30 inch Military Searchlight re-configuration

LightSward

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Portland, Oregon
May be obtaining one of the few remaining 30 inch diameter, Vietnam era, very powerful, deep parabolic reflector military searchlights rated at 1.2 billion candle power. These were also used to illuminate the Space Shuttle Night Launches and as emergency lighting at the ends of the runway for the Shuttle landings.


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potentially I will soon possess one of these beauties that has been vandalized, copper stripped, reflector pitted and dull, lighting electronics largely missing. My Project is to convert this into a similar configuration using my HMI 4,000 watt 385,000 lumen bulb with almost the exact same arc gap as the original Xenon bulb in it's place. Depending on the reflector condition I may "spot cover" with the reflective tape I use and or make a mold from this reflector and manufacture my own to preserve the original and allow experimentation on my new one. I expect similar results from this as the one I was able to move around when i was just 12 years old back at the end of the Vietnam War when three of these searchlights were used at the Nevada Jaycee Sate Fair.




My first mission is to secure and transport the searchlight a thousand miles to my shop and have a little space too. Pricing amongst the freighters is a little more tricky and difficult than I imagined.

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Neal waves finger of God to FAA:








Stay tuned.:thumbsup:
 
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LightSward

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Portland, Oregon
have you contacted BVH? He might be able to give you some suggestions. If you look through his threads hes probably to go to guy for stuff like this

BVH knows a huge amount and was an inspiration during my start on CPF. The 50 inch Monster was inspired by; the knowledge a fellow CPF member owned such a beast as, the 60 inch Killer Carbon Arc Monster Light. :naughty:
 

LightSward

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Portland, Oregon
Could be wrong about this. Initial look I gather:

Looking at the pictures and other design criteria I can see the 30 inch military searchlight uses a reflector designed much like my 30 inch NightHawk, of course with far more precision and smooth, orange peel free reflector. Looking closely at the nearly one inch arc gap of the immense and high wattage Xenon bulb, I realized the need for only half a parabolic reflector. The Xenon bulb as most CPF members know has a large flat side maybe the Anode which physically blocks much of the light coming from the pointed cathode, so only half a sphere of light is created, so only half a parabolic reflector at 180 degrees or a little more and all the light is grabbed and culminated. Genius.:cool:

In a pure xenon lamp, the majority of the light is generated within a tiny, pinpoint-sized cloud of plasma situated where the electron stream leaves the face of the cathode. The light generation volume is cone-shaped, and the luminous intensity falls off exponentially moving from cathode to anode. Electrons passing through the plasma cloud strike the anode, causing it to heat. As a result, the anode in a xenon short-arc lamp either has to be much larger than the cathode or be water-cooled, to dissipate the heat.
 

LightSward

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Feb 1, 2009
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Portland, Oregon
Bit disappointed. Haven't had the ability to transport the 30 inch light and hopefully the owner is still interested in letting me have it once I'm in a better position to squire it. I've been finishing projects and clearing out space and converting assets to increase my income to cover the moving expenses. A bit bummed I haven't done my part and received it yet. My fault at not understanding how expensive it is to ship large, strange items.

Set up and tooled my shop to make a nice range of reflectors, using a modified English Wheel, in a range of sizes; anywhere from 24 inch, 36 inch Gorilla Reflector up to a 50 inch Monster or any size in this whole range made now from aluminum with polished aluminum, nice but pricey and much less if used with the very good newest polish metalized Mylar product I'm using now, all with precision geometric control, integrating CAD control in the forming of the reflector. Been real busy doing things I needed to do with little time to posts. Am making huge progress on this and will get back to posting more as I get some time. This is going to be awesome. Hopefully I'll have something worth showing when the time comes. This weekend I could be ready for another test. Need money for some patents.
 

Str8stroke

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Keep up the good work. I know I like reading your updates. I almost bumped this a few months back to see what was going on. I am glad you are still at it. I can't imagine how difficult or how much work it takes to get these things going. You need to buy yourself a Big Rig truck to carry your lights! lol
 

LightSward

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Joined
Feb 1, 2009
Messages
1,164
Location
Portland, Oregon
Keep up the good work. I know I like reading your updates. I almost bumped this a few months back to see what was going on. I am glad you are still at it. I can't imagine how difficult or how much work it takes to get these things going. You need to buy yourself a Big Rig truck to carry your lights! lol

Thanks. Feel bad as I haven't been able to free up shop space to receive the light plus business has been slow, etc., haven't been able to budget financially for the transport of the 30 inch military light. Hopefully things should turnaround in a month. Making equipment and parts to work on this as I wait for optimal conditions to accept the light.
 
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