I was out shopping yesterday at REI. (Yes, I got off my ass and bought something not online for once.) At REI, I saw an LED replacement kit for mini-Maglites. I had read about these before, where you swap out the halogen bulb in a Maglite flashlight and install an LED bulb into it.

The kit was $8 so I decided to give it a try. I knew it wasn't going to be the same as the new trend of seriously hardcore flashlights, but it could be neat anyways. I had already burned out one halogen bulb and was on the spare. Replacement halogen bulbs are $3-4 per pair.

This version consisted of 3 LEDs to replace the single halogen bulb. It took longer to hack through the plastic packaging than it did to do the actual bulb swap. I really hate the trend toward this fortress-like packaging these days.

Here you can see the old bulb and reflector about the flashight before I put it all back together.

Pros:
The light color is more white and not yellowish at all.
Longer battery life
All the cool kids are doing it

Cons:
You lose the focusing control of the Maglite.
Not noticeably brighter
My wife thinks it's 'another stupid blog thing, right?'

Tonight I'll take it outside and look for possums with the dog...

Posted by michael at December 19, 2005 01:02 PM