LED Flashlight upgrades

Paladin · #16

I just received a TerraLUX upgrade for my 3-cell MAGLITE (don't ask how many MAGLITEs I have

). The LED is a tad smaller, but still puts out great light.

I also received the "DealExtreme" LED drop-in for my G2. Unfortunately mine appears to be a dud, so I'll have to return it. I'll also note that the bulb is a tight fit in a G2. It may work better in the 6P. Found some info here:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/sho ... 748&page=1

The brightness is increadible. And apparently I'm not the first to get a defective unit.

I'll see if I can repair the DealExtreme LED before I send it back.

frankie_the_yankee · #17

Maglite model numers confuse me. I have a 4 C cell model and also a 6 D cell unit. I just ordered a Terrelux LED upgrade for the 4 C cell light. IMO, this is a great flashlight as is. FWIW, I will post comments on the performance of the LED upgrade after it arrives.

AEA · #18

Paladin wrote:I just received a TerraLUX upgrade for my 3-cell MAGLITE (don't ask how many MAGLITEs I have ). The LED is a tad smaller, but still puts out great light.

I also received the "DealExtreme" LED drop-in for my G2. Unfortunately mine appears to be a dud, so I'll have to return it. I'll also note that the bulb is a tight fit in a G2. It may work better in the 6P. Found some info here:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/sho ... 748&page=1

The brightness is increadible. And apparently I'm not the first to get a defective unit.

I'll see if I can repair the DealExtreme LED before I send it back.

I had a look at that link. Lots of good info there and confirmations that this LED upgrade to the G2 and 6P is the "Cat's foot".

I hope you can get yours working with the information provided there. I am going to check mine again and use a bit of blue lock tight on the reflector to eliminate any future problems.

Lumberjack98 · #19

I just received my TerraLUX upgrade for my 3D Maglite.

The pictures are at about 10 feet against a wall painted dark green.

Before

After

Overall it is MUCH brighter and the light is now a "white" light. I'm very happy with my purchase.

frankie_the_yankee · #20

My Terralux TLE-6EX LED arrived today. I installed it in my 4 C cell Maglite.

I seem to get a different result from everyone else.

The led is definitely brighter and a bit "whiter", with a slight bluish cast to it. But I noticed three main differences in the beam compared to the incandescent bulb.

Sorry that I haven't figured out how to post pictures yet. I will try to describe them.

1) While the focused spot seems slightly smaller with the LED, the outline of the spot is fuzzier. From the photos others have posted, it seems most people get a sharper outline to the spot.

2) The "side beam" (the light that spills outside of the spot) is wider with the LED.

3) When focus is changed to give a wide beam (floodlight mode?) a dark spot appears in the center of the main spot. This doesn't seem to happen with the incandescent bulb, which just smoothly spreads into a wide spot beam. Also, I haven't noticed others mentioning this.

Overall, I think the upgrade is an improvement, especially as regards battery life. The package says the LED puts out 140 lumens, which is something like 2x the rating of the incandescent bulb.

It lights up the night pretty well.

CHL/LEO · #21

Check out this link:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/581888/10 ... ight_hack/

Paladin · #22

frankie_the_yankee wrote:3) When focus is changed to give a wide beam (floodlight mode?) a dark spot appears in the center of the main spot. This doesn't seem to happen with the incandescent bulb, which just smoothly spreads into a wide spot beam. Also, I haven't noticed others mentioning this.

I get that dark spot too if I adjust the beam (on both the original bulb and the TerraLux). But you really don't want a dark spot in the middle, so I keep my light focused into a tight beam with no dark spot in the middle. Focus no tighter than it has to be to remove the dark spot.

I've estimated about a 3x improvement in battery life with the TerraLux (based on the standard MAGLITE info on flashlightreviews.com)

JRG · #23

Mine arrived today. It is awesome. I am very Pleased!!

JRG

Paladin · #24

I recieved a replacement for the DealExtreme LED. This new bulb works.

I haven't had a lot of time to test it, but removing the outer spring it will fit into the Surefire G2. For whatever reason, I had to adjust the tailcap of the G2 just right to get it to work. I have an older model G2. Don't know if that's a factor.

Candlepowerforums seems to recommend this bulb a little more for the Surefire G2:

http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1447

While I can't recommend this bulb for weaponlights as I haven't seen any testing for it, I tried it out in my weaponlights just to see if it would work.

The DealExtreme(sku 6090) will NOT fit in my Surefire Nitrolon handgun light.

The DealExtreme(sku 6090) does fit nicely in the Digilight T6 weaponlight I have on my AR-15. Appears to function perfectly. Much brighter than the standard bulb. Huge improvement over the standard incandesent bulb. The DealExtreme beam is not quite as pretty a beam as the Fenix "P3D Premium 100" as there is a dark ring just outside of the center hotspot.

I'm thinking about testing the new bulb on the range. It would have to hold up to a couple hundred rounds of live fire before I could trust it.

frankie_the_yankee · #25

FWIW in real life I am a packaging enginneer in the semiconductor industry. I design and develop the external casings for semiconductor chips that protect them from the external environment and allow for electrical connections to be made to external circuitry.

Unless poorly made, any LED is going to be many times more shock resistant than any incandescent bulb. It's just the nature of the beast. An LED is essentially a solid molded piece. There is nothing to bounce around inside. It takes a huge amount of acceleration or shock load to break the adhesive bond between the clear plastic encapsulating material and the chip, which would cause the internal wires to break and render the LED useless.

By comparison, it takes much less acceleration or shock load to break the filament of an incandescent bulb. The filament is just hanging in space where it is free to vibrate, which eventually leads to fatigue cracking and failure.

And this of course is in addition to the process where a little bit of the filament "boils off" in normal use, causing it to gradually thin out until it fails.