NightSword - Portable Mega Light Idea Revisited

[BVH]

OK, not to claim braggers rights but.........OK, I will, just this time. I recently sold my 800,000,000 TRUE CP flashlight. Wasn't very portable, though.It was claimed that one could read a newspaper at 5.7 miles.

 

[get-lit]

Oh GoD, Oh god, I'm an actually laughing out loud at this thread, it is decided, even if I don't win the lottery, Some day I WILL build this light with the VIP120 and the 14 inch reflector…..135,000,000 candle power WILL Be Mine!

Oh, sorry about my crazed rant😗, this is the most exited I have ever gotten over something on CPF😀:twothumbs😱, I vote for you to use the VIP120:twothumbs, I love your photo shop of the beams, but it looks like you simply cut off the edges of the original tank light beam in order to make the VIP120 profile, wouldn't it more or less be a solid white line:thinking:, it appears to slightly dim towards the top of the picture, wouldn't it be more intense at the top of the picture then the regular tank light's beam is at the bottom?

Here I modified your original to make it a proximity 5x more intense. Click to see larger.

To be honest, that is likely more visually accurate than mine, but I purposely made it a bit subdued so that people would actually believe it and not write this off as just a bunch of talk.

 

[get-lit]

OK, not to claim braggers rights but.........OK, I will, just this time. I recently sold my 800,000,000 TRUE CP flashlight. Wasn't very portable, though.It was claimed that one could read a newspaper at 5.7 miles.

Bragging rights are definitely deserved there. What was the light??? Also, I believe that candlepower measurements should be taken at a far enough distance so that the reading doesn't include the incident light from up close that doesn't actually contribute to true throw.

 

[BVH]

This little gem. The government rated it so it is probably fairly accurate.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=170556&highlight=carbon

 

[get-lit]

um.. you have more money than me.

 

[get-lit]

I'm so angry at myself for loosing that distribution pattern I came across for the the VIP lamps! I came across it accidentally before and so I thought it would be easy to find again and now it's nowhere to be found. This is the cross-sectional profile of the far-field radiation distribution pattern of relative intensity vs. angle as a polar plot. I *REALLY* need this to fully optimize the reflector dimensions for these lamps. If I never find it again, I do recall it fairly well. It was something like this...

Notice it's much different from the "butterfly" profile of the DC short arc Xenon lamps. If I had an accurate polar plot with luminance values per angle, I could precisely determine the optimal reflector dimensions in which the balance between reflector focal length and reflector depth yield the most candlepower. i.e., finding the focal length at which collimation and light gathering ability compromise one another the least.

 

[Flashanator]

What would the weight & dimensions of this be? Can you draw up a sketch in paint?

 

[DM51]

I'm so angry at myself for loosing that distribution pattern I came across for the the VIP lamps... It was something like this...

I think this was the pic you were looking for, lol

 

[Juggernaut]

I think this was the pic you were looking for, lol

I don't know that looks kind of dim….

By the way do you have any idea how large the reflector would have to be to beat out any, type of light "WWII search / spot lights and stuff". It's easy to see that BVH's light would destroy the night sward, because it weighs thousands of pounds and used thousands of watts, but I would assume it's cd/cm^2 would actually be less then the VIP120, I mean that carbon arc light has a 60+ inch reflector which combined with it's output "500,000 lumens or something" makes it much more powerful, but I wonder what it's cd/cm^2 is:thinking:?

 

[get-lit]

I think this was the pic you were looking for, lol

I love it!

 

[get-lit]

I don't know that looks kind of dim….

By the way do you have any idea how large the reflector would have to be to beat out any, type of light "WWII search / spot lights and stuff". It's easy to see that BVH's light would destroy the night sward, because it weighs thousands of pounds and used thousands of watts, but I would assume it's cd/cm^2 would actually be less then the VIP120, I mean that carbon arc light has a 60+ inch reflector which combined with it's output "500,000 lumens or something" makes it much more powerful, but I wonder what it's cd/cm^2 is:thinking:?

