In order to keep the cells from rattling around in the body we need a sleeve. If you want a professional sleeve one can be purchased for the 2x 26650s. They are a bore out PVC pipe with O rings around the outside for a nice fit.
I have a 6D maglite which I currently use with the magnum star bulbs. According to the specs. Might want to check into the Mag upgrade list.
If you want to go cheap you could also just roll the cells up in a piece of newspaper. Also if you are using flat top batteries for this you will need a way for them to make contact with the base of the mag switch.
A small magnet is the easiest way to do that. Just stick a couple to the + end of the first battery and your good to go. Since the 26650 batteries are longer than D cells we need to make room by shortening the spring.
You can cut some off the bottom of the factory spring and use that. Alternatively a shorter narrower spring is offered by Adventure Sport along with the sleeve. This also has a smaller tip which makes contact with the cell and wont rip the shrink at the edge. This is where the only tools needed come in. Since the cap is anodized at the bottom you need to remove some so the spring will make electrical contact. An electric drill with a wire brush attachment works well, but if you don't have one you could just scrape some away with a screw driver or similar.
Hi alby, Thanks for sharing your mod. The way that I get such a tremendous output from my lights like that is building an A thermal path. Most LEDs are attached to an aluminum mcpcb. My emitters are reflow soldered directly to a copper MCPCB and then mounted on a heat sink. Also using three of the Cree XHP-50 emitters means I have a total of 12 LED dies. This is a very very efficient way to generate light.
In total this build is about 80 watts. This means about 62 lumens per watt on the high mode. Efficiency will go up very far on the low modes. Up to around the 300 lumen per watt. I hope this helps. If I have not answered your question correctly please let me know:). Have you done any testing on your heat sink performance installed in the maglite?
How about luminous output over time (single cycle and multi-cycle)? With your stated 80 watts, and assuming that your drop in housing moves heat out of the LED's at 1 degrees C/W added to the LED die junction to solder pad resistance of 1.2 degrees C/W you are talking a 176C rise in die temperature within the engine before any heat transfer to the maglite housing. Since the maximum recommended junction temperature for these LEDs is 150C, and your instructable does not appear to suggest the application of a thermal compound to the engine drop in prior to installation into the maglite housing my guess is the luminous lifetime of such a light engine is limited.
What can you tell us? Hi jmengel, I have done some testing with the output vs runtime. The rating on the 5k and 2K bulb is what is to be expected around the one minute mark. You dont have to use a thermal compound in the head of the light, but you could if you wanted to. On the higher modes the output is going to decline some as the head of the light heats up.
A general rule of thumb to protect high powered light engines like this is when the head of the light gets too hot to touch you need to turn it down. In the lower modes the output will be fairly linear. There will be some decline in ouput as the batteries die, but visually you will not notice much of a drop off at all. These bulbs come with a 5 year warranty.However if you take care of them properly the life expectancy of this type of engine will be much longer.
I have never had an LED engine die of old age before. The reason I always replace LEDs is because a new brighter one is being sold and the old ones are obsolete. Hope this helps. Hi Polymathic, Yes. I have done similar experiments with small pocket size lights that only output around 1800 lumens. The effect is a little slower, but either build will make smoke INSTANTLY.
I just have hard time starting a fire from an ember so I went with the larger light. Using a magnifier may help. I was not able to do any better using one but I did see a video where a guy used one. His vid only produced smoke (accept when he used matches), but I think it could be done. Skip to the 8 min mark if you wanna see the lens think skip to the 8 min mark.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbyoEMC0x3o. Funny you should mention that. I've spent the past few months working on building a CNC router (originally based on another I'ble), and right now the next step in the project appears to be 'buy a lathe'.
It's definitely a bit of a stumbling block (anyone out there got a lightly used South Bend Heavy 10 collecting dust? Wanna carry it down to my basement? I'll give you beer!).And to be fair, the drop-in is a rather impressive looking little beast - and I'd actually love to see how it's put together, whether or not I have the tools to duplicate it (because I don't spend nearly enough of my free time reading about how to do things I don't have the tools for.
It was just a little frustrating to see the title, start skimming for the construction & circuit details, and then find that all the exciting bits are hidden away inside the shiny metal shell of an proprietary component. Man I'll tell you this. You wont regret getting one. They really are a blast.
I had to get a cheaper China made one but it's still great. I don't have any pictures of the inside of the light engine yet, but I don't mind sharing whats inside of it. The inside part is 3x Cree XHP-50 LEDs on a copper mcpb.want them wired in parallel for this build. The lens is a Cute 3 optic, but there is only one that works properly.
The XM size hit the domes of the emitter so you need the XRE version. The medium beam angle works the best. The narrow makes a hole in the center of the beam and the wide is kinda distorted.The driver board is a custom one. Its the MOSFET driver from my shop. They are not too hard to make if you have the stuff but it would take more than one post to elaborate. If you dont need modes you could just wire the engine direct drive off the batteries.