Francis searchlights

[JacobJones]

I keep seeing these on eBay but can't find much information, they look well made but I'd like to learn some more about them before I bid. Most importantly how far do they throw? Walterk, I know you own one and would love to hear your opinion on them. Thanks in advance

 

[Walterk]

From the searchlights I kind-of-know from my work (DHR, Seematz, Francis), my theoretic conclusion is they all have the same reflector for either halogen or xenon versions. Although the beamangle changes (for H or X) that is probably due of the smaller arc-size.

If I recall correctly my light is 26cm/10inches dia. It is 250W/24V and have measured it (from 17m, not the advised 100m) to be 1.3mcd. Don't know the bulb partnumber. I like it because it is always ready for use, and especially on a clouded night on the water 1.3mcd is sufficient. More is always better to my opinion, as long as the beam doesn't get much narrower then 5 degrees. (Guess it is about 7 degrees wide with halogen.)

The main part is that the reflector is optical good. Finding a replacement reflector that fits will be a pain.
For a searchlight a watertight housing is important; intact glass and closing devices. If not, for this part most issues can be solved.
The more room spare the better. For most housings, you would end up mounting the starter and ballast in a watertight enclosure on, or very near to the searchlight.
I wouldn't mind fixing a small box to the back of the searchlight, if it helps performorance.

HID should have a 4 times higher surface brightness then halogen, thus more throw. (Theoretical 1,3mcd is 1.140m and 5.2mcd is 2280m range).
250W Halogen would be at best 7-8.000lumen, so you would need 80W HID to get the equivalent amount of light.
Making it HID will make it a very reliable roof-mounted light, but don't expect Maxabeam or VSS thin beams.
BTW, the new XSA Francis lights have focus adjustment; one button increases/decreases the distance between bulb and reflector.


Please keep us updated when ever you start modding !

 

[JacobJones]

Wow, even better than I expected, 1.3mcd is quite impressive for a halogen bulb. 5.2mcd is very impressive aswell and probably more than i'd ever need. but why stop there :devil:, I think one of these searchlights would be the perfect host for a 100watt UHP mercury vapour lamp I took from a broken television. Aproximately 6 times the surface brightness of the HID bulb equalling :twothumbs: 31.2mcp :twothumbs: (assuming the reflectors are precise enough). How far would that throw?

Edit: Damn, I forgot that UHP bulbs need cooling, I'd have to cut a hole in the searchlight for a fan compromising it's weather proofing. Guess this mod is out

Anyway, thanks for all the information, you've told me all I wanted to know and more. I've decided to place a bid on one, early Christmas present. I'll let you know if I mod it

 

[Walterk]

What powersource do you want to drive the light?

For a fixed light outdoors I wouldn't ever make an opening to the outside air.
Eventually bulb, wires, connectors, fan and reflector WILL collect dirt particles and corrode from that. Humid and high starting voltages are no good combination either. Don't know how hot the bulb of the HID or HMI is allowed to get, but I think it is more important to keep the bulb clean then extremely cooled?

Think of the air-cooling from a VSS-3 searchlight, that made them watertight for complete immersion, and a clean build.
That system consists of two fanblades and two air circuits;
-Outside air drawn in, passing a heat-exchanger (copper pipe with a lot of rings soldered to it ) and the air is pushed out.
-Another fan circulates the air within the housing, over the lamp, passing the reflector and heat-exchanger on its way.

Most searchlights are a thin shelled metal tube with endcap and glas window, all together quite a lot surface to radiate heat away.
Look at the specs; they are build for 250/1000/2000 Watts consuming bulbs, fully contained.
Depending on lightsource, a considerable part is transmitted through the glass window.
I think when you place a fan inside the housing, and construct a path for the air to direct the stream, there is quite a lot of cooling.
You can ad finned heatsinks to the in- and outside of the tube to improve quantity and speed of exchange between in- and outside air.

The efficiency of the VSS-3 heat-exchanging principle is low as it is indirect (and quite roughly build in the VSS), unless you have a turbo-fan.
The total efficiency of the heat-exchanger can be easily surpassed; just consider the outside shell of the housing as heat-exchanger.
Integrate the surface of the heat-exchanger in the construction, where ever you find the oppurtinity. Can you picture it ?

For led it is more difficult as you need a direct contact from led-base (where they heat up) to outside sink.
For incans and HID heat is radiated in all directions, heating the air inside.

Just need to find me 24VDC/80W HID now...

 

[JacobJones]

This may sound crazy but I plan to mount it on a sack barrow so I can move it around fairly easily, I did think of using a tripod but this will be more practical. On the bottom of the sack barrow there will be either one or two car batteries to power it (enclosed in a wooden box for aesthetics). I'll probably keep it indoors most of the time to stop people wheeling off with it.

