The World’s Most Powerful Single Searchlight Unit

[LightSward]

Well, the day and night we've all been waiting for has finally arrived..!
First night time beam shot test sequence for the World's Biggest Single Bulb Searchlight, with models including the Brightest on this planet..!

This one just looked good with all the different colors.
Searchlight beam competing with an overhead, very bright, sodium vapor streetlight.

Cool shot of the beam slicing overhead.

Beam as seen passing overhead from a block away.

I apologize, but one of my photo hosts has unreliable and unstable links, (Facebook based), and this caused a large amount of my photos to vanish over he last few days. Apologize, but with all the photos I posted I'm not able to update all them do to a variety reasons, mostly time.

(Sneak Preview) Here is a quick look at the Searchlight when half finished, using only a 100watt HID bulb. Eventually I did Upgrade to a 1200 watt HMI with the help of the IgnITEor.
Picture of the beam shining away from the searchlight.

A view of the beam pointed away from camera. Searchlight is about a block away from camera. When I tried to go anywhere further, too many people started to arrive, having seen it over three miles away.



In the lower right corner, searchlight is visible and the side wash light is seen lighting up all the buildings much more than the street lights ever do.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202348582411068&saved


My introduction for the local news covering this story for the searchlight...lol...I crack myself up sometimes...lol...just did it again...lol...can't stop now...lol....repeat...

Daytime. 1st test ever. Everything works great. Lightbulb fired up just fine.

You can see the cycle bars from the bright strobing of the 4kwatt HMI hi-teck, high efficiency small arc bulb.

More strobe bars from the back light shining on the house siding...looks like daylight.

You can see the horizontal position of the bulb projected onto the tree, and see the a strobe bar on top and bottom of bright image.

A distance shot, not directly in the beam, can't see anything bright intense brightness if I was in the beam itself.

A zoom shot of the searchlight seen from below beam in day time.

A comparison of beam on garage door to right to the direct sun on others. See other garage door photo for no beam light.

No beam light on garage door to right for comparison.

 

[LeukTech]

Nicely done, congrats! :twothumbs :twothumbs

Crazy that people could see it over 3 miles away!! And love the fact it drew enough attention for people to drive over to check it out, that is a huge compliment to your work right there!

Now just make a cut out of the following picture, place it in front of the giant reflector, and you will be set!

 

[cullen.salisbury]

Looking good !


Sent from my iPad using Candlepowerforums

 

[MRsDNF]

Amazing effort. I'm sitting here with a smile on my face. I bet its not as big as your smile though. Is there any fine tuning to do or is that it for now?

 

[LightSward]

Nicely done, congrats! :twothumbs :twothumbs

Crazy that people could see it over 3 miles away!! And love the fact it drew enough attention for people to drive over to check it out, that is a huge compliment to your work right there!

Now just make a cut out of the following picture, place it in front of the giant reflector, and you will be set!

Awesome you should leave this message...just about everyone that came by, offered similar advice. :naughty::twothumbs

I would like to have operated the light much longer, and hard on the bulb, but lit up whole neighborhood like a football field light just from slight light leakage and when tried aiming into garage, felt like an oven on broil. (Of course this type of bulb is meant to be operated much longer; time wise than the fifteen minute operation I'm comfortable operating it, this time of year, mainly the late time of night it finally get's dark here. Winter brings much longer hours of operation for a bunch of reasons.)

It's finally done. I'll make adjustments over time to narrow the beam a bit, but the look as it is is very inviting. I have a brighter but slightly fatter beam the way it's set now, but I can rotate bulb for a narrower beam on the focus axis but because of the characteristics of this particular bulbs arc points, the beam won't be quite as bright. Toss up on performance, but due to intense heat, etc, this unit won't be as easy to focus as the lower wattage units until I build a newer type unit. (The large size of reflector is needed just from the intense heat of the bulb. I have some ideas for the higher wattage ones.)

 

[LightSward]

Amazing effort. I'm sitting here with a smile on my face. I bet its not as big as your smile though. Is there any fine tuning to do or is that it for now?

