Rival MaxaBlaster

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
Ok so RA's Maxablaster is the King Of Handheld Throw.

With the Osram HBO 103 lamp and custom reflector, making it a top combination.

I was just thinking, lets say I wanted to build a maxablaster style thor mod with the exception of a more powerful lamp, achieving more throw. (i'm thinking get-lits production light is probably going to be something that i want to build in a more professional manner but the thrill of building your own is the whole reason why i want to build this light)

Thats what i'm thinking of doing...

1. I will get a reflector made deep enough to utilise most of the lamps light if possible
2. I will buy a Thor monster light
3. I will also modify the head of they light to accommodate the depth of the new reflector.
4. Electronics can be sourced brand new i think RA was using USHIO ballasts and the sort. Thats not problem.

Without researching and going too far into detail, can any of you hardcore fanatics recommend a lamp which would suit my needs or point to some lamps that i'm thinking of.

I do not want to smash the reflector or anything like that, i just want to buy the lamp, mount the deleted - Norm, connect the high voltage cables and flick the switch.

Thanks in advance



Any suggestions?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

The_Driver

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
1,177
Location
Germany
Do you have a lathe and know how to use it?

I hope you realize how difficult and dangerous this is....
The high-pressure mercury bulbs required for this (Xenon is even more difficult because of the high power draw) produce a lot of uv rediation. They can cause severe sunburns and damage your eye in under a minute.

Finding a lamp with a higher luminance (intensity) than the HBO 103 is very difficult. This bulb is extremely good in that regard.
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tone

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
2,350
Location
Illinois
I would suggest sending a PM to getlit about this idea. He seems to be aware of the highest luminance lamps available and could give you some guidance.
 

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
Driver, you're definitely right, it is quite scary when you think about it.

My uncle is a high performance race engine builder In Western Sydney and owns 2 lathes, a Hafco Al1000 and a DEEPAK.

He bored my base holder on the Blitz for my moon blaster build.


Tone, I might send get-lit a PM right now... Cheers..
 

Mr. Tone

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
2,350
Location
Illinois
If you go the route of trying a short-arc build definitely keep us in the loop. :) All safety issues aside, even once you have the proper reflector getting a good focus on such a small arc will be a challenge. Deciding whether to go AC or DC will make a big difference in that regard. Good luck to you!
 

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
So theres a difference in going AC over DC? In which way?

I thought that the ballast initially gets DC input but outputs AC?

Looks like i have some more research to do.

I definitely want to build a more powerful maxablaster with custom reflector and will document every stage...

Need to finish my moon blaster build first...
 

The_Driver

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
1,177
Location
Germany
You will need to design and make a 3D-positioning system for the bulb. It needs to be very precise (<0,1mm if I remember correctly). You need this to get the "hotspot" of the arc (bascially the brightest part) into the focus point of the reflector. The hotspot will be around 0,1mm large.

A few months ago somebody made a cheaper copy of the Maxablaster with the same bulb. Maybe you can ask him for advice.

Here you can find the intensities of some hid bulbs (at the bottom of the first post - it's in German). The luminance (intensity) is called "Leuchtdichte" in German. As you can see there are not many bulbs that have a higher intensity. The Osram 250W P-VIP and the Osram 500W XBO that will be used in the Nightsword have a higher intensity.
 
Last edited:

get-lit

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
Location
Amherst, NY
It comes down to how much light is crammed into as small an area as possible. For instance A 250W P-VIP with a 1mm arc gap is much more concentrated than a 350W P-VIP lamp with 1.5mm gap. Of course its best if there were a list of actual luminous concentrations for these lamps, but it's easy enough to compare output to arc size.

AC vs DC makes practically no difference for P-VIP type lamps because the luminous peaks are not very concentrated and the arc gaps are so small, by design the two peaks of an AC P-VIP lamp completely overlap each other to be the equivalent of a single peak on a DC lamp.
 

Mr. Tone

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
2,350
Location
Illinois
getlit's post is good info for you. IIRC, the lamp Ra used in the MaxaBlaster needed to be focused towards one end of the arc because that was where the luminous peak was. I believe there was a significant difference in luminance between that peak and the rest of the arc. That is nice to know that the P-VIP type lamps don't really have this added difficulty in focusing on a luminous peak with AC vs. DC.
 

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
Great feedback.

The Driver - Guten Tag, Sprehenzi Doich. My cousin from Croatia works for a german braking systems company called Wabco. He speaks fluent German with his bosses in Germany and travels all around Europe - Thanks for that list in German, I google translated the page and am having a look now. Also, with the positioning of the bulb in less than 0.1mm, are you talking thousandths of a mm? :p Great quick info with the luminance values. I'm just hoping those values are true. I also seen Edgars post, hopefully he is still checking back at candlepowerforums...

