As the title says, I’m looking to mod a few of my old Maglites, starting with the 2 AA mini (incandescent). It looks like I need a <14mm driver, and depending on what power source I decide to use (high-power rechargeable NiMH AA, Li-ion, or LiFePO), potentially with boost/buck/regulation. I’m very new to modding, but I’ve done a lot of looking, lurking, and searching. I plan to test with a few high-power, high-CRI LEDs (Cree, Nichia 519a, etc), and I’ve even tested a few cheap 3030 LEDs direct drive in the light. But as I’ve dived down this rabbit hole, I’ve learned there’s almost no end to how complex a mod can get.
I can buy a pre-packaged LED plug-n-play replacement, but for roughly the same cost (or 5x) I can experiment, learn, practice my terrible soldering skills, and smell smoky bits. So I guess that’s the way I’m going.
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I drilled the head of my Maglite mini to 20mm and used a P60 pill from Kaidomain that is sanded flat on the top. It fit a 20mm mcpcb and 17mm driver with no problem and worked great
Thanks for replying worrub918. You don’t happen to have photos of your mod, do you?
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Yeh, I was just gonna suggest doing A Match Mod with a p60 pill and appropriate goodies.
If you can get a 141000 double-length 14500 like the 2AA Pokomon uses, you can just use any standard driver with that.
Not at the moment. But I can get them tomorrow
I see the cap on top of the head is ~23.1mm ID. The ID of the top of the head (below the cap) tapers from ~20.4mm ~18.84mm for the first 2.3mm, with a remaining depth of ~8.54mm at 18.84mm. I’m guessing I would drill the top end of the bottom half of the head (basically extend the 20.4mm ID all the way down to whatever depth I need in order to fit the pill)? I don’t have a lathe so this could be a bit tricky. If you have suggestions on how I can do this cleanly, I’d appreciate it.
I presume I’ll lose twisty focus if I go with a pill?
You’re going to love it here, daddio!
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