Some fine tuning, but: Just the slight light leakage from the searchlight, lights the whole neighborhood like it's sunrise, and my money flow is zero, so I have to wait until my budget resumes for other than some crude focusing. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the momentum of this going and make it a salable item in short notice. The beam shots will be awesome from what people showed me on their cell phones, but I don't know if anyone of them will find their way here with all the commotion, hard to tell if they will find this site..?

I have two, possibly three main different design streaks I want to take this down.

I look forward to some great beam shots, I'll have to see if I can get something arranged soon, otherwise just wait until the nights are long again when it will be much more practical to get some amazing beam shots and even wait until three in the morning when no one is out.

 

[LightSward]

Some fine tuning, but: Just the slight light leakage from the searchlight, lights the whole neighborhood like it's sunrise, and my money flow is zero, so I have to wait until my budget resumes for other than some crude focusing. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the momentum of this going and make it a salable item in short notice. The beam shots will be awesome from what people showed me on their cell phones, but I don't know if anyone of them will find their way here with all the commotion, hard to tell if they will find this site..?

I have two, possibly three main different design streaks I want to take this down.
here is the basic mandrel for spinning metal reflectors. Can use English wheels too.

I look forward to some great beam shots, I'll have to see if I can get something arranged soon, otherwise just wait until the nights are long again when it will be much more practical to get some amazing beam shots and even wait until three in the morning when no one is out.

I plan to keep doing as much as I can. Here is a look at what I'm working on now as well.

Possibly my next generation of reflectors. We'll see.

Basic Parabolic shape pounded into a flat round piece of sheet metal. I did this with 'just built' equipment, for Blandishing. This may be the next generation of searchlight reflectors. I may try 'spinning" some too.

Here is my spinning photo. Sorry for all the mix ups

Just pounded this out after just a hundred or so hammer blows.

Just pounded this out into a parabolic shape. Actually produces an upside down image of a candle flame held at focus point.


Checking out the candle reflection

Candle flame reflection off crude parabolic reflector. Does magnify and project a nice beam onto nearby wall. Upside down image of flame is fairly clear.

This is just a shot at what I may do in the future, possibly experiment using metal in many of my future and current searchlight designs..

For now I'll make this progress into an awesome beta and delta mode searchlight. :candle:

 

[d-smes]

Spark Gap for 20kvolt ignition integration into power supply.

The inside of the spark gap plastic tube high voltage coupler. This is at the heart of the next photo.
Low budget "Jury Rigged" stuff. Will be much more "Beta", style in the production model. I'll buy a hundred ignitors.
Plastic pipe, spark gap ignition coupler with hole drilled to act as spark monitoring view-port.

Awesome project!!! Very creative engineering here. I do hope it pans out for you in terms of light-rm-up gigs and commercial interest.

Question on the ignition system- What did you use as the high voltage source? I trust after the bulb arcs, you shut off the ignitor? Or does it need to run until bulb arc is sufficiently hot enough to self sustain?

 

[LightSward]

Awesome project!!! Very creative engineering here. I do hope it pans out for you in terms of light-rm-up gigs and commercial interest.

Question on the ignition system- What did you use as the high voltage source? I trust after the bulb arcs, you shut off the ignitor? Or does it need to run until bulb arc is sufficiently hot enough to self sustain?

Good question. The ignition sequence has been a bit of a mystery. (Three ignition sources.: -1- 20,000 volt boiler ignition transformer, makes a great "Jacobs Ladder" spark, -2- a totally homemade 500,000 volt Tesla coil, -3- finally the transformer / ballast occasionally makes it's own high voltage spike and ignites the bulb about 10% of the time without any ignitor. Other times my built in boiler ignitor does the trick, but mostly I have to hold the Tesla Coil top up to the side of the bulb and get the ionization happening while the 380-200 auto-transformer does it's thing. All of a sudden a beautiful dim glow starts up and just sits there for a few seconds, and then just brightens up in a real hurry..!

I just use a door bell button for 120 vac and power the 20,000 volt oil burner ignitor through it and then flip on the ballast power at the same time I drop the arc gap ignition.

I apologize, but one of my photo hosts has unreliable and unstable links, (Facebook based), and this caused a large amount of my photos to vanish over he last few days. Apologize, but with all the photos I posted I'm not able to update all them do to a variety reasons, mostly time.

