My First HID Project

Around Christmas I bought a hand held spotlight at Fry's for about $5.00. I didn't expect much and I was right. It had a 6 v SLA battery and a halogen bulb and a glass window. The battery almost lasted a month before it went belly up. I bought a modified M@g 10 w HID and an extra bulb the other day and was thinking I still had those 10 w ballasts from a set of spotlights I took off my motorcycle. They used a different bulb but had the same base as the WA 10w bulb. So I decided to upgrade the $5.00 light.

After the mod.


I removed the H3 fitting from the reflector and checked for bulb clerance and depth requirements. As it turned out I needed to ream the reflector for a 1in hole. Then I needed to shim the ballast up about 1/8 inch to get a good focus. I epoxied a washer of the proper thickness to the base of the reflector and then used high temp RTV to attach the ballast to the washer.




I had some 4500mah NIMH batts doing nothing so I put together an 11 cell pack cause the ballast is 12.something to 13. something volts.

Everything fit perfectly and I now have a nice cheap HID!


And a beamshot from about 4 feet.


Looks like will have a fairly descent beam. Cant wait till tonight to really check it out.

Wow, NICE!!

I bought my HID kit intending to convert this exact same spotlight, but it turned out that the HID capsule for my 35W system was way too high to clear the glass lens, although it would have fit through the bulb hole, so I used a different light. GREAT job!! If I didn't already have an extremely well made Mag2HID I would definitely have to consider this.

PS: Great choice of drink. Mountain Dew 600ml - the best business breakfast I've ever had Ain't nothing better when your day involves holding the world back!

Cool! I think I have the exact same spotlight.
What 4500 mah batts were they? The space in this light is quite tight... other than AA cells, I don't see 11 of bigger size batts fitting.

Could you have more photos of the inside/ballasts/wiring etc? Nice mod!! Looking forward to the beamshots.

LEDcandle, The batteries are about 2 5/8 long and about 11/32 wide. I'm not sure what "size" they are. They fit with room to spare. The wiring is pretty much stock as the ballast/bulb are together as one in the reflector and just replaced the halogen bulb.

Ballast glued on the reflector.


Wiring


It's a pain to remove the plate over the batteries cause you have to pull the switch or the chg jack.

Here is a pic of the batt before I added the extra 2 cells.

Re: My First HID Project W/ pics & beam shots

Here is a comparison shot of the $5.00 10w lantern versus the 10w modded mag.

10w mag at about 75 yards.


10w $5.00 lantern.


The lantern has a really tight spot, maybe too tight. Maybe I'll experiment with sputtering the reflector. The orange light in the picture is comming from a HPS porch light behind me.

Re: My First HID Project W/ pics & beam shots

Nice!! Thanks for the pics. That thing looks like it can really throw.