50 inch Reflector "Monster Light"

[LightSward]

See? This is the stuff they used to burn down the old ships in another fleet

High powered stuff..!

More progress:
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Searchlight reflecting sky to light

Nice view of the searchlight and cooling equipment.




A little closer to see the cooling fans

Close-up Searchlight

Searchlight getting closer to completion.C ooling fans installed. My usual Home Depot $15.00 bath fans. To get twice the CFM capacity, most fan makers charge up to 10 X higher, so I just buy two.

Will fire up both of these at the same time for a total output of 8,000 watts HMI, equivalent to 24,000 watts incandescent of Xenon. 385,000 lumen output each for a TOTAL: 770,000 LUMEN..! That's bright..!




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Old and New generations:wave::tired:
The old and new high powered telescope style searchlights. Notice the difference in the mirror orange peel effect from fibergalass to aluminum with it's much smoother finish. Hopefully makes a nicer beam..!

 

[LightSward]

Set up and tooled my shop to make a nice 50 inch Monster Reflector from aluminum with precision geometry, even CAD operated 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.

 

[ven]

I think out of this world is appropriate.........as thats where the beam will be going!

Amazing

 

[bicyclerepairman]

I moved to SE Portland last year, and always wondered what the sporadic searchlight activity was. Now I know! It would be great to make it out there when you have this fired up...

 

[LightSward]

Yes, have figured out why I was having some problems on recent aluminum reflectors I'm building.

 

[LightSward]

Well I was getting a bit cocky and maybe even slacking...lazy, but I thought the lower portion of the Parabolic shape was spherical enough to where I could get by just using a large compass to draw the profile for ease. Using the supercomputer, (AutoCAD on home PC and MAC) a few months back, the resolution was with thick lines so I missed the error of the slightly misaligned curves. After checking why I was having two or three slightly different focal points on my homemade reflectors, I realized the resolution wasn't fine enough to reveal the misalignment on the lower arc portion...how ever slight, was making for a fatter beam.. Have ordered new materials and hope to receive them in the next week or so and try...for the fourth time to make that "perfectly focused" aircraft aluminum reflector that is almost in my grasp. Some of you probably noted the slight error, and let me roll with it not mentioning it because of my strong personality and my kind of Hill Billy style of making reflectors entirely from scratch and design too, a bit off the "cuff". Hope to have an awesome, not just kind of awesome searchlight soon, in time for some light shows.:naughty:

 

[MAD777]

Re: 50 inch Reflector "Monster Light"

I want to offer my encouragement in your pursuit of perfection, and to suggest tuning past reflectors as steel drums. Then you could provide some Carribean Calypso music with your light demonstrations! LOL

 

[LightSward]

Re: 50 inch Reflector "Monster Light"

I want to offer my encouragement in your pursuit of perfection, and to suggest tuning past reflectors as steel drums. Then you could provide some Carribean Calypso music with your light demonstrations! LOL

Awesome..! Just happened to hear some Calypso music as I was reading your note while hearing an ad. Have three searchlights nearing or close to nearing completion. Recent one is of a radical design similar to lighthouses with something extra..! Going to be awesome...fingers crossed.

 

[LightSward]

After fine tuning several reflectors and even making a deep dish reflector to be revealed soon;, I've more or less gotten better at these aluminum reflectors
picture shows: Searchlight coming to life during daytime test

New all Aluminum 36 inch 4,000 watt HMI Searchlight for Halloween






Powerful beam as seen from behind searchlight. Beam can be seen for 5 miles distance.

New all Aluminum 36 inch 4,000 watt HMI Searchlight for Halloween⤡

New all Aluminum 36 inch 4,000 watt HMI Searchlight for Halloween


Beam in night rainy sky as seen from a block away


Looks awesome



Beam from behind searchlight. Beam can be seen five miles distance or more

New all Aluminum 36 inch 4,000 watt HMI Searchlight for Halloween:candle:

Powerful 380,000 lumen beam stabbing the night sky for five miles and can be seen all over town

Beam seen close by as cars started rolling by.

Beam seen half a block away

Light can be seen almost focused, yet hard to do with such hot equipment






Searchlight seen across the street warming up with color bands formed by camera interaction with 60 hertz / 120 flickers per second.

36 inch aluminum searchlight warming up

Searchlight as seen from a couple blocks away as seen through trees and rain patterns

Light beam looks incredible during rain...rainbows and different light patterns.





Searchlight cooling down.

Cooling down bulb takes about a minute to stop making any light.