(Sneak Preview) Here is a quick look at the Searchlight when half finished, using only a 100watt HID bulb. Eventually I did Upgrade to a 1200 watt HMI with the help of the IgnITEor.
The very first time I ever ran the bulb was after months of high voltage test but no running current. Eventually the bulb found it's way into the socket on the searchlight for the very first test ever. I activated the the main ballast with NO IGNITOR and bulb just roared to life in just 30 seconds bulb appears full brightness.

This light is awesome!!! I can see this thing for many miles further than any of my other great lights. This thing is visible easily for six miles or more, just the beam on a night that doesn't make the beam very visible, it still shines brightly. Can't wait to see it on the clouds. Makes a regular flashlight type beam, (kind of wide like some of the twentieth Century logo lights look like). I'll get some great beam shots posted next few days.

No continuing ignition is needed once the beautiful blue glow starts and brightens for a few seconds, then bulb seems to do nothing for about ten seconds and then fully brightens the next fifteen to twenty seconds. I hit the ignition button and Tesla coil on it after ignition but seems to have absolutely no effect once the bulb starts.

I'll get some better beam shots but here's a few from a few blocks away I downloaded already.

You can really see the difference having roughly four times the light output, really makes the beam much, much more visible. At least twenty five cars and trucks fully loaded with people pulled in during the half hour I ran this.

Hard to tell but the upper dim beam is from my awesome Nighthawk 1,200 watt HMI at 100,000 lumen. The brighter beam is the "World's Biggest Searchlight" at 72" diameter and at 4,000 watts HMI makes 380,000 lumen.


A few blocks away and this is how it looked.

Hard to tell but the dim beam to our right of the bright visible beam is from my awesome Nighthawk 1,200 watt HMI at 100,000 lumen. The brighter beam is the "World's Biggest Searchlight" at 72" diameter and at 4,000 watts HMI makes 380,000 lumen.


I'll get some better shots, but this is how it looked a half mile and more away. The brighter beam was easily seen in the sky for miles and miles. I couldn't drive all the way out from light, as many people were converging on my condominium.

The dim beam to our right of the bright visible beam is from my awesome Nighthawk 1,200 watt HMI at 100,000 lumen. The brighter beam is the "World's Biggest Searchlight" at 72" diameter and at 4,000 watts HMI makes 380,000 lumen.

 

[LightSward]

Just to let you all know, here is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd6g...ature=youtu.be

Here is a link to the recent photo shoot of the Biggest Modern Era Searchlight. (Beam is very bright to the eye, but this time of year hardest to photograph, thus limiting the quality of the images taken at distances of a mile or more, where beam was still very visible to the naked eye, but was excessively grainy to the cameras we had available.)

This view is taken about two miles off side to searchlight. Beam was bright, but this low humidity, clear air time of year makes the camera have a hard time getting the image.
There are actually two beams; one of my older 30 inch Nighthawk which is normally quite visible here, but again the low humidity clear air this time of year makes filming the beams more difficult. Very visible to the eye. You can see the two beams with the eye, and in the cooler Fall, Winter and Spring months with higher humidity here allows for very bright beams.


Bright to the eye for many miles distance, but hard to see with camera.

Taken about a mile from the searchlight.

Some options are to make this light as one solid unit at: 4,000 watts HMI, (four times efficient as Xenon searchlights), 380,000 lumen, 72 inches diameter, or four, (4), individual, 1,200 watt 98,000 lumen, 30 inch diameter, (glass front very inexpensive), searchlights mounted on a frame acting as one big light, and /or each searchlight could act independently resulting in four individual beams.


Late Fall through Late Spring is best time of year for beam visibility to a camera like I have, (and naked eye).

Lord of Lights, (World's Biggest) Searchlight Promo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd6ghEpTDxo&feature=youtu.be

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Lord of Lights, (World's Biggest) Searchlight Promo
View on youtu.be	Preview by Yahoo​

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Lord of Lights, (World's Biggest) Searchlight Promo

Lord of Lights, (World's Biggest) Searchlight Promo
View on youtu.be	Preview by Yahoo ​

 

[LightSward]

I think I figured out a switching mechanism, that didn't cost so much money, that will allow the 20,000 both ignition transformer to ignite the bul. Fingers crossed.

