35W HIDflashlight..too cheap?

[bigdaddy]

I already made some pictures, but i can only post them at weekend.

But i am pissed now that i realized that its impossible to change the bulb: Its directly soldered to wires that disappear into the potted ballast.

I am not really feeling like using the lamp anymore, seeing that it will be waste when the bulb dies...

The bulb may last up to 2500 hrs from what I know. That's pretty long lasting. So far I've only use my HID for about 3 hrs only. So I guess changing the bulb may not occur in my lifetime (I hope) :green:.


Think of the bright side, you've got a powerful HID flashlight at last. :twothumbs
Have fun with your new toy. Cheer up.

 

[Helmut.G]

 

[Isthereanybodyoutthere]

I already made some pictures, but i can only post them at weekend.

But i am pissed now that i realized that its impossible to change the bulb: Its directly soldered to wires that disappear into the potted ballast.

I am not really feeling like using the lamp anymore, seeing that it will be waste when the bulb dies...

If the bulp dies ,couldent you just unsolder the bulp and solder the new one on to the wires ??
It might be because of lack of space inside they have skipped the socket + the wires are much more safe/solid soldered on ,than a socket

pictures we need,,no we demand pictures

 

[IMSabbel]

OkOK.
I didnt find time to make Beamshots, and i cannot do it right now because the light is in the trunk of my car.
But i will post the pics i prepared already (i think that might still be useful).

 

[IMSabbel]

Ok, part 1.
For all pictures, click for big.


Ok, this is the box/case. I said before that its cheap, but not bad. That was premature, as i didnt notice something thats visible in the big picture: 7 of the 8 corner plastic pieces were shattered (thanks UPS) -> It is on the brink of falling apart non stop


Ah, here it is open. You see the light, the PSUs (top left AC, middle car), the Yellow-filter (top right).
THe piece in the middle is a dummy battery, which also has a rubber cap on it that will protect the contacts of the real battery when its charged/used as flashlight (but that later)


Here is the light itself. There is nothing to complain on the finish. Its not hard anodized, but it certainly feels nicer to use than a maglight. Also, i didnt notice any machining errors/scratches/etc.


Now here is the yellow-filter. Its just pressed onto the top of the flashlight, and is kept there by sticktion (the black stuff is rubber). It didnt catch that well on the flash, but you can see a little blue: The think is anti-reflection coated on both sides.


Thats the back unscrewed: The threads a mildly lubricated, and dont "grind" at all. A lot different from certain DX lights. The switch is in the battery back, and is a reverse clicky (which might be sensible, considering the health of the bulb, as well as the problems of unintentional activation.
The sealing is done with an oring around the button: The end-cap presses on the seal perpenticular.



Here you can see the o-ring a bit better.


OK, this is the front of the battery. You notice the 4 spring-loaded contacts (those are protected by the aformentioned rubber cap), the charging port, an on-off switch and the three leds that are switched on/off. Like i said, the LEDs are decently bright, but it doesnt look like it here as its ISO 100 and 1/160s, off axis.


Here you can see it a bit better. The rubber cap leaves the leds, the switch and the charging port open, btw.


Ok, here is the interesting side of the flashlight. (and it was nearly impossible to get in focus correcly
Cremelated (spelling) bezel, but not sharply so. The reflector is very deep for its diameter, to house the HID, thats why there is this reflective band around the bezel inside the glass. This makes more light escape into spill.


Ok, right into the front. Its not as offcenter as it looks like, as it was pretty hard to get to align it correctly. Orange peel is medium for that reflector size. Btw, notice that most of the insulation of the top contact has eben striped, which results in much less "bar" in the beam than an automotive bulb.



The same again? I should have looked over the photos before uploading .

Well, here you can see it bigger, and with focus on the base of the HID. Also notice the bezel being not that badly manufactured.


The reflector unscrewed. Its aluminium, as expected. Notice that the focussing is not done via this thread, so it can be fixed in place forever (as the bulb is not really changeable).



Naked HID. You see again the stripped insulation, and the fact that the tiop connection has been soldered, as it seems (or spot-welded. At least there is a point). The non-black aluminum is the part which allows focusing. (it has a C-profile, stopping motion in both directions after a few mm).



Same again, ab it closer. Notice that is seems that the bottom of the bulb is glued in.

 

[IMSabbel]

Starting disassembly stage 2.



Battery switch unscrewed. The foam there is quite high density, and is between the cells and the PCP.


Removed, you can see whats clearly the end of a 3S2P 18650 pack. Notice that its kepts in place by high density foam squeezed into it at the side.
Not that this is a big problem, as the cells dont really have anywhere to go.


Battery Pack topless.Foam already removed. The green connectors go down to the switch, the others to the cells.
Notice that there is no charging electronics in there, so you have to use the supplied chargers. (The AC one makes high-frequency noice without load,btw. Disappears as soon as you plug in the pack. It charges with about 0.5C, btw (1.8A))



The corpse of the battery pack. Basically, it should be no problem at all the MOD it to your liking (more to that later).


Here we are looking down the barrel. Not really visible here, but it those rings are gold-plated, like the spring-loaded pins.
So no orientation problems.


Here is the next stage: Removed the ballast/Bulb combo from the light. Its only held there with those three screws. The ballast fills about 40% of the barrel, btw.


Here is the data for the driver. 9-16V input might allow for eneloop of other alternative "fillings" of the battery case.



Further i did not go: You can see, the whole driver is potted. That stuff is REALLY black, thats why i had to mess with the RAWs to even show up at all.
Maybe any pros here can tell how viable a bulb change (4.3k would be sweet) is in that case...



I hope even without the beamshots this will be useful. I still plan on taking them, but work and weather were not really forthcoming the last weeks.

 

[windstrings]

Wow.. nice breakdown.... looks pretty good quality just by looking at pics alone

 

[Patriot]

Very good review and pics. The detail is great!

Seems to be pretty well built and the battery pack looks well made.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[Hemlock Mike]

This looks the same as the ones sold here by Tactical_HID in the dealer's section. The 35 and the 24 have a lot of spill because of the vertical portion of the reflector. I asked if there was a better reflector available but got no reply on this matter.
The 35 "flashlight" is large and comes with a shoulder strap. Mine lights up in a few seconds and is at full brightness in about 7 seconds.
The 24 watt I had also had lots of spill. For "tactical" use, you will light up all your good guys and the bad guys .............

Mike

 

[IMSabbel]

I would not use HID for "tactical use" anyway. (Well, i would not use _anything_ for tactical use. The army is a thing of the past for me and good riddance.) What i mean is that HID-bulbs and short burst of light /lots of switches arent really compatible.

As just a "use it" flashlight, i found it useful. The spill is enough to light up where you step even if you aim it at the horizon.

About the runtime: I didnt run the batteries completely dry, but at one test i had it running for about an hour, without it being empty at the end.

 

[windstrings]

Maybe any pros here can tell how viable a bulb change (4.3k would be sweet) is in that case...

I'm nervous about any light I cannot easily change the bulb on... HID's that are supposed to be pretty bullet proof have proven themselves a dissappointment in many cases.

I therefore love HID's but do not trust them.

There are many threads out there about HID lamps going out in cars prematurely.

 

[Patriot]

The 35 "flashlight" is large and comes with a shoulder strap. Mine lights up in a few seconds and is at full brightness in about 7 seconds.
Mike

That's almost faster than my Polarions....:thinking: Even my other fast 35W starters with plenty of amps take 10-15 seconds and the Microfire takes 20+ seconds. Must be a good light...

 

[windstrings]

I believe I remember Dan from Xeray explaining that all lights could be made to come up to full brightness very quick if they tuned the ballast for that.
However, Its done at the expense of shortening the bulb life.

Some folks feel that's a fair trade off and its OK, while others feel the HID bulbs are quite expensive and don't want the life cut by 1/3 or 1/2 just to get up to full brightness a few seconds sooner.

Most of these lights are so bright that even during initial fireup, they are plenty bright to stun an assaliant or burgler.
I think all of us like the idea of full instantaneous brightness.. "like with LED".

But don't mistake quick startup with quality... its merely a choice. A choice with an expense!

 

[BVH]

Cutting typical HID bulb life from 3000 hrs to 2000 hours, IMHO, is not going to negatively affect the vast majority of HID light owners - again, in my humble opinion. I don't think the typical owner is going to reach that many hours before selling/upgrading. The military and/or safety services might be a different issue but I don't think the cost of bulbs is going to phase them one bit.

 

[windstrings]

agreed for critical uses, bulb life is a minor concern.. especially since the price is dropping to reasonable levels now, unless you own a specialized hard to get bulb.

 

[IMSabbel]

ABout the brightness: 7 seconds to full brightness doesnt seem to be true. May 75% or so. Its still getting gradually brighter for another 15 seconds at least.

Ah, and directly when switching on, there is a bright flash (about final brightness) for a fraction of a second. If you wanted to blind somebody, this might do already.

 

[Patriot]

Cutting typical HID bulb life from 3000 hrs to 2000 hours, IMHO, is not going to negatively affect the vast majority of HID light owners - again, in my humble opinion. I don't think the typical owner is going to reach that many hours before selling/upgrading. The military and/or safety services might be a different issue but I don't think the cost of bulbs is going to phase them one bit.

+1 to everything BVH stated.

My own personal guess is that quicker start up has more to do with developmental costs, parts, tuning time, or other factors than consideration for bulb life. In some applications longer life may be ultimately desirable such as in automotive headlamps, in aircraft, or maybe static lighting arrays and so on.

In the case of hand held flash/spotlights, why would anyone prefer to wait 20-30 seconds for full brightness and color to come in just to increase the bulb life another thousand hours when the average person might never even put 500 hours on a bulb?

Obviously frequent users already realize that HID's produce many hundreds of lumens almost instantly, but given the choice I'd rather have my lights come to full intensity very quickly when I take into consideration how small the handicap is.

I must commend Polarion for intentionally addressing the start-up time issue and minimizing it as much as possible. I hope that other HID spotlight manufacturers look at them as the example of what performance should be.

 

[windstrings]

I think Polarion made a fair assessment of the values of the customer rather than pure consideration for warranty issues later.

Whether building a sportscar or a light, making it faster and higher performance always causes a risk of parts wearing harder thus jeopardizing warranty.

As long as the customer knows the tradeoffs, or the advertised bulb life is accurate... there should be no foul.

I too would like a near instant HID light... seems the lights on my auto do just fine at starting up almost instantly... but my bulbs have already had issues too!

 

[Patriot]

I think Polarion made a fair assessment of the values of the customer rather than pure consideration for warranty issues later.

Whether building a sportscar or a light, making it faster and higher performance always causes a risk of parts wearing harder thus jeopardizing warranty.

As long as the customer knows the tradeoffs, or the advertised bulb life is accurate... there should be no foul.

That's a great way of looking at it and cool that Polarion offers us a "sportscar" HID. Yes, it's not without added expense but at least it's available to professionals and enthusiasts.

 

[windstrings]

I've had some lengthy discussions about polarion.

To the same degree that a sportscar is very flashy, tight on the curves, and expensive to drive to simply get from point A to point B, so the polarion is a bit expensive simply to throw some lumens down the road.

But to each his own.. if you have the money.. go for the Sportscar "and" the polarion... I wish I had the money for both!