Longest lasting spotlights?

I have three spotlights right now: two of the Home Depot Husky's & one of the yellow ones from Wal-Mart, but they all have the problem of only lasting about 10 minutes on a full charge. What are some spotlights that last longer than this? I should mention I am a herpetologist and need something I can carry around for long periods of time, so the Thor is out of the question due to weight and size, thanks.

The Thor 3.5 MCP will last 33 minutes if you replace the 100w bulb with a 55w bulb. It's a lot lighter than the Thor 10 MCP, but still fairly big.

I have a powercraft spotlight that might fill the bill. I got it cheap from a liquidator on ebay, but here is a picture of it:
powercraft spotlight

It's a lot smaller and a lot lighter than the Thor 3.5. It uses just one 6v 4ah SLA battery. To give an idea of weight and size, the Thor 3.5 uses two of these batteries. The Thor 10 uses the equivalent of 3 and 3/4 of these batteries.

This light will be considerably dimmer than the Thor, but it might be okay. I like mine. When I got mine from the liquidator, the battery had been sitting around discharged and lost most of it's capacity. Coincidentally, I was getting 10 minutes of runtime. A new battery got me 45 minutes. Actually I can't give you the exact runtime because I replaced the H3 style bulb that came in it with an Osram 20w bi-pin while I was waiting for my new battery to arrive in the big brown truck. I had to make my own bi-pin socket to do this.

If you are interested, I could put the original bulb back and compare brightness and runtime. I think it would get at least 50 minutes runtime though, because it was drawing less current than the bulb I replaced it with.

All the spotlights I know of use sealed lead acid (SLA) batteries because they are cheap. They are also easy to charge and they are so damned heavy they won't blow away in a cat5 hurricane.

The high-class super bright flashlights use a much lighter power source. I believe the Streamlight Stinger uses NiCad and the Tigerlight uses NiMH. I don't own either, but a lot of folks around here do.

I surmise either will cost you over $100, and both have a runtime of an hour, and both are very bright and might suit your purposes.

That powercraft doesn't look bad but it seems like it's only sold by overstock.com and they are out of them. It's not so much the size of the Thor but the 16 pounds it weighs that keeps me away..at least that's what i've been seeing the weight is. Those Husky ones I have only weigh around 2 pounds i'd guess, I was actually just looking through eBay and saw this one by Neiko Tools that's claiming 45 minutes runtime http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20760&item=4322665903&rd=1 I wonder how that is weightwise? The main problem is that most manufacturers put the runtime of the area lights on the package and not the spotlight itself which leaves it to be a guessing game, until it dies ten minutes later. Is it possible to change out the batteries in the spotlights to something that will last longer or will it be the same runtime no matter what?

..posted twice can't delete for some reason sorry.

If it's a 6v 6ah battery that's 36ah total. Using a 55w bulb should that give you a theoretical runtime of 39 minutes? I don't know if you'd get that, and what effect it would have on your battery to run it down to the bitter end.

The Dorcy 2Mcp uses a 6V 6Ah battery, and has a nice beam. It comes with a 100W bulb, but you could put a 55W in instead. You can buy them at Walmart.

Picture

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eluminator said:...I have a powercraft spotlight that might fill the bill. I got it cheap from a liquidator on ebay, but here is a picture of it:
powercraft spotlight...

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How weatherproof is that thing supposed to be? Do you think it would be OK in rain at least?

Isn't the X990 considered a spotlight? if so, it has a 1hr+ runtime etc which is very good for a spotlight etc.

Curtis

16 pounds for a thor? No, it's only 11 pounds.

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saleenadam said:
What are some spotlights that last longer than this?

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X990. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

That Dorcy doesn't look bad and if Wal-Mart has them I can always take it back if I don't like it, might give that a try. I would get an X990 but the price is waaaay too much for me to even consider it, i'd rather buy 20 or 30 cheaper lights and switch them out as the batteries die lol.

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Lux Luthor said:
[ QUOTE ]
eluminator said:...I have a powercraft spotlight that might fill the bill. I got it cheap from a liquidator on ebay, but here is a picture of it:
powercraft spotlight...

[/ QUOTE ]

How weatherproof is that thing supposed to be? Do you think it would be OK in rain at least?

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It seems to be weatherproof. There are no ventilation slots like the Thor has. The case is the thing I like the most. The retaining ring that holds the lens/reflector assembly in place actually screws on to the lamp. On my Thor 3.5, the retaining ring simply slips on and is then held in place with 2 tiny metal screws.

The innards of this light could stand some modifications though. See my following post on this.

saleenadam, these lights seem to be available here:
PowerCraft 6v spotlight

The world needs a light similar to this, but this particular one may not be it. It would be good for mods though.

I replaced the charging system. It is set up to be charged with a 12 volt charger or from a vehicle cigar lighter socket. To charge this 6 volt battery this way it had a 5 watt 12 ohm resistor between the power jack and the battery. It came with a dumb 12v charger and also the cigar lighter cord.

I removed the resistor and bought an automatic 6 volt charger from batterymart.com. $10 for the charger, $2 for the cord, and of course a few $ for shipping. I dispensed with the ability to charge from a vehicle cigar lighter socket.

The bulb that comes with it is an H3 style bulb. It has no brand name. It claims to be 6v 35w H3. In fact it only draws 15 watts. I replaced the bulb with an Osram Xenophot 20w 480 lumen bi-pin. I guess Xenophot means it's xenon? I had to make a socket though and it's not particularly easy to do unless you like to do such mods. But I guess the original bulb is sufficient.

The original battery was almost completely discharged and had lost most of it's capacity when I got it from a liquidator on ebay so I replaced it with a 4.5ah one from batterymart.com.

I now get 53 minutes of runtime with the original bulb until it's down to half brightness. Here are graphs of relative brightness and runtime.

Thor HID mod, 2 hours, a little more difficult than replacing a bulb, but not much. It's a huge light and easy to work on.

cheese

Thanks for the info and link for the powercraft, it's cheap enough I may go ahead and buy one just to check it out and if it's getting that kind of runtime that would be great.

I don't think you can go too far wrong with this light because it's pretty cheap.

I guess I should tell you what else I know about this spotlight.

The wires are soldered directly to the battery terminals. They didn't bother to use the Faston quick-connect terminals. And if I remember correctly, there was a rather poor solder joint in the light also. For someone with a soldering iron, these are not a problem.

As far as I can tell, you can't get a replacement bulb. The only 6v H3 style bulbs I've seen are the 55w or 100w headlight bulbs, and they are much too powerful for this light. If the original bulb should blow, it appears you would need to buy another spotlight. That's one reason I fitted a 20w bi-pin.

In the end, I still like this light, and I don't know of anything similar.

How much of a blaster do you need? A Streamlight SL-35X running an SL-20X bulb will last a long time and be around the power of a Magcharger. Or around 1 hour with the stock high-power bulb.

^Looking for something at least 1M candlepower.