Maglite LED?

M

mister_wilburn

Joined
May 23, 2006
Messages
410
Does anyone have experience with the 'new' Maglite LED combination? I was taking a look at them online and thinking about picking one up. How does the beam compare to my surefire? The 2D cell would be my pick, large enough to bang stuff and small enough for my assault pack.
 
Nice long running light, but no where near the intensity of a SF.

-dan
 
I converted my 4 cell D, I love it!
It's no surefire, but it kick's the incandescent bulbs ass.
I liked it so much I even bought the conversion for my mini mag.
I just love the fact that I know, I can drop the Light while on and not have worry about the bulb going out.:thumbup::thumbup:
 
I have a 2 cell - C cell maglight conversion and it give a bright blue-white light with excellent focus. You don't get the fuzzy mis-shaped focus you do with a normal bulb. I expect the batteries to last for many years! I am impressed.
 
I have 3 and 4 D cell Flashlights switched to LED.

Where I'm at there is no other lights around.

I depend on them and are used everyday.

Maglite is a Excellant Flashlight for the Money.

It,s not a Surefire.

But, I can see the Game 400 feet out with the Maglite and still save a lot of money.
 
have a 2 AA cell and a 3 D cell. Both are very bright and the batteries last forever
 
I have the 3D cell Mag LED, I use it all the time. Reliable, bright, good throw, long lasting, readily available. If you have problems with it you can probably return it for a replacement or refund from where you purchased it, I like that aspect of it as well.

Mike
 
Decent brightness, super long battery life. I recommend the conversion- it's worth the extra few bucks. It's for utility. If you need to blind felons or dogs, go with a Surefire.
 
you can't take them back to ace hardware. tried today and they said to mail it to maglite even though i had the receipt. i've been saving broken double a 2 cells and now have 3 to return along with a 2x triple a. neither of the 2d models has ever had a problem.they have a lifetime guarantee.
 
This is a little "secret" about the MagLed's output:

The larger mags with the drop-in LED bulbs have poor heatsinking. However, the electronics decrease the current to the LED to preserve it (heat kills LEDs), so after about 15 minutes, you will see a 50% decrease in output.
I think this design is somewhat poor. Better heatsinking would have allowed more consistent high output.
Ragardless, it is still pretty darn bright, and an improvement over the incans.

The 2AA models have great output, and I believe they don't throttle back like the larger lights. But, they don't have a "moon mode." They just abruptly die.

The 3AA are the unsung hero. They have substantially more output than the 2AA, about 1.5X. In fact, the ouput is slightly more than the 2D LED and only slightly less than the 3D and 4D models.
The beam is excellent--more floody, but powerful enough to throw a bit. The light is long, but not uncomfortable to stuff into a back pocket.

About the beams on the bigger lights: they are pretty good. At optimum focus, there is a very bright and small hotspot which throws well, along with a bright spill. I dislike this beam, preferring a more diffuse spot ala the Surefire P60.
Still, the beams are darn good, overall.
 
Doesn't matter how you slice it, LED is brighter than incan counter part always. The poor heat sinking is good/bad depends on how you look at it, on one hand it kills the output quick, but on the other hand it gives you insane long run time.

If you want steady output, check out terreflux drop in, it's way more expensive than mag drop in thou.
 
LED is not always brighter than incan. The LED must be properly designed, and have proper heatsinking to attain good output and reliability. The MAgLED is an excellent example.
That Magled may start out at 40 lumens, but 15 minutes later, due to thermal limiting, it is down to 20 lumens. Yes, it has great runtime, but my P60 Surefire is still cranking out 50+ lumens...with a shorter runtime.

Poor heatsinking is always bad. It means that the light was not designed properly. Mag did a good job of preventing thermal runaway, but it is a still Bandaid for poor heatsinking.

Then there is the very real issue of color rendition (incans are still generally better than LED) and fog/rain penetration (my old bone-stock Tec-40s kills every LED I own when used in bad weather).

Just food for thought.
 
I use my 2d mag (nite-ize Led) in my "uncle murphy" bag. mostly because I know the bulb won't get busted rattling around in my truck. light output isn't great, but it seems to hold up in the cold better than an incan, but that might be just me. padalinbob, have you looked at the Pelican recoil lights? I have a 3c saberlite LED, it rips through fog and smoke, the twist on/off is not great for some people, but I like having a sealed, Ex rated light, just in case. They do make the recoil LEDs with a swich now as well.
 
pedalinbob said:
LED is not always brighter than incan. The LED must be properly designed, and have proper heatsinking to attain good output and reliability. The MAgLED is an excellent example.
That Magled may start out at 40 lumens, but 15 minutes later, due to thermal limiting, it is down to 20 lumens. Yes, it has great runtime, but my P60 Surefire is still cranking out 50+ lumens...with a shorter runtime.

Poor heatsinking is always bad. It means that the light was not designed properly. Mag did a good job of preventing thermal runaway, but it is a still Bandaid for poor heatsinking.

Then there is the very real issue of color rendition (incans are still generally better than LED) and fog/rain penetration (my old bone-stock Tec-40s kills every LED I own when used in bad weather).

Just food for thought.
Click to expand...

I meant led vs. incan in the same mag.
 
jzmtl said:
I meant led vs. incan in the same mag.
Click to expand...

Oops...we agree!

Sorry about the lengthy post above. I LOVE LEDs (the new Cree and SSCs are amazing), but prefer incans for some things.

Gadgetgeek: never tried the Recoil, but it looks like a very nice light.
It is interesting that generally, a light with a tight beam does well in bad weather.
But, (this is only my opinion) most LEDs have a unique wavelength (they lack the red spectrum) which results in their being swallowed up by fog, rain or even bright ambient light.

Yet, it appears that beam shape (tighter), as well as the bin of the LED (whiter) and the overall output can mitigate this effect.
I find that an LED needs more output to equal the rendition created by the incan, and a fair number of people notice the same effect.

Of course, it could just be my aging eye-ball-o-meters. :D
 
well, id does have a very tight beam, the design means that there is no "hole" in the center. I'm not sure if its better than an equal incan, I know it beats my 2d mag, (not that hard to do) and it is better that the regular saberlite, which my dad has swiched to, partly becasue of the big beefy clip. I think it may be more of the reflector design than anything else. I care more about impact resistance and life than brightness anyway. it could be the eye-ball-o-meters, different people are sensitive to different frequencies of light, I can't stand quartz light. its too bright at the source and not very good where its needed, and my mini-mag LED that throws kinda blueish lets me see way better in dark spaces, even though it puts out less than it did with the regular bulb. maybe the red shows up better for you?
 
I just ordered a malkoff drop in for my 3d mag, suppose to have 240 lumens from emitter, I'll see how much brighter is it compare to my mag LED, or mag incan. :D
 
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