No, really great info, i just wish i had more time to mess around with it, right now, i've got these ideas floating in my mind, but with work and play and family its tough findining time to mess around with lights. Not to mention when ordering parts from the internet it could take weeks to come in.

Actually, i just came across get-lits post on the Nightsword and in the first paragraph which i read before but forgot

Back then I settled on the Osram XBO 500W/RC OFR lamp with a luminance of 260,000 cd/cm^2 but it soon became unavailable and I gave up for a while to wait for UHP lamps to mature. And now a few years later, we have lots of them for DLP projectors. One lamp series in particular is the Osram P-VIP 100-120/1.0 P22h DLP Lamp with 200,000 cd/cm^2. The lamp would have to be separated from it's reflector to use a high grade 9" reflector and a Thor host. It has excellent color rendition since it's for projectors, and the lamp itself produces roughly a nominal 7,000 lumen. With a lamp life of around 6000 to 8000 hours, it could possibly be doubled to 240 watts and run for 500 hours with a luminance of 400,000 cd/cm^2 and 14,000 lumen. That is the 4 times the luminance of the Osram XBO 7000 Watt! Since it's the luminance that determines the throw potential, this could be one heck of a light. The lamp is only $110.

ok so refreshing my mind, overdriving the high pressure vip lamp!!! UFFF :p i like! but overdriving sounds like a fine art and dangerous, but what a great idea!!!
 

The_Driver

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
1,177
Location
Germany
Great feedback.

The Driver - Guten Tag, Sprehenzi Doich. My cousin from Croatia works for a german braking systems company called Wabco. He speaks fluent German with his bosses in Germany and travels all around Europe - Thanks for that list in German, I google translated the page and am having a look now. Also, with the positioning of the bulb in less than 0.1mm, are you talking thousandths of a mm? :p Great quick info with the luminance values. I'm just hoping those values are true. I also seen Edgars post, hopefully he is still checking back at candlepowerforums...

Cool :thumbsup:

Ja, ich spreche Deutsch :)


No, really great info, i just wish i had more time to mess around with it, right now, i've got these ideas floating in my mind, but with work and play and family its tough findining time to mess around with lights. Not to mention when ordering parts from the internet it could take weeks to come in.

Actually, i just came across get-lits post on the Nightsword and in the first paragraph which i read before but forgot

Back then I settled on the Osram XBO 500W/RC OFR lamp with a luminance of 260,000 cd/cm^2 but it soon became unavailable and I gave up for a while to wait for UHP lamps to mature. And now a few years later, we have lots of them for DLP projectors. One lamp series in particular is the Osram P-VIP 100-120/1.0 P22h DLP Lamp with 200,000 cd/cm^2. The lamp would have to be separated from it's reflector to use a high grade 9" reflector and a Thor host. It has excellent color rendition since it's for projectors, and the lamp itself produces roughly a nominal 7,000 lumen. With a lamp life of around 6000 to 8000 hours, it could possibly be doubled to 240 watts and run for 500 hours with a luminance of 400,000 cd/cm^2 and 14,000 lumen. That is the 4 times the luminance of the Osram XBO 7000 Watt! Since it's the luminance that determines the throw potential, this could be one heck of a light. The lamp is only $110.

ok so refreshing my mind, overdriving the high pressure vip lamp!!! UFFF :p i like! but overdriving sounds like a fine art and dangerous, but what a great idea!!!

Possibly overdriving the lamp to double its stated output?

Sounds like crazy talk! :p

I don't know if that much overdriving is possible with those bulbs. I would be very careful and ask everyone her that has experimented with them (Ra, ma_sha1, sven m, Ot10St, Edgar etc.). sven_m has a different name in the german forum: sma. He did those luminance measurements etc. Ot10St actually workes for Osram and was able to source ballasts for sven_m and ma_sha1.

Concerning the bulb positioning: Ra mentioned in his maxablaster thread that a precision of 0,01mm is required for the HBO 103 W/2. As others have mentionied you probably don't need it to be thaaat precise for the projector bulbs. It wont hurt though ;).

Have you checked how much a precision parabolic reflector will cost you? At least 300$...
I would also recommend you get a borofloat lens with a UV filter to help protect you.

When you remove the bulb from the protective envelope/reflector you will need protective clothing to shield you. The bulbs are like small grenades.

