UKE HID lamp!

[Brock]

OK, I just found this light, "The light canon 100" on the UKE site and Brightguy is selling them for $185.

It is a 10w HID Metal Halide producing 450 lumens!

It runs on 8 C cell batteries.

So has anyone seen this light or have one?

UK's site

Brightguy's listing

Brock

 

[Chris M.]

So has anyone seen this light or have one?

No....but I want one! I`ll have to put in extra time in work and save for one of them soon! At last- affordable (ish) HID flashlights! Wonder if they want a review of one.....?

I wonder if it uses the Welch Allyn lamp that I mentioned about in an older thread somewhere? The one I have seen is a complete lamp including reflector, but they also made them as just the bulb part too. 8 c-cells would make 12 volts, right? The Welch Allyn lamp I saw had a ballast unit that ran on 12 volts, so it could be.....

 

[Brock]

Chris, it must use a voltage regulator in there? I guess what I am wondering if it stays constant at 450 lumens, then suddenly poops out. I would think it has to knowing how it works, but maybe if it were made cheaper it might not? Any guesses?

Brock

 

[artar]

"Thermostat shutdown for overheating" says the uk-website.

that means you have to water-cool that lamp. maybe that lamp is only for underwater use.

 

[Alan]

I was seriously considering that light when I saw that on the net last week. I almost place the order. What hold me up? Rechargeable. I don't use regular Alkaline and most UK lantern style offer rechargeable but not this one. It make me wonder if it works on my own rechargeables or not. It's either the voltage of chargeables doesn't meet its 10V requirement (might be more strict on ballast for HID) or UK want to get this product to the market ASAP without waiting for its rechargeable model.

I definitely don't want to get one and found it not working on rechargeables. I'll wait.

Alan

 

[Chris M.]

Chris, it must use a voltage regulator in there? I guess what I am wondering if it stays constant at 450 lumens, then suddenly poops out.

I think I remember right that the Welch Allyn lamp ballast kept power to the lamp constant until a low cutoff point where it switched off. Metal Halide lamps don`t like overrunning or underrunning so yes- it must work like that.


that means you have to water-cool that lamp. maybe that lamp is only for underwater use.

Oh dear, there I was getting all excited about one. Well even if I do get one (and as a lighting enthusiast regardless of it`s type, I probably will if only for an example of miniature short arc metal halide technology) it`ll only be used briefly so it wont get a chance to overheat. I can`t afford to go burning C-cells 8 at a time, with the prices they charge for them over here!


Alan I have to agree, a rechargeable version would be a good idea, maybe one is coming soon? The lower voltage of NiCd/NiMH would make them unsuitable in that lamp though, You`d need 10 of them to get 12 volts to run the lamp for any decent length of time.

 

[Size15's]

We need a Liquid Nitrogen cooling pack. Or atleast a Dry Ice cooling pack. Maybe a heat-sink and fan attachment?!

I too would want this for above water use. And Rechargeable would be better...

However, I'm writing an email to UKE right now to clarify and ask about these issues.

Thanks for the Head's Up Brock!

Al

 

[Spidey82]

can c cell provide 1.25amp??

 

[The_LED_Museum]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Alan:
I was seriously considering that light when I saw that on the net last week. I almost place the order. What hold me up? Rechargeable. I don't use regular Alkaline and most UK lantern style offer rechargeable but not this one. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I want one too!!
I installed a 12v 17Ah gel cell battery in my wheelchair specifically for running lights, stereos, GPS devices, and other external equipment that cannot be powered by the chair's own 24 volt 33Ah electrical system, and I could sure use a nice headlight about six months out of the year.

 

[Brock]

If the light really is 10w then it should pull about 833mA amps. A C cell is rated at 8350mA. Chris do you happen to know what the 10w HID really draws? Even if it were 1250mA the C cells should handle that for a couple of hours, probably 4, which would make since compared to their run time.

Brock

 

[Chris M.]

Chris do you happen to know what the 10w HID really draws?

Unfortunately not, I forgot to meter it when I saw it. All I know is it had a huge and brief kick at switchon that only batteries could sustain (they can`t normally be started from normal AC-DC power supplies- the surge is too much for most of them), and took about 30 seconds to get to full brightness- and was it ever bright

!!

I don`t think it`s too inneficient. Maybe drawing about 12-14 watts total? That`s a guess but those electronic ballast-inverters seem pretty efficient.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I actually ordered this light last week, so if the Brightguy guy has it in stock, I should be getting it in a couple days. I don't have a light meter or anything like that but hopefully I'll be able to answer any non-technical ?s.

 

[Alan]

Ghost, I think this could be used safely on land since 12v/24W HID has been used in bike light Stadium for years and NiteRider has just released 13.2v/10W HID recently.

Chris, this lamp seems only requires 10v and 1.2v x 8 Nicad = 9.6v, isn't it very close? I don't know if its ballast is *strict* on voltage requirement with no tolerant. That's why I'll wait to see if UK will make a rechargeable model soon. If they do, I could be sure that I could use my own rechargeables on the regular model.