The VIP 120 will never put out the kind of light like that. It is not likely that any reflector size could make the VIP 120 do that. Here's why... The reflector acts as an aperture. As the reflector gets larger, so does the area of the collimated light. You could put the VIP in a 60" diameter reflector and you will get perfect collimated light by any Earthly standard, but then the diameter of the light would be so large that rather than having a bright laser-like light that can throw, you instead have a 60" wide beam of insanely collimated light that is relatively dim because the VIP 120 is only 7,200 lumen.

So while larger reflectors increase candlepower by better collimating the light, at a certain point you begin to loose candlepower because the aperture eventually widens to a point at which the candlepower gains afforded by incrementally better collimation is negated by the brightness losses of incrementally wider apertures.

Think about it this way... at the extreme of a perfect point light source, even the smallest perfect parabolic reflector will perfectly collimate the light, and the most achievable candlepower would actually then be the smallest reflector because as the aperture widens, the brightness dims.

Roughly speaking, with the VIP 120 it's likely that you would begin losing gains past a 24" reflector give or take a fair amount. Could be less. The maximum acheivable candlepower with the VIP 120 may very well be under 100M with an 18" reflector. An 18" reflector has an aperture area of 3.6 times that of a 9.5" reflector.

The bottom line is that as modern lamp surface brightness increases, the gains of larger reflectors to collimate the light to create candlepower diminish due to larger aperture.

 

[get-lit]

Ra said the Melles Griot only reflected 76% of the visible light even though it's listed at 90% because it's more efficient in the UV range. I may go with the a reflector with an aluminum based coating. For a 9.5" reflector with the luminance angular distribution pattern of these lamps, the optimum focal distance is between 1.3" (33mm) and 1.5" (38.1mm). The difference is a matter of personal choice. Please refer to the following diagram...

The 1.3" (33mm) appears to be the "safe" bet and the 1.5" (38.1mm) will be pushing the edge.

For the VIP 120, since we are only working with 7,200 lumen in a tiny luminance area, that extra 10% light of the 33mm could go a long way. That's probably what I'd go with for this lamp.

Now for the VIP 273, I'd probably go with the 38.1mm because it could really use the extra 15.38% collimation instead of the extra 10% light.

 

[get-lit]

What would the weight & dimensions of this be? Can you draw up a sketch in paint?

Well, the weight would depend on the host or the type of housing construction if built from the ground up. A quick safe estimate would be about 1.5 times the weight of the Platinum Thor, and also lighter since it could be also operated by a 12v and 120v source without batteries if one chooses.

Probably 10 lbs without batteries and another 1.7 lbs for two 11.1v 5000 mAh Li-Po batteries that would last 74 minutes for the VIP 120 or 30 minutes for the VIP 273.

 

[Juggernaut]

The VIP 120 will never put out the kind of light like that. It is not likely that any reflector size could make the VIP 120 do that. Here's why... The reflector acts as an aperture. As the reflector gets larger, so does the area of the collimated light. You could put the VIP in a 60" diameter reflector and you will get perfect collimated light by any Earthly standard, but then the diameter of the light would be so large that rather than having a bright laser-like light that can throw, you instead have a 60" wide beam of insanely collimated light that is relatively dim because the VIP 120 is only 7,200 lumen.

So while larger reflectors increase candlepower by better collimating the light, at a certain point you begin to loose candlepower because the aperture eventually widens to a point at which the candlepower gains afforded by incrementally better collimation is negated by the brightness losses of incrementally wider apertures.

Think about it this way... at the extreme of a perfect point light source, even the smallest perfect parabolic reflector will perfectly collimate the light, and the most achievable candlepower would actually then be the smallest reflector because as the aperture widens, the brightness dims.

Roughly speaking, with the VIP 120 it's likely that you would begin losing gains past a 24" reflector give or take a fair amount. Could be less. The maximum acheivable candlepower with the VIP 120 may very well be under 100M with an 18" reflector. An 18" reflector has an aperture area of 3.6 times that of a 9.5" reflector.

The bottom line is that as modern lamp surface brightness increases, the gains of larger reflectors to collimate the light to create candlepower diminish due to larger aperture.

