Next Project - A Maglite 2AA to 3AAA pocket Rocket. It's Finished, photos included.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

I have been playing with another 2AA Maglite (Incan). It's becoming a 3AAA and it's finished enough to see what it looks like in the dark. Here's a quick beam shot.

2aabeam

XM-L T4 with 3AAA Direct Drive. I will give all the details and plenty of photos here in a day or so. I just wanted to give y'all a teaser.

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Ok, I had already worked on this light some and I decided to get it done during the cooler night temps. I will cover a little of it. This was a 2AA Incan and I made it into a 3AAA LED. It has a home made heatsink, T4 Cree LED, plastic reflector & lens, copper insert to lengthen the body.

Here's some photos.

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The heatsink is made from a 1/2" copper end cap, cut down to about 10mm high. Then it was filled with scrap copper pieces and solder. A piece of 020" copper flat went on the bottom. I used my rotary tool to open up the head and it's a tight enough fit, to need a rubber mallet and a socket to drive the heatsink home. Good contact for heat transfer.

The LED/Star is AA'd in place.

2aa3

On the bottom side, I made a small contact and soldered the Pos wire to it. It is spaced from the heatsink with a couple of plastic washers. The Neg wire is soldered directly into the heatsink. The outer copper touches the body to make contact. (Inspiration Taken From Match's Maglite Mod).

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I had to remove quite a bit of the already tiny reflector. Not very much room in one of these AA Mags. Less room for my fingers... Ouch!

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In order to keep the 3AAA batteries centered, I made a sleeve. Nothing was close to fitting. I ended up using a piece of 1/2" PVC pipe and I had to split it and cut a slice out the length, so it would close up enough to slide into the body. Then it was too small of an ID for the AAA batteries, so I had to hold it closed in a vise and drill out the center, to accomodate the batts. Too much work for a simple job.

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Of course the human lathe method was used to fit a piecs of 1/2" TypeM copper pipe and a copper coupling, to make the insert in the body. Paint covered it up ok.

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And there it is. Finished and very bright with direct drive, 3AAA eneloops and an XM-L T4.

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Couple of beam shots. This thing gets hot fast! Both the battereis and the head/heatsink, heat up very quickly. It's just a fast food hot pocket light. Not meant for anything but, WOW.

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I decided not to do any cosmetic mods. A guy at work wants to buy the next 3-4 lights I make, if they are small and bright, so it's probably gone tonight.

2

Finished

3

Looks awesome!

4

Don't you love those lights that you can wipe out in one night?

That's nice-didn't have any idea that you used a plumbing piece 'till I saw the pic.

BTW, I found something even nicer than paint and helps a lot with grip: Plasti-Dip spray. The stuff works great and sticks really well. Only drawback is it has a really lethal odor when drying. Got it at Lowe's.

You do good! I never had luck getting anything to stick to ano but the Plasti does great... if some does peel with wear, just respray it.

Rich

5

Very nice!

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Thanks for the tip. I will have to check it out. Always good to have more options.

I never have a problem with Ano, as long as I use 600 grit paper or steel wool it - and clean it with alcohol last.

7

Very nice, O-L.

8

Here's how the pill was done

p1

The head threads were opened up using a rotary tool and a dremel #115 cutter, or was it #105. It's a round steel cutter. I opened the head up to where the pill was a hammer tight fit. The pill OD is 17.6mm, so the ID here had to be just a tad less. The Depth of the enlarged area is 16.5mm from the top edge of the head.

You can see from the side of the pill, it fit fairly tight into the head. The LED is on a 16mm star.

p2

The Pill is a 1/2"x3/8" Copper reducer coupling. I cut it right where it reduced to 3/8" and the taper at the cut worked great for seating onto the body, when the head is screwed down. I used two pieces of copper shim stock (about 0.010"), for the top and bottom. I just used square pieces and trimmed them off later. Lay down one piece of shim, set the bushing on it, fill it with scrap copper and solder. When full, before it starts to cool, lay the other piece of shim on top. That's my heatsink sandwich!

The negative wire goes from the LED right into the heatsink and is soldered in place. The positive goes thru the heatsink (hole drilled) and then I used 2 small plastic washers and a 0.025" copper shim. I just soldered the wire to the copper shim, fed the washers on, put the wire through the hole and used Arctic Alumina to hold that all together. It's the positive contact plate that touches against the positive battery terminal.

ref1

I cut the fins off the reflector and sanded down the reflector to 9mm, but I should have gone to 8.5mm. It's a little high and compresses when the bezel is screwed down.