 

[MRsDNF]

Thanks for the video. Orsm effort.

 

[LightSward]

Thanks for the video. Orsm effort.

Thanks.

I hope to get better beam shots when our atmospheric conditions start to resemble the normal qualities found during most of the year here, perhaps near the end of Summer, early Fall...still this video came out well.

I'm moving forward with this by working on the ignition system, making the assembly and dis-assembly of the reflector quarters, barrel, lens, arbor, yoke stand, much quicker and easier. I'll be painting the reflector back side(s) for cosmetic purposes and adding a fan forced cooled, (safety thermostat optional), plastic front lens for inclement weather operation. I'll add a panning mechanism as I strengthen and advance the stand and arbor, yoke system.

 

[LightSward]

I have some great plans for this light. Found out recently that the lack of work I've been getting, which slowed things down at my searchlight factory, was largely due to a hospitalization, that I still don't have all the details about, about my income source company owner's hospitalization incident, but this man is quite quiet about such things. Hopefully I can get things moving a little faster after I get some budget improvements.

Slowly getting back to work on the Giant Searchlight, now that the end of this "heat wave" is in sight. Our weather is supposed to go back to "perfect" for a while, starting tomorrow. View of the recent "giant moon" event this past weekend, along with the annual Perseid meteor shower

I'd love to split this view up with my awesome looking searchlight beam, but I'll be nice for a few more nights...lol.

I apologize, but one of my photo hosts has unreliable and unstable links, (Facebook based), and this caused a large amount of my photos to vanish over he last few days. Apologize, but with all the photos I posted I'm not able to update all them do to a variety reasons, mostly time.
(Sneak Preview) Here is a quick look at the Searchlight when half finished, using only a 100watt HID bulb. Eventually I did Upgrade to a 1200 watt HMI with the help of the IgnITEor.
The high voltage ignition system is a little foreign to me, such as black items can remove high voltage current like a conductor...etc., grounding an otherwise ungrounded circuit and causing no high voltage to reach the light-bulb arc chamber, unless absolute care is taken. There's probably some batch of circuits that are way easier, but I have to investigate further.

I'm getting a better ignition system installed that should temporarily be a big improvement from what I've been using. I'll buy in bulk, real ignitors, and won't have to go through this "Jury Rigging" in the future.
:thinking:

Much Traffic shows up, during searchlight operation, and these people see the stop signs much better than the people who live here. Sometimes while testing the searchlight, even in the day, I might shine the searchlight on one of the ignored stop signs when I noticed a driver known for stop sign running came through. Helped get their attention.

So during the last few years, people say they don't see the stop signs very well in our neighborhood, so I was hired to paint the word "STOP", directly on the pavement, with big stop lines and double yellow lines for first thirty feet or so from stop line, in situations where costs would be prohibited if I didn't just do this. Normally it seems, the only people aware of the Stop signs, seem to be the crowd driving in their cars, coming to see my searchlight beam, they were very well behaved, much better than some of the people who live here. This is actually the third time of painted these intersections, time, the elements, and some asphalt re-coatings, all caused fading over the years, which brings me to this point. These stop lines actually help the traffic flow for everyone all the time and has been done well, while I worked on the searchlight.

One intersection is double STOP worded and lined, while this one is a "single". I'm always concerned about traffic when ever I fire up one of these searchlights..

Here it is.


It's hot..!

My working umbrella needs a new support stand, better suited for commercial ventures,so I was pounded by the heat and took shade across the street in the nice cool woods. This Heat Wave's heat today, reminds me of how much infrared and convective heat the 4,000 watt HMI light generates, even though it's one of the most efficient forms of light on earth. Amazing what it feels like anywhere near this bulb operating. The beam itself is very warm for quite some distance. The 1,200 watt HMI doesn't act much like this, but the 1,000 halogen bulb does generate a fair amount of heat, since it's only 1/3 as efficient.