Concerning the light quality of the projector bulbs: their specifications for the 120W Philips bulb are CCT: 7600K, CRI: Ra 57. At first those do not seem very good (and they aren't), but because of the high pressure the spectral lines are broadend and there is more red light in the spectrum than one would think. If you want a high light quliaty (meaning much higher CRI and a lower color temperature) you will need to use a Xenon shot-arc bulb. I have used the light made by sven_m (120W P-VIP). I found the light to be very cool tinted.

EDIT: here you can find the current Osram P-VIP catalogue. Wouldn't a bulb with an arc gap of 0.8mm be smarter?
The Osram 69793: 190-230W, 4000 hours, 0.8mm arc-gap
Or the Osram 69806: 230-280W, 3000 hours, 0.9mm arc-gap
Or the Osram 69792, 300-350W, 2000 hours, 1.3mm arc-gap

Unfortunately the philips catalogue doesn't include any useful data.
 
Last edited:

get-lit

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
Location
Amherst, NY
The HBO 103 is extremely difficult to beat because it has just a 0.6mm arc gap. Because it's a Mercury based lamp, DC operation doesn't lend it mush advantage as far is a peak point of luminous intensity. Ra posted a photo of the arc and there're practically no amount of peak luminance. The lamp I'm using is also Mercury based with DC operation and I've thoroughly inspected the actual arc. Again, there's not much of a peak luminance point like Xenon lamps. The peak luminance point in Xenon lamps is a result of the Xenon gas being a more resistive electron carrier, and the downside is that a very large, heavy power supply is needed to drive it with massive current.

Regarding the P-VIP lamps, it's a toss up between the 280W 0.9mm gap and the 230W 0.8mm gap. The 280W has 21.74% more output but also has 26.5625% more luminance surface area, so it's likely to be 22.18% less intense than the 230W 0.8mm gap.

There is another company manufacturing a lamp very similar to the Osram XBO 500W/RC OFR, but I don't recall who it was. But if the P-VIP 100-120/1.0 P22h has 30% less intensity than the 500W/RC, both the 280W 0.9mm and the 230W 0.8mm should theoretically crush it.

If I had to choose among those two without doing actual tests, I'd definitely go with the 230W 0.8mm gap.
 
Last edited:

get-lit

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
Location
Amherst, NY
So I plugged the 280W 0.9mm and 230W 0.9mm into the beam calculator and it shows the 280W 0.9mm actually having 4.25% more candlepower and 23.3% more Net Beam Luminance (comprised of candlepower and lumen output).

You really can't overdrive these more than 5%. If you pushed the 280W to 300W, you'd probably get away with it but there would be significant reduction in lamp life. At 300W that lamp is almost 200MCP in my configuration with long FL reflector and a retro-reflector. But without that configuration you're not going to get that kind of output.

Here's some comparisons assuming 65 Lumen/Watt efficacy...

300W 0.9mm with Long FL and Retro-Reflector=
85.4% Light Gather, 12,223 Beam Lumen after losses
196 MCP and 20,556 Net Beam Luminance

300W 0.9mm with Short FL Reflector=
60.6% Light Gather, 9,568 Beam Lumen after losses
93 MCP and 9,409 Net Beam Luminance

300W 0.9mm with Short FL Reflector w/Retro-Reflector=
79.7% Light Gather, 11,797 Beam Lumen after losses
151 MCP and 14,926 Net Beam Luminance

*Short FL Reflector being 0.75"FL 9.5"CA. All reflectors and retro-reflectors using high end coatings of >90% reflectance and AR coated lens.

EDIT - Remember the overall intensity of the beam you see in the sky is based on Net Beam Luminance, not just Candlepower.

Notice that with the Short FL Reflector, the Retro-Reflector doesn't much increase the beam lumen, but is primarily to divert light away from the rearward surface of the reflector and onto the forward surface of the reflector where it becomes more collimated. This is because the rearward surface is close to the light source and the forward surface is much further from the source. The further the reflection distance from the source, the better the collimation.

A little more than you're asking, but bottom line is go with the 280W 0.9mm and try with a 300W ballast. You're probably not going to use a retro-reflector, but let me know what reflectors you have in mind and I'll let you know which of them would work best.
 
Last edited:

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
So I plugged the 280W 0.9mm and 230W 0.9mm into the beam calculator and it shows the 280W 0.9mm actually having 4.25% more candlepower and 23.3% more Net Beam Luminance (comprised of candlepower and lumen output).

You really can't overdrive these more than 5%. If you pushed the 280W to 300W, you'd probably get away with it but there would be significant reduction in lamp life. At 300W that lamp is almost 200MCP in my configuration with long FL reflector and a retro-reflector. But without that configuration you're not going to get that kind of output.

Here's some comparisons assuming 65 Lumen/Watt efficacy...

