Triple XP-G Magicshine

I don't have the exact dimensions handy, but I know the ID of the magicshine case is bigger than the 35mm triple optics. So the optics can be made to fit.

The slightly tricky part will be making a new slug. The standard magicshine slug is optimized for the P7 and reflector as well as the mount for their driver PCB. You'll need a slug with a much larger flat surface to mount the XPG triple MCPCB and a mount point on the other side for the maxflex thermal pad. You'll likely also have to make a new threaded slug retainer ring or figure out another way to hold the slug against the housing. The standard retainer ring that holds the slug in the housing will get in the way of the XPG triple MCPCB. I bet you could just use pressure from the threaded front of the case to hold the optic, MCPCB, and slug in the case as a unit. In which case, all you'll need is to fabricate a new slug of the right size and shape.

An alternative?

35 mm wide with a seating flange? Maybe one of the two NOS Marwi light bodies will work:

http://www.hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/catalog/partsled.htm

(No I do not get commission.)

The second one is the second last picture on the page and is bullet shaped.

My bullet shaped ones measure 34.9 mm at threads (NOT a micrometer reading so YMMV) for front bezel and fit an MR11 (nominal 35mm halopgen bulb originally). 33 mm ID behind that for 25 mm of depth to a cone shape for another 22 mm to the end of the aluminum shell where the the plastic cap/mount piece fits. The older style ones shown at the top of the page with the P7 parts likely change ID too soon and too fast to work with the optic/LEDs.

A couple of ways to make a copper pipe heat sink for the bullet one:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=254367

Bflex fits fine and Maxflex is smaller OD. You can solder a piece of copper to get the thermal pad needed. If the workmanship is solid but not showcase ready, it's nicely hidden by the lens and body.

EL34 is good to deal with. Maybe he knows someone who went the aluminum slug route with triple XP-G's. Be a bit cheaper than a MJ-808 light head, but you need to buy a helmet mount & mounting hardware too (a better setup IMHO, though).

I have a Triple XP-G using separate lenses with a simple pipe cap heatsink and Bflex in the bullet Marwi on my helmet. No issues other than I hate the power cable to the big NiMH on the bike, as expected.

A pair of tailights I made that show the bullet light nicely:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3422103&postcount=99

BrianMc said:

35 mm wide with a seating flange? Maybe one of the two NOS Marwi light bodies will work:

http://www.hoffmanamps.com/MyStore/catalog/partsled.htm

(No I do not get commission.)

The second one is the second last picture on the page and is bullet shaped.

My bullet shaped ones measure 34.9 mm at threads (NOT a micrometer reading so YMMV) for front bezel and fit an MR11 (nominal 35mm halopgen bulb originally). 33 mm ID behind that for 25 mm of depth to a cone shape for another 22 mm to the end of the aluminum shell where the the plastic cap/mount piece fits. The older style ones shown at the top of the page with the P7 parts likely change ID too soon and too fast to work with the optic/LEDs.

A couple of ways to make a copper pipe heat sink for the bullet one:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=254367

Bflex fits fine and Maxflex is smaller OD. You can solder a piece of copper to get the thermal pad needed. If the workmanship is solid but not showcase ready, it's nicely hidden by the lens and body.

EL34 is good to deal with. Maybe he knows someone who went the aluminum slug route with triple XP-G's. Be a bit cheaper than a MJ-808 light head, but you need to buy a helmet mount & mounting hardware too (a better setup IMHO, though).

I have a Triple XP-G using separate lenses with a simple pipe cap heatsink and Bflex in the bullet Marwi on my helmet. No issues other than I hate the power cable to the big NiMH on the bike, as expected.

A pair of tailights I made that show the bullet light nicely:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3422103&postcount=99

Click to expand...

Brian, A nice job you did modding those old Marwi light heads. I would of sworn it wouldn't of been possible to put a 35mm triple XPG board in one of those light heads. The ones I have look to be about 33mm I.D. Just wondering....did you have to do any filing on the board to make it fit? Any problems with getting the optics to fit afterwards? What optics did you use?

Anyway, from the pictures on the CPF site, it didn't look too hard to make a heat sink. Of course making it fit snugly looks to be the trick.
If you didn't need as much throw I suppose you could use a 20mm triple if you were going to bar mount. That might be easier ( for us less able DIY'ers .. ) to work with.

Nice job modding those tail lights as well. ( Lots of good ideas there ). Any idea on just how bright they are lumen wise? I don't suppose they flash but would be even nicer if they did. :thumbsup:

Cat-man-do said:

Brian, A nice job you did modding those old Marwi light heads. I would of sworn ... Any problems with getting the optics to fit afterwards? What optics did you use?

Click to expand...

My bad. I beg the OP's pardon. Yes the ID is 33 mm. So it means some work squeezing the MR11 triple with Cute lens in there. I used three 10 mm round MCPCB light engines. I also used separate lenses for each LED in both lights. (More on that later).

PMing EL34 as to whether someone has stuffed the triple MR11 in one, would be a great idea.

