This one was done with nothing but hand tools.
With the 2D maglights, you could buy a machined heatsink and install a xml led with a buck driver and run either 2 18650’s with a sleeve adapter or use 2 32650’s.
I use to make my own heatsinks and use modifed buck drivers or stack two together with a xml led and run 32650’s.
Another way we did it back then was to buy triple, quad or quin reflectors from Kaidomain or DX and modify them to fit.
You could also cut down the 2D, rethreadng the tailcap end of the tube making it a 1D and use amc7135 drivers with one 18650 or 32650 or 26650.
I was mainly building maglite conversions around that time. They made a hefty solid host with good mass that could be finned to help dissipate more heat.
Here’s a pic of the business end; the rest looks bone stock. Sorry for the dirt around the edge, I didn’t think to wipe it off first.
I’m not inclined to disassemble it in any way, not sure how that might affect it.
I moved up from a Surefire hot wire light to the Fenix LD40 about then.
285 Lumens Whoo-Hoo, 4xAA
Still have it. Built like a tank.
All the Best,
Jeff
Me. I still have 3 Kings, one not modded and kept original. From CNqualitygoods they started out at $100. (!?) You could get a cool and a neutral. There are a couple resistors you can change to get more output but made too much heat to be practical.
CNqualitygoods out of business?
The original price of the TM11-I have two-was $299. Some online gun store had a special, which they got in trouble for, for $150, so I snagged two. The tints were horrible BTW. The led's are mounted on a square pcb so I had to reflow new emitters which improved things somewhat. Time for a repeat performance I think.
The bitch with these lights, and the reason they are shelf queens, is that they only take protected cells and that's a PIA having to mess with spacers etc if I want to use 30q's or whatever. So they sit. Why bother with all that?
I still have my precious ARC's, all 3 modded into xp-g triples.
Oh, CPF! No, they don't like budget lights. The money over there is unbelievable. I'm on a disability income and obviously I never fit in. One guy bragged about spending $30,000 on lights while people are living in the streets. Got a major problem with that. I let them know that, made one too many snide remarks about the rich and predictably-permabanned.
Thought you might like that tidbit! Hope this helps your research.
Rich
Just fyi, websites may come and go, but often the people behind them re-brand. RIC, of CNQualityGoods, and other websites, I believe was also behind the BTU brand, ex: Shocker, but in case you didn't notice, the strong resemblance in HaikeLite to the more recent BTU offerings like the PK26. I know RIC was involved in HaikeLite at the beginning, not sure if he is one of those behind the HL curtain or not today.
- What would its competition have been?
Like others wrote, the DRY was one of the first of that type and shape. I got mine in Aug. 2011. Ric, mentioned above, worked with us to make improvements, such as making available different colour-temperature LEDs (I got warm white), and selling an improved driver.
Before that, I had an UltraFire WF-500, which came with a xenon bulb, but there was a 5x Cree XR-E drop-in available so I put one of those in. My first multi-LED light.
- What were people EDCing back then, if that was a thing?
I was EDC’ing a Fenix LD01 (gave away), MTE M3-2 (still using it today!), and various P60 drop-ins (all died or retired).