New 10MCP is not what I thought

[Pro-Zak]

I had a great time shooting pictures in some tunnels last weekend with a borrowed Thor-X 10MCP spotlight, and decided to order a few for myself and photograph buddy. I bought from Northern Tool & Equipment, and the product shown was clearly the one I had used (except for the yellow color).

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200230674_200230674

The spots arrived today, and they're cheap pieces of crap! They appear to be similar to the 6MCP Scout spotlight. I took one apart, and though the holder for the bulb says H4 100W/50W, I'm not so sure that's what it really is. The selling specs say 12V 7ah battery, but there actually 2 6V 5ah batteries wired in series.

First - has anyone here used this cheap-o spotlight, and is it good enough? I'd like to get an hour's worth of 2-minute sessions out of it. I'm actually happy that it's much less of a weighty beast than the Thor-X 10MCP, but afraid that it's going to be a one-shot 15-minute wonder (or less than wonder). My primary use is going to be lighting up dark places, painting light-lines, and having spotlight beams show up in my pics as in these two shots of mine:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vogelium/2105821119/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vogelium/2106600422/

Second - should I just return them, read up on all the alternatives in this forum, and re-buy with an informed opinion learned from the gurus of this board? If so, I would appreciate recommendations & shortcuts (Reading 3-zillion pages of a forum will take me months!).

Thanks, guys.

 

[Flashanator]

and they're cheap pieces of crap

LOL!!! :laughing:

Thats a nice way of putting it. If your inside a cave & would like over an hours runtime, then Id suggest HID spotlights, never halogen. Halogen spotlights dim down before they even get to half their runtime, were as HID lights remain at constant light output during the entire runtime. Although HID lights take time ie10-20secs) to get to full brightness. What is your budget? If you want the HID equivelant of a 10mill CP spoty, check this.




http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93175


Wouldn't a Flood light in a cave be handy aswell to see a large area?







BTW this looks friggen awsome. Like a wormhole to another dimension:naughty:

 

[Pro-Zak]

Considering the sick amounts of money I drop into my photo gear, there's not really too much of a budget consideration. I mean, I don't want to throw away money, but I'm happy to pay for something good. Size & weight are priorities, and that one you linked to says 16 lbs. Yoiks!

I've started poking around this forum, and this N30 that's repeatedly mentioned seems pretty sweet. I might keep the 'pieces of crap' and try some of the modifications mentioned (thicker wiring & switches) on it.

Thanks for the compliments on the picture ... definitely one of my favorite shots ever, but it's only a road flare, not spotlight.:candle: (wow, perfect smiley for this occasion)

 

[Ra]

...

Nice wormhole Flash..


Pro-Zak:

1 hour with 2minutes sessions? I'll bet you didn't test that with the light you borrowed !!
Like Flashanator said: Impossible with lights like these ! With 2-minute sessions, you'll get 10-15 sessions at the most !

Ever looked into HID? Indeed it needs a few secs to get to full output, but you'll be amazed by the performance.
Apart from the startup time and a slight drop in colorrendering, HID has quite a few advantages:

-Much better efficiency: Much longer runtimes on one charge. (compared to same lumens halogen).
-Better throw.
-More stable output during one charge.
-Much longer bulblife: +2000 hours compared to aprox 100 hours for halogen.
-More daylike colortemperature: Bulbs aviable in 4200-10,000K range (clear halogen 3000-3200K).

So, if you don't mind the startup time, and are willing to pay $150, you can have a light that make the lights you played with leave with their tail between their legs!

Much info about HID can be found here at CPF..


Regards,

Ra.

 

[Pro-Zak]

Oh yeah, I'm looking into this stuff! I've never heard of HID until yesterday when I signed up. The start-up time might be an issue with HID spotlights. Are we talking about 10-15 seconds, or only 2 to 3 for full throw? (forgive me if I'm using the wrong terminology ... I'm new!)

I kind of did test the real 10MCP Thor-X. It was used for at least 30 shots (conservatively, let's say 30 seconds of on-time for each). Then when I realized that the battery wasn't going to quit, I used it as a lantern for the walk back to the truck (15 more minutes). Then about 5 more minutes of playtime driving out of the sticks. When I got home, I wanted to see how much more life I got out of it, so cycled it on for 5 minutes and off for 5. Got 8 sessions from that, and it didn't dim until the last ... about 20 seconds from final battery depletion. Needless to say, I was quite excited about the amount of battery life I got.

Flashanator, in the future, please don't host my pictures elsewhere ... they're copyrighted under creative commons license. On the Flickr page where you found it, click on 'All Sizes', and you're welcome to copy the .jpg location and link it from there. :thumbsup:

 

[Ra]

Throw is the abillity to enlighten distant objects. Throw and lumens are different things: You can have a torch with high lumens output that has poor throw. And you can have a low lumens-output torch with massive throw: Extreme example: Laser pointer !

Ofcource there are also lights with both high lumens output and high throw..

BTW: In some setups, the startup time that comes with HID is shortened by increasing the power during startup and the use of partly xenon filled bulbs.
I have a HID-system like that: It has decent lumens output directly at startup.


Regards,

Ra.

 

[roopeseta]

You didnt get what you ordered and you should return these and say that you want the right flashlight. What did you pay for these? Did you pay the full price that the 10mcp costs or did this cost less? What costs more in that store? Did you loose or gain some money?

I mean even if you like this, you didnt order this, helllloo?!??! You should get what you order and if you dont, well then return these (the shop must pay the postage fees) so you get what you really ordered and paid for.

If someone goes into a car shop and chooses the 20000 dollar car, and then he gets the 10000 dollar car but he paid the full price of 20000, ofcourse he is going to complain and demand that the car that he paid for is given to him. This is like the same thing.

 

[Gunner12]

Well, the "X Million candlepower spotlights" usually have much less then 1 million candlepower. The Maxabeam, one of the best throwing lighs avaliable, "only" has 6 million candlepower.

You could probably buy a car's HID converting kit and make that work for you light. And since they are meant for cars, warm up time should be pretty short.

:welcome: