The bulb on my Ridgid 24V XLI flashlight broke. The flashlight was part of a drill, saw, flashlight set.
I wanted to replace it with an LED bulb-- the capacity of the 24V battery applied to an LED would result in a very long light source.
The type of bulb used is some strange type for halogens and has a flange for ground (in the photo, it is the bulb where the filament is showing but missing the glass, which was broken).
Fortunately, the 9mm BA9S bulb almost fits. As you can see in the photo, the 9mm BA9S has two nipples at the bottom on opposing sides. These do not fit into the flashlight. However, they are soft and file off easy. I used a metal file once and a sanding wheel on a different occasion.
With the nipples filed off the bulb fits into the flashlight socket nicely, and a spring loaded tensioner on the side keeps it in place.
Note that the black ring is the part that screws off of the flashlight.
I found LED BA9S bulbs made with LED on ebay and on superbrightleds.com
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| make this photo larger to see the filed-off nipples. |
Is this bulb brighter than the original, and how did you make the spring loaded tensioner
ReplyDeleteI haven't measured the brightness. The amount of light produced is equal or greater to the original bulb, but due to the square LED configuration the beam does not converge.
ReplyDeleteno tensioner is needed- the LED bulb base fits snug in the original tensioner. Without the nipple on the bulb base the bulb can wiggle out if you really throw the thing around like a contractor would. In that case a dab of glue would be a good idea.
no additional parts were made- the project boils down to filing the nipples off of that LED bulb base and then inserting it.