Time to get your dad a new flashlight for a belated Father’s Day gift, but he won’t quit toting that damned incandescent maglite?!?
It just so happens that Mac’s XM-L drop-in is intended for just that old flashlight! Provided that it has a D in the serial number, that is. If the Mag doesn’t have a D in the serial, it’s very, very old now. The XM-L dropin replaces the old SST-50 dropin. The SST-50 was driven at the same current but was less efficient, so the XM-L should be brighter.
http://macscustoms.com/MagLiteDropIn.aspx
alkalines just can’t handle the current on high though:
anyway it’s a good dropin alternative to the incan, it’ll be bright enough to be worth the bother rather than just a little brighter.
I’d say that the best fuel for the beast might not be the batteries Mac is recommending though, those are not LSD. As a flashaholic, Mac is very accustomed to short battery life, charging constantly, etc. The rest of us want the equipment ready whenever, and high-capacity non-LSD cells don’t necessarily do that. Either a set of LSD d-cells or a set of 8x eneloops in 4x of these adapters (or similar):
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/soshine-aa-to-d-size-battery-convertor-case-3228
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/soshine-aa-to-d-size-battery-convertor-case-3228
the LSD D-cells I’ve seen mentioned a couple of times here and there are these:
I’d say that $10/ea is reasonable, they should have about 4x the capacity of an Eneloop…