Spidey82, I don't know about Alkaline C cell, but a high temp Nicad C Cell (3000ma) could handle 2A+ without sweat, not to mention 1.25A. UKC8 rechargeable diving light was drawing 2A on its 20W bulb and its UKC4 was drawing the same 2A on its 9.6W lamp. I have UKC4 and a UKD4 -drawing 3.75A on its 18W lamp. They're very BRIGHT and WHITE yet small. They all run more than 1.2 to 1.5 hours with full brightness continously on rechargeable.

Alan

 

[Chris M.]

this lamp seems only requires 10v and 1.2v x 8 Nicad = 9.6v, isn't it very close

Yes it is close, you may get it to light briefly too but the slightest drop in voltage and it`ll shut down. Metal halide lamps are very intolerant of undervoltage or overvoltage so the circuit has to keep the power to the lamp constant- and it can only do so much so it will drop out below about 10v if that is the value quoted as the low-voltage threshold.

Maybe there is room to fit a sealed-lead-acid battery in there? In work we use them all the time- I mend dead fire alarms part time and the 12v gel batteries get used as a power back-up in alarm panels, so if/when I get one of these lamps I`ll see if a 12v 3.2Ah battery will fit where those 8 Cs are meant to be. The runtime would be down a bit but hey- it`s rechargeable!

If anyone wants to measure the space and see if one would fit, a 12v 3.2Ah Yuasa battery is 135mm long, 68mm wide and 62mm tall, plus a couple mm for the tabs on top. Other brands may vary by a few mm but not much, and of course there`s always other shape/capacity batteries too if that one won`t fit. I just already have a few iffy ones here (no good for fire alarm backups- destined for the bin but rescued at the last minute- OK for experimenting) so it`d be nice if they did fit.

 

[Mr Ted Bear]

Just spoke to the folks at UK.

These lights should be readily available in the next couple of weeks (most likely can be found in your local dive shops, then your larger sporting goods stores with scuba diving department)

Also, they indicated that this light will work out of water and does not rely upon water for cooling.

Third, at present, there are no plans to offer a recharable version of this light BUT they indicated that the light will work with their ** C8R **recharable battery pack.... so, if you happen to own one of the other UK lights that uses the C8R battery, AND you have the charger (CAN NOT be bought seperately from UK, but battery packs can).


Any one wishing to follow up on this, UK is located in California just north of San Diego and their phone is 800 852-7483

 

[Brock]

Marky, when you get it lets us know how the batteries are in it. My guess would be 2 rows of 4. So 5 "Sub C's" wouldn fit in there place. What else could we replace the 4 C cells with 5 of to get the right voltage?

I would also bet it would work fine out of the water. It would probably get warmer, but I am sure it would work for a while at least.

Brock

 

[Chris M.]

My guess would be 2 rows of 4.

Looking at the picture, I would say it`s 4 rows of 2 in a square arrangement- like the AA batteries in a Turtlelite, but 2 batteries deep. This is why I thought a S.L.A battery might fit, if it is a relatively open space, not 4 discrete tubes for the batteries (or otherwise with dividers in the middle like the Turtle has). If it has a removable battery-caddy of sorts then even better- that means more room.

 

[Mr Ted Bear]

As a follow up to my previous post...

Broswing the Under Water Kinetics site,
if found that both the recharaable battery, and the charger are listed in their catalog.

I wonder why I was told that the C8R battery charger was not sold seperately... Guess I will call them back tommorrow

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

OK, got it. It is indeed a 2x4 arragement, but not like an M6 where every battery goes in positive side first. Each stack of 4 alternates polarity, so it might be kind of tricky to do in the dark, though it's supposedly protected against mistakes. There is no battery tray. The manual says either the UK nicad pack or 8 individual rechargeable C-size nicads can be used as well.

It feels very well made for plastic. The bezel is rubber armored. There is a single O-ring, but no mention that this is an underwater-only light. There is a huge heat sink behind the reflector. The lens is plastic (sorry).

A pistol grip, lanyard, and wide angle diffuser are included. I wish they included the lantern style holder instead. It's quite a handful trying to hold it like a conventional light, and I don't want to get shot at using the pistol grip

It's just over 8" long. The reflector is about 2.25" wide on the inside. Specs are 10 volts, 1.25 amps. 3-4 hour burn time, lamp rated for 500 hours. Like all HID lights this needs the usual warm-up time before full brightness, and you have to wait a few seconds after turning it off before turning it back on. It's completely silent though; not like the headlights on my car which sound like a giant transformer.

Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, it's bright

More details after I spook the neighbors when the sun sets.

--Mark

 

[Brock]

Ohhh, I think I am going to have to order one. Do you have Surefires to sompare it to? Do you have Ni-Cad's to try in it? I know you said it was 2x4 for batteries, do you mean 4 stacks of 2 each, making a squarish shape?

It sounds smaller than I would have thought. You got it from brightguy right?

Brock