Hi All,
I usually don’t do much flashlight modding from late spring through early fall but there always a couple projects I peck away at when the mood strikes me. This year one of those projects were a pair of quad nichia 219C mini mags.
The first uses a green micro mag body and four nichia 219C 4000k emitters wired in parallel as well as the dual channel driver fromMountain Electronics. This combination uses direct drive off a high drain 14500 cell (not included) and the low forward voltage of the Nichia 219c emitters to drive the light to 8 amps on high at start up, dropping to around 6-7 amps at 30 seconds. There is around four to five minutes of run time before the light gives a low voltage warning when the battery reaches 3 volts. The battery is only providing about an amp to the emitters by time the low voltage protection kicks in.
This light also feature the advantage of a dual channel driver to create a true firefly mode of about half a lumen (estimated in comparison to a D25A on firefly mode). Additional features include a 90 second turbo timer as a safety to prevent damage to flashlight/flesh, a four mode user interface (Moon-Low-Med-High) with off time memory, a tailcap spring bypass mod to reduce resistance, and narrow clear Carclo optics. My micro mags are all built as described here excepting that I use aluminum heatsinks instead of copper. I estimate close to 2000 lumens at start up based on testing by Djozz, dropping to 1500 as the amperage stabilizes around 6 amps. Turbo should still be giving a couple hundred lumens when the low voltage warning flashes. Just for kicks I sanded the front of the bezel flat and gave it a nice polish.
The second light was built in a host I acquired in a trade from a drive shaft mechanic who carried the light every day for a number of years. During that time the light acquired a “used patina” that makes it a true sleeper hot rod when combined with a pair of high drain 14500 button top cells (not included) and all new guts from the kyfishguy madhouse. As in the light above I used a quad board populated with 4000k nichia 219C emitters. Where the internals diverge from those above is that I wired the board in 2s2p configuration and regulated it with a zener modded FET driver from Mountain Electronics for 2S battery configuration. Other features are as described above except that the lowest mode couldn’t really be called moon mode so much as a decent “low”. Amp draw is similar but because of the emitter and cell configuration the emitters see a bit more amperage giving around 2500 lumens at start dropping to 2000 when the amperage stabilizes. I have included a pic of the light engine and driver below as well as a couple pics of the host.
Price includeing CONUS shipping is $75 each (2AA quad is sold!). International buyers pay additional shipping.
First reply followed by PM gets the light of their choice.
My paypal address is kyfishguy@yahoo.com
Thanks for looking,
Brian