2AA 3-watt mini Maglites in stock at Wal-Mart

C

Carl64

Joined
Apr 3, 2005
Messages
1,830
In Austin anyway.

For $24, it's a pretty good deal. Made in the US, though the LED's are probably an imported component.

Light output is on par with other 3-watt LED lights, so there is no disappointment there.

No clickable power switch, which is annoying when you are used to having it. I quickly got used to twisting it on with one hand, but I would still rather have a switch. (Note: The tailcap is longer on the inside end than a standard mini mag, so switchable tailcap replacements meant for the old light may not work on the new model. I tried switching it with the tailcap from a standard mini mag, and it will not turn on.)

It's about 1 inch longer in total than the regular 2aa model. The head piece is stretched and the body is longer. I guess the power regulator or whatever needs room.

The beam is not perfect and still has some visible rings, but it is much better than the old Mags. It's still adjustable focus, which will always have a less smooth beam pattern than fixed focus since it can't be optimized for all positions, but it's not all crazy-looking. But if you focus it to spot, you can make the rings almost vanish entirely.

The beam is also fairly wide for peripheral light (good to have), though it could be a little better. But it beats the Inova X03 for getting a wide view, as the X03 is fixed at almost pure spot focus, which sucks because you are blind on the sides.

Using AA batteries could be good or bad. It sounds good, but if you use the light enough to want Lithium batteries, you can actually get a much better deal on 123a lithiums than AA lithiums.

My only minor complaints are when I compare it to lights costing double, and even then this light can come out on top sometimes. Overall, it's just a really well-improved Mini Mag, and if you look at it that way it's nothing but roses. After being the dinosaurs of flashlights for a few years, Mag pumped out some pure genius juice and did what many other manufacturers hardly ever have the sense to do: take a successfull product and just make it better without f$#@%ing it up too much.

This will make a really nice gift, as people will recognize the Maglite but also be surprised by the new brightness. And it isn't too expensive either. If I wasn't such a jerk, I might buy a bunch for people.
 
The tail-cap from the old mags will work if you swap the springs, I like having that lanyard attachment. Not a bad light for the price. Do you have aby idea of the run time?
 
Edit: Oops, I forgot to mention that the websites below refer to the d-cell replacement LED, not the AA model. Obviously the runtime numbers are not the same for the AA model, but they might give us a relative idea of what to expect.

Not sure on the run time. If you feel like reading a lot, some geeky folks have concluded that the power regulation or whatever is actually kind of primitive and the runtime and brightness control are kind of lame:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=119665&highlight=mag-led
(kind of long)

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/maglite_mag-led.htm
(much shorter)

I guess that's the big drawback. But I am not familiar with how other lights stack up in the details these people are looking at (power drops and heating), so I don't know if the issues they describe are lame or typical.
 
The reviews of the D-cell drop-in are probably irrelevant; I doubt the new one is that badly heat-sinked. Leave it on for a few minutes. Does it get dimmer as it warms up?
 
Yes, it does, but not extremely hot. More like warm. I didn't time it, but probably about 15 minutes like they said. But I guess it would be getting hotter if the heat sinking were better, as the user feels the heat that is moving away from the bulb.

After 10 hours, the light is basically completely dead. That's not surprising, as I would only expect a couple hours of good light out of it at most. I fell asleep and didn't get to see the critical hours. :( I'll try again today.
 
If I understand you correctly, it doesn't get very hot to the touch but it dims noticably as it warms up for the first 15 mintes, just like the D-cell drop-ins? I was hoping for better performance from this one.... :(
 
It definitely got warm, but I wasn't able to tell if the light drops as much as their graphs show in response to the heat.

I didn't notice an immediate 50% brightness drop like they are graphing out for the D models, but it's really hard to tell for sure going by memory of a light 15 minutes ago. It didn't seem like a 50% drop. After about an hour I was pretty sure it was dimmer, but again it's hard to tell how much.

If I get around to it, I can be all fancy and take some pictures. That's the only way to get a really good comparison without having multiple flashlights running at once.
 
Well, I kind of goofed up because the first image is clearly over exposed. I somehow didn't realize this until the third picture, so I don't have a good look at how much it drops in the first 15 minutes.

The picture also shows a lot of blue, but it's a completely white LED. The white balance was set to tungsten, so it makes the LED look blue. This actually helps because as the light fades you can notice the blue creeping into the darker areas.

Started with fresh batteries, measured 1.6 volts.

Each segment is 15 minutes.

In total it ran at least 3 hours and 15 minutes. When I went to take the picture at 195 minutes, the light was off completely. That was an unexpected sudden drop-off. If I turned the light off for a few seconds it would come back on again briefly then shut off again. The "___" frame is what the light looked like when it just barely came back on.

I measured the voltage after the light died, and it was all the way down to 1.08 volts, but after I let it sit for a while it went back up to 1.24 volts. The last segment is what the light looks like after cooling down about 10 minutes. Going just by looks, if the light could cool fast enough on its own it might have another whole hour of constant running time.

 
I wrote to mag around 6 years ago mentioning that I thought they should get involved with LED's. This was when I thought mag was a good company.

They also discovered poor heatsinking for the LED, which the circuitry then has to compensate for by quickly lowering output as the module heats up...After the big plunge in the first 15 minutes,
Click to expand...

We are looking at nearly a 60% drop in output, due to the LED getting hot, from a severe lack of good heatsinking
Click to expand...

mag3wrun.png
 
Ah, nice. I was going to do a second run to get a better look at the first 15 minutes, but 1. I got tired of doing it and 2. the odd behavior at the end of the run, rather than the beginning, confirms that it is having issues with heat.

I haven't done the same with other lights, but I know most of them don't go dead until they are actually dead. Letting them sit for 10 minutes doesn't bring them back to almost half brightness.

I still think it's a good deal for the price, but rather than being completely amazed at the price I think it reflects the good and bad aspects, resulting in a good deal overall. A lot of people don't need to run a flashlight for 3 hours straight, or even for 15 minutes (The reason I didn't notice the drop at all on my first set of batteries is probably because I never had it on for more than a minute at once). But they can still get a brighter beam, longer battery life, and not have to change bulbs. Sure it's disappointing compared to better lights, and after Mag's supposed "waiting to do it right" delay, but even after an hour of use it was still preferable to a standard mini Mag with the cheap 3-LED upgrade and new batteries.

This performance from the Mini doesn't suck nearly as much as it would in a large D-cell model probably used by someone planning to use it for more extended periods.
 
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