The 4,000 watt HMI at 380,000 lumen seems six times brighter or more to the naked eye than the 1,200 watt HMI 100,000 lumen, (98,000). In fact in this clear air, I could hardly see 1,200 watt HMI NightHawk a mile away, when normally it's very visible at four miles or more. The 4,000 watt HMI Lord of Lights, (World's Biggest), was very visible for many miles, while I couldn't see the normally very visible other light. During the time of year,, searchlights seem much more visible, I might be able to see the Lord of Lights ten miles or more, as the NightHawk could sometimes be easily seen that far.:thumbsup:

I appreciate the cooler weather whenever we get one of these Heat Waves... I grew up in the desert southwest, but wasn't bothered much as a youth, but now I can handle it well for maybe a week at most.

 

[LightSward]

Exciting. I added a none breaker switch and added high voltage guards to separate the 200vac-380 auto circuit from the 20,000 volt ignition to bulb system. Works! still a little fussy, but pretty sure now...I'll still maybe keep a Tesla coil handy just in case. I'll post some pics., videos soon of the progress.:thumbsup:

 

[LightSward]

Just a couple videos to help see what I've been doing to the 72 inch Lord of Lights.: Sorry had the link settings set wrong..!! May still have some issues. Apologies.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202543922934459&set=vb.1087492680&type=2&theater

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202543911774180&set=vb.1087492680&type=2&theater

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202543657207816&set=vb.1087492680&type=2&theater

Fall, with it's long nights is upon us. Lots of time and good skies to capture beam shots...!:thumbsup:

 

[LightSward]

I'm starting with the 24 inch LightSward reflector redesigned and turned from a solid steel, and eventually aluminum, and eventually the World's biggest searchlight. I was supposed to have started an architectural drafting position doing a large project, but all got sidelined when the president and main contact person was hospitalized, derailing the progress of this Big Lord of Lights project. Hopefully in the months to come I'll be able to scrape some money together and resume work on this. For now, just some experimenting on the 24 inch LightSward and the 30 inch NightHawk.

Here is the starting phase of the mandrel for spinning the metal reflector. Much like a potters wheel for clay pottery, I am now spinning the reflectors and will see how this turns out.

Hopefully in a few days this will be mounted on the homemade spinning lathe.

 

[LightSward]

Making good progress in my quest for metal reflectors. Here you can see the mandrel ready for final shaping and spinning mechanism readying for a short production run of 24 inch LIGHTSWARD reflectors.




https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202761724419360

 

[LightSward]

Eventually I'll spin my reflectors out of metal...set up a factory for these giant searchlights. For now I'll perfect it with these smaller ones. For now a little closer, these next few days, (I'm down for a couple due to surgery), but almost ready to spin my 24 inch reflectors out of metal. Here is the nearly finished mandrel, photos and a video.

After a couple more test and finishes I'll install the flat metal disc to be "spun" into a nice reflector.

Just about finished with the mandrel profile for the metal spinning made reflector.

Wood treatment and final profile


Try this video of the above spinner.:https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202782673703079&set=vb.1087492680&type=2&theater

 

[LightSward]

Results on this first real attempt for making a 24 inch reflector from sheet metal came out about what I predicted. Learned much...first of all use hard, stron wood or steel for mandrel...the soft particle board type ply I used disintegrated during shaping and caused a pitting to occur. Still I was impressed with the overall concept proving this test showed me. Now I just have to raise capital for real tooling...lol.

Looks nice and smooth, while spinning 800 RPM. The final finished product will be quite impressive.


Using primitive tools, I was able to cut this just about perfectly and centered it without much vibration during high speed operation. I used a foot pedal to control the lathe motor, (an inexpensive drill...very impressive how much power that thing delivered.)

Piece of flat 26 inch diameter sheet metal blank ready for being spun into a 24 inch reflector.

Not too pretty when viewed after slight disintegration form my shaping tools I made from Re-Bar pieces. I polished the ends into a "Cobra Head" shape, but I had to apply so much pressure, I accidentally cut and mangled the reflector at the end of the spinning. Still I learned so much from this. Now I just need another shop location,...my neighbors ran out of patience with me and now even just drilling a single small hole into some wood, just drives them crazy. Sigh.

Mandrel was made of not so strong particle board and liquid wood fixer upper, so it slightly disintegrated during the spinning, which caused all these little deformations in the metal. Surprisingly...Works well reflecting the light into a fairly tight beam..:shrug: