Monday, June 16, 2008

Maglite Mini-Mag updrade

Lets face it, mag lites are pretty rugged but due to the advances in lighting technology the mini maglite seems to have dropped to a less used utility light. One thing that Nite Ize has done is create a upgrade to the mini maglite.

This upgrade includes a 3 LED module to replace the standard bulb, and a push button endcap to replace the standard endcap. This upgrade lengthens battery life greatly (20 hours) and puts out much better light, and it's shock resistant. The LED itself has a 100,000 hour life span...much better than the regular bulb. The light improvement is great compared to the standard bulb. The only thing you lose with this upgrade is the ability to adjust from flood to spot light. Not a bad sacrafice for the improvement.

Also included with this upgrade is a push button tail cap which allows you to easily turn the light on without having to twist the Bezel. This is nice, however, I've found that while holding the light in a light pouch it can accidentally be activated. For this reason I've done away with using the push buttong and gone back to the original tail cap and just turn the light bezel to turn the light on. This is not a light used for tactical applications anyway, so the endcap switch isn't needed. When you do use the tail cap switch....you'll need to leave the bezel loose to keep the switch activated. If you tighten the bezel, the switch cannot be accidently activated, but then that defeats the purpose of the switch all together because the bezel will need to be loosened for the light to come on.

All in all, if you have a mini maglite kicking around in a drawer somewhere not being used this is a good investment to get that light back into use. You can buy it at
Brigade Quartermasters for $9.99 (discounted if you qualify for the professionals discount) or buy at the local Target or hardware store.

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