I was thinking of the triple optic clearance and went off from there with the post. The Cute lens which would seat where the original MR11 bulb seated. Looking at the pic on Cutter, you might need to cut three scallops just behind the lip on the inside of the light body to clear the frontmost part of the three lens cones where they are widest. Otherwise, it looks like the lens would go. The lens legs should fit a bit inside of inner wall. At most a little sanding would do it.

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut759

The board is a different story. You'd have to take off 1.0 mm evenly all around to squeeze a triple board in there: 35 down to 33. I polished out about 0.1 mm out to get a copper to aluminum smooth contact as their are small ridges in the 'bore'. But the 1 mm aluminum is about right to spread heat over the body, so I wouldn't make it any thinner.

The MR11 MCPCB triple pic in the Cutter link doesn't show the traces under the mask, but the quad does pretty well. Judging by the quad, it looks like you'd be OK taking the outer 1 mm off the triple. EL34 will know if a customer did this and told him about it. You could use triple 10 mm boards like I did but the alignment would be critical. I'd rather fuss trimming the triple down evenly.

Cat-man-do said:

Anyway, from the pictures on the CPF site, it didn't look too hard to make a heat sink. Of course making it fit snugly looks to be the trick.

Click to expand...

Not hard. Just patience. I found a hot plate a great way to solder assemblages. Just line it all up sit in on a burner, heat it up add solder. Done. I melted a little silver solder in the backside of the copper cap before splitting and expanding to increase the firewall thickness a bit (Troutie recommend 5 mm for AL, CU can be less, but not knowing how much less, and not a weight weinie, I opted for a bit of insurance.)

You either build up a 1" pipe cap, or slit it so you can expand it. The sanding and fitting is fiddly but the payoff is more metal-metal contact and a cooler light. The helmet light at 1 amp in flash mode in the day (daytime running light for comatose drivers, 85-95 *F or about 30-35 *C ambient, sun warming black body) feels nicely warm, like the perfect winter hand warmer, so maybe 40 C, after my cool down and a few minutes stopped shutting lights down. About skin temp while riding.

Given a 35 mm aluminum MCPCB trimmed for a tight fit in a 33 mm ID body, I might be tempted to cut the bottoms out of 2 1 1/4 " pipe caps, and grind them to fit and use thermal epoxy to fasten them in as a firewall for th MCPCB to sit on. Or use a 33 mm diameter, 5 mm thick aluminum slug.

Cat-man-do said:

If you didn't need as much throw I suppose you could use a 20mm triple if you were going to bar mount. That might be easier ( for us less able DIY'ers .. ) to work with.

Click to expand...

If you are doing two, one bar, one helmet making one a 20 mm based light would be easier.

Borderline On topic:

My optics: My helmet light with aspheric lenses:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=602133

Thrower works very well. It does not take impact well.

The triple Carclo 10417: great anti-tunnel effect, nasty on the road. Working on fixing it:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3447006&postcount=319

Cat-man-do said:

Nice job modding those tail lights as well. ( Lots of good ideas there ). Any idea on just how bright they are lumen wise? I don't suppose they flash but would be even nicer if they did. :thumbsup:

Click to expand...

Thanks Cat-man-do.
OP: This is OT other than the Marwi housings.

~100 lumens each. About 2 = ~1.3 x a Dinottte 140. The 12 V (AC or DC) driver is for landscape or indoor spot lighting and has no such option. A Bflex to drive both could fix that but would almost double the cost.

Lumens:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3427754&postcount=108

Brighter than brake lights:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3428252&postcount=109

Day video:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3435483&postcount=46

Night video:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3437637&postcount=48

I hope that takes further discussion of my lights off this thread. I beg the OP's pardon.

BrianMc said:

.....I hope that takes further discussion of my lights off this thread. I beg the OP's pardon.

Click to expand...

But it's such a good discussion! I looked at all those CPF links and it all looks good. Very impressive.

Another option for modding a Marwi for rear duties would be to use a red torch drop-in module. The one I have is cheap, bright but doesn't flash. You would need to build a heat sink to hold the drop-in but I don't think that would be too difficult. It seems making a flash circuit would be the main problem. I've never built my own circuit before ( except using bread boards ) but I know it can be done. Back in the day I remember building a simple flash type circuit using the 555 timer chip. You could control the flash using a simple pot. Been a long time since I've messed with circuits but at least I still have the books and the basic knowledge if I really wanted to do it.. That drop-in module is bright and is powered by a standard 18650 battery. Believe me, worth looking into.

Great option sinnce you have the torch drop in.

FYI there might be some meat for a flashing circuit in this thread:.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=238809

Also speaking of wider floodier 20mm optics and triple LED boards: a triple orange red XP-E P4 (I think) 67.2 lumens at 350 mA and close to 100 at max current. Plus a Bflex is 300 flashing lumens. About 2 X a Dinotte 140. 50 % more than my pair of Luxeons. Two would be 600 lumens!

Or you can use the 9 die 10 watt (nominal) 550 lumens at 1.8 A (though recommended constant current is 0.9 A, so it's MADE for flashing:

At 1 A constant:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=7073694&postcount=81

Brief description
http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=7073857&postcount=84

LED link:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=7086669&postcount=87

Now THAT's what I call a tailight! Design, info, and scorched earth by Leopold Porkstacker.