I think I might just use an ordinary 75 watt HID bulb and ballast that doesn't need forced air cooling, I'm fairly new to modding and I don't want to risk messing up an antique.

Edit: Woohoo, just won the auction. My beautiful searchlite will be arriving soon.

Managed to find a manual for it on Francis searchlights website, the candlepower claims tally up with what you recorded walterk, Francis can be added to the short list of companies that don't over exagerate the candlepower of their products.

 

[Richard D]

I have just joined this forum - because I was interested in the mods for Francis lights.
I am just finishing refit of motor boat that has 2 14" Perko running 1000w halogen on 220v, and 4 portable 11" 24v 150w halogen Francis lights, in addiiton to 2 Carlisle & Finch AC 12" wheelhouse rod controlled lamps on upper deck. image at www.vanda.hk

I have a couple of oddments in store and want to make a really decent lamp.

First, a 15" Francis Signalling Projector, 1988 last certficate 1995 which has a round and heavy waterproof box behind the reflector which has a start button ("Max 5 seconds") and sasy power source 440 vAC,, strike voltage 9kV, running voltage 90v AC. It has no bulbs but the socket looks like G22. It would be easy to fit a halogen but I would really like a MHI lamp using 230v source (my boat only has 400v and 230v AC and 24v DC) Any ideas what sort of kit and control box I could use? I am not confient that the 25 years old ballast unit is still safe!

Second, we have an untested unopend Colorlight CL05-02 with control box; this has a black front lens and is supposed to be UV. The reflector is bright and it has an Osram HMI 755w/SEL bulb. I can't determine whether this is a white or black light bulb - does it make a difference? CAn I just change the black lens for a clear lens- and can I use normal glass? Anyone has any experience of these lights? It is a fixed mounting so I will try to mod to fit on a deck control turntable. Their home page is www.colorlights.com and I emailed them and got no response.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I want a brighter better light, rather than a power saving one. I have seen variuous halide control boxes on ebay etc but dont know what I want, and what bulbs to choose?

 

[FRITZHID]

I have just joined this forum - because I was interested in the mods for Francis lights.
I am just finishing refit of motor boat that has 2 14" Perko running 1000w halogen on 220v, and 4 portable 11" 24v 150w halogen Francis lights, in addiiton to 2 Carlisle & Finch AC 12" wheelhouse rod controlled lamps on upper deck. image at www.vanda.hk

I have a couple of oddments in store and want to make a really decent lamp.

First, a 15" Francis Signalling Projector, 1988 last certficate 1995 which has a round and heavy waterproof box behind the reflector which has a start button ("Max 5 seconds") and sasy power source 440 vAC,, strike voltage 9kV, running voltage 90v AC. It has no bulbs but the socket looks like G22. It would be easy to fit a halogen but I would really like a MHI lamp using 230v source (my boat only has 400v and 230v AC and 24v DC) Any ideas what sort of kit and control box I could use? I am not confient that the 25 years old ballast unit is still safe!

Second, we have an untested unopend Colorlight CL05-02 with control box; this has a black front lens and is supposed to be UV. The reflector is bright and it has an Osram HMI 755w/SEL bulb. I can't determine whether this is a white or black light bulb - does it make a difference? CAn I just change the black lens for a clear lens- and can I use normal glass? Anyone has any experience of these lights? It is a fixed mounting so I will try to mod to fit on a deck control turntable. Their home page is www.colorlights.com and I emailed them and got no response.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I want a brighter better light, rather than a power saving one. I have seen variuous halide control boxes on ebay etc but dont know what I want, and what bulbs to choose?

Wow! Sounds like you have some awesome project lights!
The one you say is UV.... are you sure? UV spotlights are very rare. I'd bet it's IR, would be far more likely.
If it is IR or UV, yes, replacing the lens with clear should provide a white beam.... depending on the bulb temp. If it's UV, the bulb output may be closer to a merc vapor. If it's IR, it should be white (5000k) or maybe warmer. (If you're interested in selling the lens, please contact me!)
The lamp you mentioned with the ballast sounds like a Xenon short arc lamp.... imho, I wouldn't swap that out for anything if I didn't have too! If it is SA, there's allot of members here with allot of exp in these lamps and would probably be more than willing to assist you in getting it fired up. I think you'll find that SA lamps out preform other lighting types by a far margin! I know I love mine!
As far as the other lamps go.... each is unique, so modding them is a case by case basis. There's allot of options available.
Where are you located? What kind of budget are you working with? What kind of performance are you looking to get out of these lights?
The more details, the more advice we can give you!
:welcome:

 

[Richard D]

Re: Francis and Colorlight searchlights

Thanks for your interest.


