my miniMaglite story

H

hawkpatriot

Joined
Jul 20, 2004
Messages
535
I was caving with my Boy Scout troop at Laurel Caverns, PA last month. A few days before the trip, I realized I needed a flashlight. I've been told, caving without a light isnt a real good idea, sooo... I hit up the local Sports Authority and bought a miniMaglite. Good price, looks durable, good reputation. Later on, I fix an idiot cord to it with some 90mph tape, and head down into the cave. To make a long story short, I dropped my light numerous times on rocks and in mud. Every time I picked it up, it still worked. A also dragged it through water and mud, and it kept on working. On one occasion, I dropped it while climbing up through a chute and it was submerged in a puddle of water, but as you guessed, it still worked.
I gave it a good cleaning when I got back.
 
Great story, thanks.

MiniMag 2AA have long had a good reputation - as you have found out.

One minor point is the possible fragile nature of the actual incandescent bulb - as it is just a suspended filament in a glass bulb - this is common to all incandescent flashlights and not unique to the MiniMag.

However as your own experience showed it is not in practice that "fragile".

An "upgrade" to LED technology would make the MiniMag virtually "bulletproof" - as it would remove the fragile nature of the "bulb" as LEDs are solid-state. Although some LED replacements can make things more complex as they need either step-up circuits or sometimes they are regulated to give constant output, then there's cost, something like 2x to even 4x the cost of the MiniMag.......

Personally (1) I'm cheap, and (2) like things as simple as possible -
so I like the MJLED drop-in replacement LED -
all one does is simply replace the bulb with the bare (MJ)LED and get much better/smoother/even beam characteristics with comparable brightness and about 30+hours runtime on one set of regular AA alkaline batteries -
almost sounds too good to be true,
and it costs about $5 -
please see this long thread over at CPF -

MJLED drop-in for MiniMag 2AA

and even -

Homemade MJLED

--
Vincent

http://UnknownVT2005.cjb.net
http://UnknownVT.cjb.net
http://UnknownVincent.cjb.net
 
Yesterday I ordered two Nite-Ize LED abd clicky switch sets from Campmor, only $9 each. I also got a Platypus Big Zip 4 for only $15 :cool: Now I will be all set for my camping trip in three weeks.
 
Great story!

I've found that the bulb blows when you swap in a new set of batteries and then drop it with the light on. Not quite sure why...

:confused:
 
I'll have to agrre with the majority, go with LED.

I thought Mags were the greatest(and they were) in the last couple of years LED Lites have improved dramatically, runtimes are longer, beams ar brighter and more durable, add to this the fact that the lights are getting smaller,(Arc AAA's are about the size of a AA battery and on half dead batteries will still outperform a 2AA MiniMag).

For a minimal cost(about $10) at REI or EMS
 
That was my second miniMag, the bulb broke in my first one and I couldn't figure out the replacement bulb. And I just read that the bulb life is limited to 5 sets of batteries. So after that, its either LED or another minimag.
 
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