Wow, I always wondered about that, I have done some pretty impressive "not to your standards😱" concave mirror recoil light projects and I always wondered if I go a big enough parabolic mirror that I would end up dimming the beam because the "beam it's self" would become to wide at it's base. However what if you had the cross section of the beam "not sure what the technical term is, it's were the beam first crosses over it's self before shooting off into the distance "normally no more then 6inches to a a few feet away from the lens" well what if you stretched out this point with a massive reflector so that even if the candle power of the beam was very weak at the light, while miles away it converged at a single point instead of right next to the light. Making it's C.P. there very high.

If you have no idea what I am talking about I made a absolutely horrible picture demonstrating my "most likely misinformed" idea.

Note: do not judge my intellectual capabilities on my poor picture!
Note just about nothing is to scale in this picture:
http://img34.imageshack.us/i/verybadpictureofcpbeamd.png/

 

[get-lit]

That's a convergence point. "I dont think" a parabolic reflector for parallel light can create an effective convergence point. Adjusting the focus only changes how well the light becomes parallel. You would need an elliptical reflector, but even then the convergence point is a set distance. You could use a parabolic reflector with an adjustable lens.

I got a better idea. Everyone on the forums should pick a point in the sky with a GPS in each city where they live and all shine their little LED lights at the same point at the same time. Nobody else would know where the big glow in the sky was coming from :twothumbs

 

[get-lit]

Bad news. The VIP 120 R ain't going to fly. I took a close look at my movie projector lamp that also has a built-in reflector and that reflector isn't going anywhere period. That's very disappointing. It really was the dream lamp.

I contacted Philips and Osram and they are under strict license agreements to supply lamps *only* for projectors and they will not work with any company wanting to use them for anything other than projectors. They won't even provide any details about any of the lamps. So at this point, the new Philips 3G UHP lamps are out and we can forget a special run of the VIP 120 without built-in reflectors.

On the bright side, we still have the VIP 273 S that comes standard without the reflector. Although it has 4.5 times the luminance area, almost half the average luminance, the VIP 273 S will still put out a lot more medium range light and is on par for throw with the XBO 1600 (when using the same reflector). The VIP 273 in a portable 10 lb. package with just a 9.5" reflector should achieve a real 25-30M candlepower and I'm happy with that. And the color temp is perfect. Just need to find a supplier. I will call around next.

By the way, when contacting anyone for these lamps, do NOT let them know that it's not for a projector. I got a sense that these are like the industry's drugs. As soon as I started asking questions, I got the third degree with questions like "do you have one now?" "where did you get it from?" "who gave it to you?" "why do you want it?". These lamps have been made very inexpensive in order to suit the OEM projector industry and they tend to put the industry's thousand dollar short arc Xenon lamps to shame so I think that's why they're limited to just projector use.

I'm likely going with the 33mm focal length reflector rather than the 38.1mm because lamp intensities will only improve and the 33mm focal length will be more accommodating in the future.

 

[get-lit]

If we have to use the VIP 273, I might go with the a 12" reflector.

This is going to be a monster!

 

[Juggernaut]

Well since we lost out on the stupidly Epic max throw of the VIP120:mecry:, you might as well maximize the collimation of the VIP273 with the 12 inch reflector, that's to bad about the VIP120 though:sigh:. I thought the Maxabeam had 30,000,000 C.P. but I must be wrong:shrug:.

 

[get-lit]

Well since we lost out on the stupidly Epic max throw of the VIP120:mecry:, you might as well maximize the collimation of the VIP273 with the 12 inch reflector, that's to bad about the VIP120 though:sigh:. I thought the Maxabeam had 30,000,000 C.P. but I must be wrong:shrug:.

Maxabeam - 7.5M C.P.

Maxablaster (9.5" reflector) = 52M C.P.

VIP 273 (with 12" reflector) = 45M C.P. (estimated)

Keep in mind these that these estimations are based upon the reported lumen and average luminance of the VIP 273. Another important factor is the luminances of the hot spots within the luminance areas, which are unkown. What is known is that the VIP has two hot spots spaced next to each other becaue it's an AC lamp, so that will negatively affect these predictions to some degree.

 

[get-lit]

Anyone like the housing diagram so far?