The Francis 15" - I will open the round ballast box and take photos. I was put off by the "start button - 5 seconds" and the fact there is small viewing port with black glass in the side of the lamp so I suppose they had to let it warm up. Here are pics of the outside. Since 1988 the ballast and other technology has moved a long way, so I thought maybe safer to replace - and of course I dont have 440v supply as my generator only gives 50 Hz at 400v, across phases which we split to 230v for general use.
The reflector is glass. There are TWO bulb sockets separated by a disc of asbestos(?) and the socket base revolves so can switch bulbs presumably as a back up or different power.
We searched the web but cannot find any manuals.


I have asked Francis what it would take to upgrade - no reply yet - but they still manufacture the same size and same body with upgraded 400w CSI( quartz iodide - what's that?) according to their website
http://www.francis.co.uk/_includes/docs/pdf/datasheets/FSP380.pdf.
But a complete new lamp seems to be an $9,000 unit. And the power supply required by the now external Control Unit is shown as 440v 60Hz @ 0.625 amps. That's over budget for what is in effect just a big toy to play with!





The Colorlight is definitely UV accoding to the brochure at
http://www.colorlight.com/images/PDF/colorlight_cl10_15.pdf
(there is a link: "broshure".)
There is also a video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whBQaeHZa7c


The UV starts at 1.30 minutes in. But I dont want to find oil spills! And we don't have snow, ever!
All I have is a single light - CL05-02- which seems to be earlier model of CL15-02 - the single unit with black lens shown - not the fantastic dual light on moving head. My electrician was scared to play with it because of the control box and switches - which includes focus. I have a feeling that we are missing a control panel - but since it is a single fixed lamp maybe there is none. The bulb - sorry I got number wrong - it is Osram 575w/SEL and says Germany C7a8 which is probably just the batch number. I looked up the bulb but it does not seem to be anything special for UV. The unit comes with an huge electric shutter (like a signalling lamp) but this is from another company - Phoebus Manufacturing, San Francisco, so was obviously just for a special job.




Budget - good question - neither of these big lights is really essential - we have plenty of smaller halogen searchlights but having seen a local naval patrol ship with Francis FH300 (12") 575w metal halide, I realised that a 1000 watt halogen is very inferior. So if I can can change a couple of lights to halide, to play with, then I don't mind spending a few hundred dollars each to do it! IF doesn't work I can change back. One problem is heat - the ambient sea water temperature is around 28C (80+F) so air temp about the same. This is an old boat and not worth going out and buying new searchlights the ones we have are good solid old chrome on brass, or stainless units.




I am located in Hong Kong so have access to stuff out of China but hard to buy small quantities of anything - though some place will sell a sample! But the boat - see on www.vanda.hk - is in shipyard in Yangon, Myanmar because we are doing a lot of woodwork.

 

[FRITZHID]

Re: Francis and Colorlight searchlights

http://photographytraining.tpub.com/14209/css/14209_220.htm
Quartz iodide info.

I see now about the uv, learn something new everyday! That's a fairly impressive light. They have lower voltage versions, maybe call the company or post a WTB for a ballast kit that fits your needs? By the looks of things, I still believe removing the uv lens will allow white light but you may have to put a clear lens on, couldn't tell if there was one or 2 lenses from the vid.

The bi-bulb lamp.... that has me wondering. Spare lamp or dual output? Hopefully you'll be able to post pix of them soon.

Any of these lamps appear salvageable or upgradeable, I wouldn't count them out. They shouldn't be too hard to get to where you need them.....
And if not, I'm sure there's plenty of people on here interested in them! Lol

 

[Richard D]

Re: Francis and Colorlight searchlights

Francis Signalling Projector
I just saw an indian company offering new copies of this lamp and offering xenon option so I have sent them an email for quote.
Meanwhile I have to find a url where I can put pictures - it will be a few days befoe I get my office IT guy to help put them on website
The lamp holder turns so can use either bulb. The ballast box is huge, weighs about 10kg, and has a big starting button so must be pretty old technology. Will open it up and make photos of inside as well.


Colorlight
Just checked - there is only a single lens so if I remove the UV black one then I need a clear one - will be a problem to source here because not syre I can find right glass - if I knew what was the right glass. This is new to me.

 

[Richard D]

Re: Francis and Colorlight searchlights

The Indians answered quickly, helpful and informative but will not sell the Xenon kits without a barrel etc at $3,500. No surprise.
And their control kit also used a start button on back of Lamp, which not covenient for wheelhouse operated unit.
SO maybe back to MH, Here are the photos - I hope I can attach
1. bulb holders on turntable with asbestos disc separator in betweem

Francis 15" with front glass removed

Francis 15 inch top view - starter button showing bottom of picture

Starter and coil pack

Starter button and coil pack 02c

I will post more info when I get something working!