Question for DIY Canister light head made out of maglite

[Firediver]

I ordered2" glass circles from the local stain glass and it was $2.00 per lense.. no problem. The Maglite glass lense is 1.5mm thick which is too thin.. I tried it. The stain glass shop uses 3mm and had mine to 100ft no problem<that is with my first DIY canister>
I have on mounted in the maglite glued in with epoxy. I have pics posted on here in another thread.DIY CANISTER LIGHT....... The second lense I cut down and stepped it to hold a larger oring.. Since the glass was cheep, if the lense breaks, it's not much to replace. I DIDN"T GLUE THE TWO LENSES TOGETHER.
I know of two guys who have used Lexan, but they can't use a 50watt bulb because the heat it produces will melt it, so they use a 35w bulb.

 

[Kwbyron]

Is there anywhere you can get step by step instructions....with photos on this? I have my maglight cleared out, and when I put the halogen bulb (50 watt) in with a 3mm piece of glass, the bulb and lenses touch. The bulb also rest on the housing where it bevels in at the top of the threads for the lense cap. i can't forsee a problem with that, but it might be more sensitive to shocks. Also, I have no idea what to do for power...I'm thinking 24volts at 2 amps would give longer battery life... i don't know though...

 

[bradshsi]

Is there anywhere you can get step by step instructions....with photos on this? I have my maglight cleared out, and when I put the halogen bulb (50 watt) in with a 3mm piece of glass, the bulb and lenses touch. The bulb also rest on the housing where it bevels in at the top of the threads for the lense cap. i can't forsee a problem with that, but it might be more sensitive to shocks. Also, I have no idea what to do for power...I'm thinking 24volts at 2 amps would give longer battery life... i don't know though...

Try

http://groups.msn.com/Divelight/

Did you bore out your maglite so that it was deep enough for the bulb ? You can't have any pressure load on the bulb or it will crack.

Unless you have a 24V bulb, I wouldn't try a 24 volt battery. I'm not sure what your thinking is regarding battery life. If you want to explain what life you want, we can suggest ways to get it.

 

[Kwbyron]

My thought was since it's a 50 watt bulb, which is amps times voltage, if I double the volts, the amps that the light would draw would be cut by half...which would double the burn time. My thought on this, was I could use more C-cell batteries wich has less mAh then a D-cell, but is also cheeper and easier to find. I havn't bored it out yet... I am thinking I'll call a machine shop and see if they could do it for me, I have a roto-tool, but I always feel bad firing up my compresor(I live in an apt complex) and It wasn't doing the trick just useing my cordless drill.

 

[Firediver]

hmm.. if you use 24v.. your just going to over power your bulb and lessen the life span of it. YOu will find this explained better on the MSN dive light page. I have also machined out my maglite to fir the bulb and the lenses....... ON MSN dive light they may have step by step instuctions.......I can't remember

 

[426Scuba]

Kwbyron,

Read this there is a lot of good info on batteries.

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=129065

 

[Kwbyron]

Ive been trying to take photos of mine as I move along. My plan is to put together a shopping list and some semi-step by step instructions and post the link here for others....The lamp looks nice, but the powerpac looks really home-made.