 

[Searchlightexpert]

But also in this experiment the optical performance is just like trash. It is not possible to get a good output out of this reflector....

 

[Tribal]

Honestly this thread made me realize how much of a noob in lights i am.

I have a handful of mag lights some ebay specials and different homedepot lanterns but this is out of this world.

 

[LightSward]

But also in this experiment the optical performance is just like trash. It is not possible to get a good output out of this reflector....

Wrong. If you BUY and purchase perfect reflectors, not make them, you really don't know what or why I'm doing this. (1) Experience has shown, purchased reflectors from those suggested people for my bulbs, don't perform much better than mine, in fact they've done worse since they don't have the required large diameter at an affordable price. . I've watched people thinking just like you have their ego down the drain when they thought their super bright light would outperform mine and were blown away instead. This happened just this past week. To work with the powerful bulbs I do, you have to purchase large, expensive reflectors. Many of the large reflectors out there for sale are garbage as they're only meant for collecting the sun for experiments, etc.,. I've down quite well. Show me someone else's Home made reflector...you make any. Lighten up and find out more before you become quite so judgmental..! I have a very limited budget, not the huge sums of money you have.


I consider this an adequate beam from a searchlight that replicates a $20,000.00 set up for $500..! See if you can do better, with buying or making all your stuff.

Beam can be seen for many, many miles. You must be from NASA searchlights which received a scathing rebuke from me for being all hype..!

 

[LightSward]

Honestly this thread made me realize how much of a noob in lights i am.

I have a handful of mag lights some ebay specials and different homedepot lanterns but this is out of this world.

Thank you.

 

[LightSward]

I'm making replica equipment that in most ways performs similarly to the big wxpensive lights. People from many miles show up and many are interested in renting.
I consider this an adequate beam from a searchlight that replicates a $20,000.00 set up for $500..! See if you can do better, with buying or making all your stuff.

Beam can be seen for many, many miles. You must be from NASA searchlights which received a scathing rebuke from me for being all hype..![/QUOTE]

 

[LightSward]

Honestly this thread made me realize how much of a noob in lights i am.

I have a handful of mag lights some ebay specials and different homedepot lanterns but this is out of this world.

Appreciate the good words.

Keep up all the good work you do on your projects. :naughty:

I've been very busy making three searchlights of very different designs during the last year and have learned much. :thumbsup:Mainly I learned from experience and experimenting with many designs and focal lengths and discovered the brightness and visibility of the beam from any large distance ultimately depends on the lumen output of the light source, amount landing on reflector and or lens and the focal length, preferring the longer focal lengths. Even when I grab most of the light from a bulb and place it in a highly focused beam using precision lenses I purchased, and aligned with mirrors, making an almost laser like beam compared to the slighter fatter beam from homemade parabolic reflecting mirror; grabbing less than half the total light from a brighter source, (similar to the highly successful WWII carbon arc design) and with a longer focal length, beam could be seen from a much farther distance.

:candle: Today's automobile headlamps are significantly brighter and many drive with their high beams on, only the brightest of searchlights will be seen, even close to the source. :sick2: My lights are often much brighter than Xenon sources twice the wattage as my HMI sources which produce much more light per watt yet from a slighter larger arc length, making a culminated beam harder to achieve.

Fun making my own stuff from scratch so I can almost instantly see my own customized results.:thumbsup:

 

[LightSward]

New toys

[h=2]Left side shows homemade searchlight beam and the right side shows the new Xenon pencil thin searchlight beam.[/h]
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The new 1000 watt Xenon. Coming soon new 4000 watt xenon to compliment the set up.

 

[LightSward]

:ironic:

 

[LightSward]

 

[LightSward]

Have made a "Back Seat" version of this that fits easily into the backseat of a small Kia Rio sedan. It's "open flame" because to make it weather resistant and normal like a light normally is, would require additional housing size increases that makes it impossible to go back there. I've done this to make demonstrations of the approximate look of the 50 inch Monster which makes the best beam of these larger ones of mine. Photos soon. Will use this one Halloween with the small 1,200 tank type light, or rather a real laser looking XENON searchlight rather than the usual HMI I usually use. One is much brighter with a bigger arc area the Xenon is very small light point in comparison just not as bright per watt.

 

[LightSward]

Thanks for the good words.

Actually a very good idea. You've got me thinking. How would I actually melt Aluminum...? :naughty:

Love to sand cast the reflector and have seriously considered building a melting furnace, :thumbsup::naughty:yet live in an association where my limited yard space, I'd probably get in trouble doing it here...so I'll have to consider a commercial lease..?:thinking: