Needed: a bright light with app. 20 hour burn time

[knucklehead]

I participate in a 270-mile canoe race that requires paddling through the night (usually two nights; app. 20 hrs burn time). I am wondering if an HID bulb would be appropriate for our needs.

There are several reasons why I don't just purchase the store bought system: I can’t afford it, I need more burn time (or bigger battery than the ones that comes factory), and the system needs to fit the canoe.

I was hoping to rig my own by purchasing an HID bulb and wiring up lithium battery pack or something. Would this be possible? Will the HID bulbs run off of any Lithium? Even if i did purchase one of those bike lights (niterider) could i rig up a different battery pack. Maybe something i can change batteries out?

any suggestions?


Any information you can lend would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason
-Houston

 

[cheesehead]

Will the light get wet? If so, UK makes some nice lights, with a 10 watt HID for about 150. No 20 hour run time, though, it's probably easier to carry battery spares than to concot a single large pile of batteries to supply 20 hours of juice. To run a 10 watt light for 20 hours you'll need some serious power (200 watts or 12 volts and 17 amps, or vice versa).

If it's dark out, then the 10 watt HID is probably overkill. Might be useful to try a 6 volt lantern light with a couple of spare batteries, or UK has a 1 watt LED with 10 hour bright burn time and 80 hour total-that's a nice simple solution and would probably be the easy way out, and allow you to concentrate more on the race, then fiddling with batteries.

cheese

 

[BB]

Jason,

It is not cheap, but a good gen II or gen III night vision device would be an interesting choice.

They are small, can be water proof, use a smaller (like CR123 or AA's?) type batteries that can last for 10's of hours. You can get a monocular with headband/helmet mount and you will be able to see much farther in the dark than with a normal light. If it is heavy overcast or such, you may need an IR iluminator or normal light as backup.

You can check the night vision thread for some more details and ask questions there...

-Bill

 

[knucklehead]

sadly it will probably be getting wet. Yea I should have been more descriptive. I knew that i would probably have to have at least 2 or 3 sets of batteries. I wish i knew more of the science behind it...guess i have some learnin' to do

-NIGHTVISION! i wish.

thanks for the help. i appreciate it!

 

[paulr]

Re: Needed: a bright light with app. 20 hour burn

HID stuff is expensive and lithium batteries are also expensive. Yes, HID is great if you can afford it. You might not want to use a Light Cannon-type of light though, which is intended for diving and has a narrow beam. Better might be to look at a HID bicycle lighting system (starting around $300), or a normal halogen one (carry spare bulbs) if HID is too expensive for you.

Use big batteries (D cells or an SLA pack) which are much more economical than AA's or lithium cells. A 10 watt system will need around 1 amp at 12 volts (maybe 1.5 amps because of system inefficiencies) so you can probably run it for 20 hours on one or two sets of eight D cells.

 

[Sway]

Have you though about a LED Waynes Bike Lights

Or you could build a LED light from a 3D Mag using a LuxIII LED that will give you a good 8 hours of useable light no where near the out put of a HID but inexpensive and water resistant if one is not enough use two /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Later
Sway

 

[cy]

Re: Needed: a bright light with app. 20 hour burn

Electrolumens FT-3C LED $60 http://www.elektrolumens.com/index.html
, plenty bright w/spill, 10 hours claimed runtime bright, Carry one set extra of Alk C cells. Nmh will get you 3-4 hours bright, but need to carry two extr sets.

Or mod maglite 3C direct drive W/Lux3. There is a std 3C maglite handlebar mount. I have one, but don't know who make it.

Need to fibricate a aluminum mounting bracket for handlebar. $100 solution w/batt + handlebar mount.

Tubocat are know for supporting 24hour racers.
http://www.turbocatusa.com/home.html
cost to setup will be $300+ VS $100 for above

 

[udaman]

1st, check this Japanese site for comparisons at various distances. You'll need to decide how wide you need the beam to be, that which you feel safe/comfortable with. Also decide how much throw you need?

Beamshot comparisons of incan,LED,10w&35wHID's at various distances

You're looking at the Nightrider at over $300+, but this is too costly? Then what is you maximum price? BTW, Light & Motion which makes $1,500 21w HID small head dive lights for mounting on video camcorders, also makes 13w HID bicycle lamps with wider/brighter spill light(not sure about water resistance), compared to the Nightrider, which has slightly greater throw/tighter hotspot. Same price for NiMH as the Nightrider, but same 4-hr max. runtimes or less.

One thing you did not mention is where this light will be? Handheld HID dive light, for 20hrs? Not likely. Seems you're looking at a helmet/headband mounted lamp, correct? Thread should have been titled as needing a bright "helmet/headlamp" w/20 burn-time. Although I suppose you could rig some type of mount to the front of the canoe? Helmet/headband light gives you the flexibility of pointing the light at different angles from the front of the canoe. Basically, as with bicycle night lighting, you're better off with both fixed forward light, and helmet mounted light. Some claim there is enough side light from the single forward mounted light, but I don't see it that way.

$300 buys you a headband flood LED($30 helmet attachment), that is claimed to run 8hrs, per battery-pack- extra's $80. But you might be able to get an RC forums NiMH battery-pack retailer to supply you with a higher capacity battery-pack for about the same $80. If you can get the same connector, you're set. I'd just buy 2 battery-packs myself. The German made Lupine system LED's are waterproof I think. At least the Li-Ion version is; but ouch, $675! Not sure LED's will provide enough throw, but the Lupine should run long enough as is, just reduced output at the end of battery life, but LED's output drops gradually, so you might be able to run the entire time on one NiMH, only pre-testing will let you know for sure. The specs on the Li-ion says 10hrs runtime, yet the specific page mentions it provides more than 24hrs of light...whether or not that is 'usable' for your situation, only pre-testing will tell for sure.
Lupine LED headlamp w/NiMH batterypack

Keep in mind, next year, someone will come out with a headband LED, w/higher capacity batteries, using much brighter 3w Luxeon LED's for the same money, and you'll have buyer's remorse /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[udaman]

Sorry, I forgot to mention this post in the Headlamp forum. Ask some of these ppl who are doing long hrs. in caves what they think. Maybe a 5w luxeon LED headlamp, homemade could be relatively inexpensive, and meet your needs. Ask someone to provide you with short & long distance beamshots, or links to those.

2 x 3LS headlamp w/11ah NiMH battery $300?