Major HID Build help.

I have just started a idea pad on a new light I want to build. I recently picked up a Stanley HID Spotlight and I love the light, but I want more. I am trying to basically build a spotlight with the longest brightest throw I can.
I want to light a object up from a great distance away.

The ideas...
The light will have a custom built durable enclosure.
The enclosure will be square from the front and longer to house the ballast, batteries, reflector.

Im looking for 7000k to 15,000k lumens out of one bulb.

So here are some questions...
I am trying to achieve a very focused beam. So anyone have any ideas on a reflector.

I have seen the threads on the 100w HID ballast at 12v's and how with 24v you can go up higher in wattage. How high can you source and would that matter as much as the focusing of the beam.

Would optics help extend the throw of the beam. If so what sources.

Thanks everyone in advance for the help. I will put pics of the finished light when I get it all assembled and compare it to the Stanley. I was impressed with the Stanley but I'm just not satisfied.

How much runtime are you after? 24v of batteries will be heavy enough as it is, especially if you want more than an hour or so from it.

Mattmanic said:

How much runtime are you after? 24v of batteries will be heavy enough as it is, especially if you want more than an hour or so from it.

Click to expand...

Well the battery life didn't really matter. I'm looking for about a half hour.

Noone? Come on flashaholics.

I have some more figured out.

I am using a 100 watt ballast and 2 12v batteries for RC cars to power it(The LiPO batteries). This would create decent battery life and a very powerful light.

Though I would like a longer throw then that would give I don't have the knowledge or the money for anything more.

So now I am down to finding the reflector that would give me the longest throw? Any thoughts and ideas?

Cheapest way is to grab one out of a torch like a Thor-X or Thor-platinum.
About 90% of those reflectors are decent enough for use with HID..

For best throw, the reflector needs to be parabolic within certain spec's, and the reflection of the reflecting surface must be higher than 85%

If you are a noob on this, it's better to modify an existing torch, and choose an easy setup..
Thor-reflectors are made of aluminum and are quite thin, placing them into an other torch can cause deformations that defenitely affect throw.

Note that the thightness of the beam is limmited by certain factors like sourcedimensions and reflector-geometry.

And sorry, I'm not going to explain this further, because lot's and lot's can be found about this in the archives at CPF.. Success !!

Regards,

Ra.

Gindu said:

Noone? Come on flashaholics.

I have some more figured out.

I am using a 100 watt ballast and 2 12v batteries for RC cars to power it(The LiPO batteries). This would create decent battery life and a very powerful light.

Though I would like a longer throw then that would give I don't have the knowledge or the money for anything more.

So now I am down to finding the reflector that would give me the longest throw? Any thoughts and ideas?

Click to expand...

So here are some questions...
I am trying to achieve a very focused beam. So anyone have any ideas on a reflector.
This will be your biggest challenge. An ~8 inch diameter pure-parabolic dish will cost you ~$350-400 (I was recently quoted this amount). I have not yet seen a large dish spotlight on the consumer market that had a purely parabolic dish. Almost all of them have a small flat at the base. This provides side spill to the beam, so its not a bad thing IMHO... but it does not meet the goals of your project.

(Ra I hope you dont mind me posting your pics, Just say so and I will delete this commentary... no harm done)

See Ras' Maxablaster... this dish is purely parabolic, and ideal for throw.


... As compared to my HID build, which has a parabolic dish with a flat at the base. (for all I know the curved part of the dish may not even be parabolic). So a percentage of my bulb lumens are spilled out to the sides of my beam. You can also clearly see the difference in reflector quality. Ras reflector reflects a clear image of whats around it. My dish reflection, looks all distorted... like fun-house mirrors at the circus.


I have seen the threads on the 100w HID ballast at 12v's and how with 24v you can go up higher in wattage. How high can you source and would that matter as much as the focusing of the beam.
I am not sure what you are asking. The only 12V-100W ballast I am familiar with is this one here, that CPF'er stollman used in one of his builds. There are other 100W (and higher) ballasts, but they are not sold in the USA. So sourcing will be difficult for you.

**EDIT**
After a bit of www searching I found the Auerswald ballasts are very popular across all kinds of enthusiast hobbies and www sites. I stumbled upon automotive, 4x4-off road, motorcycle, diving, watercraft and fishing enthusiast forums that mentioned these ballasts. In addition to CPF too of course.

Wattage does not directly affect the beam pattern. What DOES affect beam pattern are the size/shape/brightness of the bulb point source and size/shape/optical quality of your reflector dish. Now... if increasing to a 24V setup changes the bulb to a larger point source then YES that will change your beam pattern. Generally, the smaller or brighter the point source the farther the throw. The larger the parabolic dish, the farther the throw. Larger dishes collect more stray lumens and re-direct them out the front.

Would optics help extend the throw of the beam. If so what sources.
I have never seen a focus optic used on an HID. I don't think an aspheric would work because the HID point source is obstructed by its own bulb mechanics. Aspheric lenses works with LED because the point source is square, flat and has an un-obstructed path to the lens.


Thanks everyone in advance for the help. I will put pics of the finished light when I get it all assembled and compare it to the Stanley. I was impressed with the Stanley but I'm just not satisfied.
Sure, good luck with the build!!

I think your best bet is to try and source the biggest spotlight you can find and pull the reflector dish from that. The Costco HID comes to mind right away, it has a well made reflector and glass lens.

I only want to add something to the quite complete comment by kramer:

Indeed you can clearly see the imperfections in kramers HID-reflector, but here you need to keep in mind that the average HID-arc like in kramers HID, has a surface of about 4 mm2.
So with those reflector imperfections, his setup still can perform splendidly.

However, the arcsize of Maxablaster, is a mere 0.13 mm2, an arc like that does not have the size to overcome imperfections like that, and so needs an ultra high quality parabolic reflector,
to reach the highest throw possible with that setup.

When you would swap the bulb of kramers torch with the one from Maxablaster, it would give very poor performance!

Edit: The flat base directly around the bulb does not drasticly reduce throw. When you calculate the pecentage of total reflector-surface it represents, you'll see why...


And kramer, I absolutely don't mind you posting my pictures, because they clarify things about difference in reflector quality... Good idea !


Regards,

Ra.