970 lumen from a 10 Watt WA HID ??????

[nobbe]

Hi everyone,

during the last couple of days I spent my time on the "Eurobike" exhibition and in my free time I stumbled across the stand of Lupine.

lupine

I was attracted by a tiny bike light which looked quite bright. After examining the whole thing it turned out to be a 10 Watt HID from WA basically. So far so good - but then the guy told my that it runs of a 7,2 Volt LiIo (11,2 Ah) akku and that it has a high and a low setting. On high he claimed the light output would be about 970 lumen. As I have been playing around with WA lamps (especially 10 Watt HID) for quite a while I think the one with reflector puts out about 500 lumen and the bare bulb about 580 lumen (correct me if I am mistaken ..). So my question is: can this 970 lumen claim be true - has anyone some experience with overdriving those WA HIDs ?

-nobbe

 

[K-T]

They claim to have an improved Welch Allyn Ballast and thus are able to produce the 900lm instead of stock 500lm - nobody knows exactly how they do it. Getting a spare ballast and lamp to take apart and find out is rather expensive,too - they nearly charge the full price if I remember correct. Did they have a handheld flashlight with HID there,too? That is another project they are announcing and workin on for some time now.

 

[Kiessling]

yeah, this "handheld edison" is what I am waiting for, too. I really hope it won't run on Li-Ions though ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif
bernhard

 

[pyro]

I doubt that it will put out 970 Lumens from only 10 Watts,
that would be 97lumens/watt, and that is what 35 watt D2S
bulbs can produce.
i really don´t think that a mini HID cam match that efficiency yet.
maybe it runs at 15 or 20 Watts, but i read that overdriving miniHIDs will reduce their life dramatically.

but a 10watt 900lumen light would close the gap between
the almost too weak 10 watters and the power hungry 35 watt bulbs.

 

[NewBie]

Are most these folks usually quoting their lumens off the bulb specs?

You still have significant losses in the reflector and in the cover window/lens to compensate for. Of course, they may have used a reflector coating that is alot less lossy than normal, and AR coated both sides of the lenses...

 

[kakster]

More details on the Lupine-modified Solarc:

Technical details

Looks like they make their own ballasts.
Im pretty sure the quoted ratings are bulb lumens too.

 

[ufokillerz]

overdriven it can do it, they are unregulated ballasts, so they suck as much as you give it.

 

[nobbe]

........... they did not have any hand held sample unit to show at the exhibition unfortunately but I´ve heared of this project, too.

 

[mattheww50]

If you read the technical data from Lupine, they say they get 60 lumens per watt, which is only a modest improvement over the basic WA Solarc lamp, it also means that to get 900 lumens, they are going to have to overdrive to 15 watts (16+watts for 970 lumens).

No doubt that reduces lamp life, but for many applications, lamp life isn't an issue. Reducing the lamp life in a flashight from 1000 hours to even 200 hours doesn't make much difference. 200 hours is a very long time for a flashlight or a bicycle headlamp.

 

[nobbe]

yeap ! That is what I assumed - they just overdrive the lamp at the high setting - and thats it (o.k. they did some improvements compared to the standard ballast but this does not the boost to 900+ lumen).

By the way ..... does anyone know if Trailtech does the same with their new 16 Watt HID ?

-Norbert