First, a little traveling music
These are now at HD in one of the floor displays. They make a good cheap "modder light".
So, what's so special about a cheap 51 led light from Home Depot??? Potential...
It's 4xAA, so eneloops can be used and the head just happens to be almost exactly like the 2D Maglite. Sooooo, it has many of the same Mag Mod possibilities.
Here's the fully disassembled light. It ain't much to look at. Plastic everywhere, but what if we toss the 51 leds, the plastic lens and that big plastic housing that the switch sits on?
I will concentrate on doing something to replace the plastic guts here. Basically it's just for holding the switch and providing contacts to the leds and battery holder, but maybe it can be more.
That head really is very close to a 2D Incan Maglite head, so I know from looking at it that I can probably use some reflector that would fit in a Maglite.
Well, it looks like I could use one of the CNQG shallow 52mm reflectors, (also known as the SST-50 reflector from other sellers). Looks like with just a little modding, I can make it sit right where it needs to be. It would be great for an XM-L or XM-L2 led in it.
But,...... I just happen to have a "god knows where it cam from", 3Up reflector with it's own shelf underneath and it also just about fits the head, so I could do 3xNichia 219 high CRI leds in here, or XP-G or XM-L, but I only have Nichias. You know what I am favoring here don't you.
As for the lens, a Maglite glass replacement lens from KD will work just fine, but I need to remove a lip on the ID of the bezel, to make it fit flush inside. No problem there.
If I were to go with the XM-L led, I would use a piece of aluminum rod as a replacement for the plastic housing. But since I will be doing the 3Up Nichias, I will have to see if I really need to do that or not. Most cheap lights don't have that much room for a heat sink, but this one lends itself to having a large one, because of the side switch. If it had a stock tail switch, all that room would not be there and the light would have been shorter, with a lot less modding possibilities.
Now to get really fancy, by using a DrJones driver and a momentary switch. I love that driver program, so I might as well just do it.
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Had to remove a little around the OD of the reflector, to get it into the head.
Had to remove a lip inside the bezel to get the lens to lay flat.
Wired in Parallel.
Modified the plastic switch holder, to use the momentary switch.
That's about it right there. I went with XM-L leds, cool white T6.
Beam Shots
Did this one at a 1/2 second, to help show the beam better. At a second, it's so bright it's washed out.
1 Second
1 Second
2 Seconds
2 Seconds.
It's a floody light and it would be a great light for walking. With the DrJones driver the main modes are High and Medium, with ramping and hidden strobe. I didn't get any shots of the driver wired up. I added chips, for a total of 16x380mA.
That's all...
