# My ~1300 lumen mag 761 and ~10,000 lumen mag 458



## Eddie-M (Oct 10, 2012)

Hello CPF. I wanted to show you a couple of my hot wire builds I made about a year ago. Each of these uses an AW Mag D incan driver for 3 brightness levels and softstart. I am using odd mods battery adapters for 6AA in the 2D maglite and 21AA in the 6D maglite. For batteries I am using duraloops (rebranded eneloops with duracell packaging). The 2D maglite runs a Philips 5761 bulb at about 7 volts for about 1300 lumens and the 6D maglite runs an Osram 64458 at 19.6 volts for about 10,000 lumens. Both lights have a resistance fix wire mod in the maglite tailspring.

On the 2D I am using a fivemega bi-focal reflector. On the 6D I am using a fivemega FM3X turbo head.

AW Mag D incan driver (His stock photo)






2D-6AA mdocod's adapter




















6D-21AA mdocod's adapter




















Size comparison (3.6lbs kitteh for reference)





Estimated lumen output is derived from LuxLuthor's Destructive Incan Bulb Tests.

6AA battery pack rested voltage: 8.40 Volts
Voltage to bulb under load: 6.98 Volts
Current through bulb: 5.07 Amps
Calculated system resistance: 0.280 Ohms
Estimated bulb lumens: 1,300 Lumens





21AA battery pack rested voltage: 27.4 Volts
Voltage to bulb under load: 19.6 Volts
Current through bulb: 10.10 Amps
Calculated system resistance: 0.772 Ohms
Estimated bulb lumens: 10,000 Lumens





Beamshots to come. Ultimately I plan on rebuilding these flashlights with IMR batteries and JimmyM JM-PhD-D1 PWM Hotwire Regulators.


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## Fresh Light (Oct 10, 2012)

Really nice builds you have there! I hope some better batteries come along. Elites used to be great but I understand they aren't so much any more. Duraloops are good to what, maybe 10Amps?


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## 1pt21 (Oct 11, 2012)

Question for the OP:

Does the FM Bi-Focal Reflector fit the 5761 without modification??

I'm thinking about picking up a few, but am concerned that the bulb opening is not large enough for the 5761's I prefer. Did you have to open yours up at all, or direct drop-in??

Thanks for any info!!


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## 1pt21 (Oct 11, 2012)

Deleted.. Stupid question...


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## Eddie-M (Oct 11, 2012)

OK, here are the beamshots. I went out to a park over in my neck of the woods. I took my photos from the first car port on the left across the field and to the tree line which is about 500' away. Manual camera settings for all pics are: f5.6, 2.5" exposure time, iso 1600.





Stock 6D maglite; ~220 lumens





Modified 2D maglite; ~1,300 lumens





Modified 6D maglite; ~10,000 lumens





Stock 6D maglite; ~220 lumens





Modified 2D maglite; ~1,300 lumens





Modified 6D maglite; ~10,000 lumens





Stock 6D maglite; ~220 lumens





Modified 2D maglite; ~1,300 lumens





Modified 6D maglite; ~10,000 lumens


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## jmpaul320 (Oct 11, 2012)

Epic. I also have a 458 with 16x aa .. looks like your setup is nicer though! Check my signature for my 458


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## Eddie-M (Oct 11, 2012)

Fresh Light said:


> Really nice builds you have there! I hope some better batteries come along. Elites used to be great but I understand they aren't so much any more. Duraloops are good to what, maybe 10Amps?



Thanks. I agree about better batteries. It used to be that the Elites and Titaniums were the go to batteries for high amp draw, not so much any more. Duraloops drop down to about 1.0 volts per cell at 10 Amps, but they don't like it. I have allready had an almost new battery get real hot and fizz under this current draw. That why I'm going to switch to IMR batteries, higher discharge, less internal resistance, more voltage.



1pt21 said:


> Question for the OP:
> 
> Does the FM Bi-Focal Reflector fit the 5761 without modification??
> 
> ...



Nope, I had to use a step bit and open mine up just a bit. I cant remember exactly how much, it wasn't alot, I think I made the hole about 1-2mm larger in diameter.


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## Eddie-M (Oct 11, 2012)

jmpaul320 said:


> Epic. I also have a 458 with 16x aa .. looks like your setup is nicer though! Check my signature for my 458



Thanks! I've seen yours. I've been meaning to post. I like yours better, it's more portable and the chrome/nickle really looks sharp. I think ultimately I want to get a hold of a fat-body host like FM's elephant II or modamags colossus host, run about 8 18650 IMR's and use JimmyM's JM-PhD-D1 PWM Hotwire Regulator to run the bulb at a hair under 21.0 Volts for a regulated 12,000 lumens. That would be a pretty small WOW light and with multimodes and the extra battery voltage could actually run for a decent amount of time in the medium or low modes.


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## jmpaul320 (Oct 11, 2012)

Ya good idea... how does you bulb not poof on 21 aas? ?


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## jmpaul320 (Oct 11, 2012)

The resting voltage of my pack is 22.5 off the charger and 21.8 after 12 hours. I'm using elite batteries. They are OK but not great. Dims after 5 min from sag

Comparing mine to your beamshots I would say mine is 85% as bright


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## Eddie-M (Oct 11, 2012)

jmpaul320 said:


> Ya good idea... how does you bulb not poof on 21 aas? ?



I have poofed my bulbs several times. I have to rest my battery pack before I use the light. After resting, my battery pack is 29.2 volts (1.39 volts per cell). I also run my light on low for about 15 seconds, then medium for about 15 seconds before I go into high mode on my first use with a freshly charged pack. I can run the light without resting the pack, but I just have to extend the low and medium run times. Really I'm just trying to shave off that very short first peak you have on a fresh cell before its voltage levels out.

The thing about eneloops (or duraloops) is that under a 10amp draw, they sag down to about 1.0 volts per cell pretty quickly (due to the internal resistance of each cell). At 21 cells, this puts me at 21 volts, which is just below the flash point of the bulb. Then I have the resistance of everything else in the system; flashlight body, switch, tail spring ect. as well.

I calculated my total system resistance (this includes the resistance of all the batteries, the bulb, everything) to be 0.772 ohms by comparing idle battery pack voltage vs voltage at the bulb with batteries under load. At a current draw of 10 amps, this becomes a voltage drop of 7.72 volts! This sounds like alot, and it is, but you have to remember that many people estimate voltage drop based on just the host (flashlight body and other stuff) but forget to factor in the resistance of the batteries too. I have calculated the resistance of my host to be about 0.132 ohms, and based on the methodology I see alot, I would asume I will only have 1.32 volt drop from the battery pack to the bulb. This fails to adress though that I have a resistance of about 0.03 ohms per cell, which gives me 0.63 ohms for just my battery pack alone and then combined with my hosts resistance gives me my total resistance in the neighborhood of 0.772 ohms.

Long story short, if I had acheived the 29.2 volts of my battery pack though a combination of fewer, larger capacity, higher voltage cells with lower internal resistance per cell, then it would probably be impossible to drive this bulb at all without poofing it every time.

Sorry for the rant, 3rd shift, been up forever, starting to see pink elephants, need to sleep lol!


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## jmpaul320 (Oct 11, 2012)

LOL... that's cool. I'm pretty sure even though my cells are high Dean cells and are rated up to 20 a that I get a good amount of drop as well. I do love having a light that will fry eggs though


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## Eddie-M (Oct 11, 2012)

Yeah, probably so. Whats the capacity on those cells? If it's lower than the 2000mah of the eneloops, then your cells probably sacrificed a bit of electrolyte (capacity) in favor of a larger anode/cathode which in and of itself lends to a lower cell resistance and the ability to discharge more amps.

Fried eggs, love em. I've got no groceries though. Wonder if I can fry cocoa pebbles or mac and cheese???


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## jmpaul320 (Oct 11, 2012)

actually theyre advertised as 2000mah lol. im also charging them at 1.5a with a crap 'smart' charger... yeah it wont be long before i shred through these cells lmao.


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## 1pt21 (Oct 11, 2012)

Eddie-M said:


> Nope, I had to use a step bit and open mine up just a bit. I cant remember exactly how much, it wasn't alot, I think I made the hole about 1-2mm larger in diameter.



Gotcha, thanks for the reply!

I think I'm still going to give one a try.. Man, you got that bulb to fit in there like a glove! Looks good.


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## missionaryman (Nov 8, 2012)

Great lights, can't believe how easy it is to make crazy high power incans now with off the shelf parts and pre tested data, 5 years ago this build would have taken you 2 years, made your hair turn grey and you would have had to sell your car to fund it.


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## Eddie-M (Nov 8, 2012)

Thanks! I agree, the maglite parts and lux's bulb data make all this possible. I just rebuilt these flashlights BTW and will be making a new thread in a few days; They are now fully regulated for constant output using JimmyM's hotwire regulators!


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## vestureofblood (Nov 8, 2012)

I love these incan mods. These are a perfect representation of the truly "glory days" of this hobby. Thanks for sharing. These seem simple now but the amount of innovation it took to get to this place was paramount. I remember when many of the parts to those lights simply were not available, and I dont even consider my self and "old timer" of the forum.


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## StorminMatt (Nov 10, 2012)

Eddie-M said:


> The thing about eneloops (or duraloops) is that under a 10amp draw, they sag down to about 1.0 volts per cell pretty quickly (due to the internal resistance of each cell). At 21 cells, this puts me at 21 volts, which is just below the flash point of the bulb. Then I have the resistance of everything else in the system; flashlight body, switch, tail spring ect. as well.



One possibility that came to mind as far as batteries would be to run an extension tube (or probably two) and use half D batteries. I'm not sure how the internal resistance of them compares with full D batteries. But it HAS to be quite a bit better than AA batteries. This WOULD make for a rather long light, which may or may not be something desirable. But it would also substantially improve runtime.


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