300W 0.9mm with Long FL and Retro-Reflector=
85.4% Light Gather, 12,223 Beam Lumen after losses
196 MCP and 20,556 Net Beam Luminance

300W 0.9mm with Short FL Reflector=
60.6% Light Gather, 9,568 Beam Lumen after losses
93 MCP and 9,409 Net Beam Luminance

300W 0.9mm with Short FL Reflector w/Retro-Reflector=
79.7% Light Gather, 11,797 Beam Lumen after losses
151 MCP and 14,926 Net Beam Luminance

*Short FL Reflector being 0.75"FL 9.5"CA. All reflectors and retro-reflectors using high end coatings of >90% reflectance and AR coated lens.

EDIT - Remember the overall intensity of the beam you see in the sky is based on Net Beam Luminance, not just Candlepower.

Notice that with the Short FL Reflector, the Retro-Reflector doesn't much increase the beam lumen, but is primarily to divert light away from the rearward surface of the reflector and onto the forward surface of the reflector where it becomes more collimated. This is because the rearward surface is close to the light source and the forward surface is much further from the source. The further the reflection distance from the source, the better the collimation.

A little more than you're asking, but bottom line is go with the 280W 0.9mm and try with a 300W ballast. You're probably not going to use a retro-reflector, but let me know what reflectors you have in mind and I'll let you know which of them would work best.

Look, its hard to say, i'm still a newbie but with a drive to succeed.

And I guess the only way for me to succeed is by hanging around successful people and listen, learn and experiment.

Now, get-lit, being so advanced into your science, its relatively difficult to decipher your davinci lumens code without using a dictionary, encyclopedia and google. :D

In saying so, my plan is simple, build a Thor host light, with a high end reflector, install the ballast, batteries and any other accessories like possibly a volt meter and some fans/switches - to acheive a fat laser pointer light that will out throw the Maxablaster. So a reflector to match, maybe aluminium based with the best possible coating for the type of lamp i will pick.

Now i've had a bloke who quoted me in excess of $1000 to manufacture a aluminium reflector that I though would be great to use in my blitz being 240mm, but i'm scrapping that idea to head towards manufacturing one for the THOR, once again to collect all the light, simply put, and throw him to the moon.

Now judging by what people are saying with the XBO 103 being a great all rounder, i am curious to know which monkey lamp will suit my idea of having a thrower to rival the maxablaster....


You did mention get-lit overdriving a p-vip 120 lamp by 100%. Have you actually managed this? As the figures you are stating are quite phenomenal, even for a laymen like myself who can tell the difference between bigger numbers.


But at the end of the day, whatever would suit my needs, aslong as the thing throws laser like for 6 + kms, id be pretty content and also happy that it rivals the maxablaster.

I mean, the p-vip 120 1.0 has more luminance than the XBO 103, am i right straight off the bat?

I currently own a Phillips 120/132 1.0 lamp that i'll be using in my moon blaster build.
 

get-lit

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
Location
Amherst, NY
Again go with the Osram 69806 230-280W 0.9mm arc-gap lamp, drive it at 300W max.

You need a reflector with a Nickel substrate, not aluminum.

If you want the reflective coating to last, it should be Rhodium, especially since this will have to be forced-air ventilated to cool the lamp.

But Rhodium is low on reflectance, so if you want durability with high reflectance, you're looking at big money. In which case, you're looking at a Nickel substrate reflector, with aluminum coating, with protective layer. This combination is simply called "protected aluminum". It's not nearly as durable as Rhodium but sufficient it you want the highest performance.

These typically do cost around $1000. If you want a specific geometry for maximum output, you'll need to have a mandrel made for around $5000. If you shop around for stocked reflectors, you can get into the $500 ballpark. Optiforms has the largest selection of stocked reflectors, but do tend to cost more. NiPro has a decent selection. Phoenix Electroformed Products has the best pricing but is most limited in stocked reflectors in this range of size. They also have really great pricing for a custom reflector with a mandrel, still in the $5000 range.

Also, keep in mind you will need forced-air ventilation to cool the lamp.

What is the reflector size and depth you can fit into your Thor host? This is really your limiting factor. If I know this, I can tell you what reflector you need.
 

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
Mr. Tone. Cheers for that.

get-lit - Good question. I haven't yet put in an order for a Thor host. Awaiting funds and the completion of the moon blaster.

$5000 for a reflector is getting a bit out of control I would hope! :D
 

UNiT5

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
97
Location
Sydney Australia
I'll definitely send enquiries on getting a reflector made or source a good quality reflector.

High reflectance is of utmost importance, obviously.

Just a matter of research and planning.
 
Top