont think it was worth it. If I had to do it again, I would be done faster, and then the "time-result-relationship" would be very good. ;)
Thanks to Match for this mod and to all the other ideas here. :)
Nice. Very impressive.
I don't find "QTC" explained, got a pointer to that?
The more pressure you apply, the more current it allows to flow. There are a few threads here if you do a search for QTC. Its magnetic but soft like rubber. :)
NightCrawl, that looks great. Sorry to hear that it took so long.
Hank, google "quantum tunneling composite", and you'll get a bunch of info.
Great Job, Nightcrawl!!! Looking forward to a long-term report on the QTC, too.
Very ingenious! I had no idea QTC was magnetic! Doesnt the attraction of the 2 magnets creat pressure on the QTC pad and create pressure to allow current to pass? I'd think it would eliminate really low current adjustments somewhat.
Thats what I also thought and maybe you remember my thread about that.. I decided to test and these little magnets are far (really far) away from letting any current pass. I wired it all up directly to a battery and LED and had to apply pretty much pressure until it lit up. So, no worries about that. And it can get really dim. :)
Im curious about how long it will live tho. :D
Great thread. It took me under 20 min and solid light. Took a SST-50 drop-in running two 14500’s.
I have a mini mag too I started to mod with an XM-L. It works great without digging into the head, but even at low lumens it is getting warm pretty fast as I dont have any heatsink.
The P60 drop-in is a very good idea, but I have no tool to dig into the head 
Cool thread…I’m new to mods for lights, but this thread will help with a easy starting project!
You could also fill the head with tin or solder. But without a driver, there wont be much light.
/edit: Or too much, depends on your cells. :D
Anyone have a working link for the ‘best’ solarforce P60 to use in this mod?
The one above does not work.
Thanks
If by best, you mean brightest, the ultrafire 3 mode drop in seems to be the favorite, you’d need to use 1 14500 and a spacer or cut the light down to single cell size though I believe.
I have an affliction to p60 drop ins though, so I could easily be barking up the wrong tree. Hopefully, someone who knows what their on about will be along, I maybe thinking of a manafont drop in.