CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Some might be aware of the 1000-1200 lumen project light for 50 bucks - so this older project taken as a "learning curve" the next one is warming up now.

With sofar William in the US taking care of some advanced tooling and myself taking care of the stuff inside we plan to provide the
Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer or something like that soon.

The flashlight is targeted to run for one hour at 1000+ lumens and be sized around Mag2D length but a bit larger in diameter.

The DIY pricing should be well below 100 bucks and we plan to provide all details for others to follow.

We do need some help in areas we don´t cover so far and I post this thread to see whoelse might be interested to join. Initially some guys like LEDagent and lightuser come to mind who were mumbling about some DIY HID project which BTW could also be fitted in here but so far isn´t planned from William and myself initially due to technical and economic reasons - but 1000lumens isn´t too shabby after all anyway. Also brightnorm seemed to be interested in such a thing lately.

I would also ask for possible some of the technical guys around here who are doing their circuit stuff for variuos applications as two areas could benefit from some more in-depth electronic knowledge where William and I do have shortcomings. Firstly some smart-charging circuit would come in handy as well as possibly some nice linear voltage regulation to have the bulbs run smoother.

Such circuits have been discussed and build by CPF members and maybe someone wants to join this team for this special project which I guess will be second to none so far.

Anyone interested to join and participate ?

Regards

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

WHOA!!! COUNT ME IN!!! (But do I have the time, money, ability, space, tools, and can I get the parts, body, what else?? we'll just have to see.)

Klaus, here's what I know if it's of any help:

Wayne Johnson (from CPF) makes a high-watt linear regulator suitable for this kind of flashlight based on LT 1070 chips. Cost is very sensible and he etches them to your specs. The one I ordered is a neat device @ 1" X 3", just right for a dummy battery or a flashlight tube. It has adjustable output from 5-20V. Input can be something like three D cells or C cells. I highly highly recommend it. It's a great little thing.

I am thinking about NiMH batteries because they are superior batteries, but I haven't researched the sizes/powers available yet or which ones I will invest in.

Next, I got a data packet from Welch Allyn on their arc bulbs but I still have some questions to resolve on their developer's kits. (you there ike?) It appears that the developer's kits contain 5 matched sets of 10 watt arc bulbs with ballasts, and you have a choice of several bulb configs, and all are just 10 watts. The problem is, what if I want an MR16 and/or a 21 watt light? I suspect they don't mix and match, and that will be a problem because 10 watts isn't a lot of light compared to what Klaus already has with his halogen project. A 21 watt arc would be one heck of a flashlight (it would put out 1500 lumens!) and it would make the project a real babe magnet too(joke). I have not stopped thinking about a halogen light although I do not consider that as exciting or appealing because it's old hat at this point.

Chargers. There is one I can recommend from experience, the "Battery Tender". It just works right, and it didn't cost much, I think $20. It does not have a tray you have to come up with some kind of hookup for it to go to the batteries. I had another smart charger get stupid on me and it ruined $30 worth of batteries before I caught it. But this one is good- it is a 6V unit and it shows solid quality of design.

Bodies: what about custom bodies? If you get into special configurations of bulb, batteries, and circuits you have a hard time finding a Brinkman/Maglight to be the donor light. I was thinking about buying two sizes of aluminum pipe one for the head the other for the body and having a good welder do the fabrication to my specs. I found some scrap piping at the recycler here and it was in a variety of sizes. They were pulling it out of a demolition somewhere and it was apparently electrical conduit. I have had lexan lenses made on some projects and that stuff is great for sealing the "business end" of things. Drilling holes in it is easy and it's a tough material. As for end caps I think you can get large diameter fine thread taps and endplugs at better machine shops. They could do that part when they do your welding. I am thinking less than $50 here for all of that.

Another one for ike: are the ballasts supposed to also contain linear voltage regulation? My Light Cannon seems to drop off as the batteries go down. I know the ballasts are there to strike an arc and to prevent damage from insufficient inputs, but I was not sure about this aspect. If it doesn't do that I will put want to put a regulator in my next hobby light.

Money: can't be done for less than $200 if it's an arc discharge flashlight. The bulb and ballast alone are $100 plus shipping. I'd put it more at $400 just to be realistic. A 1000 lumen halogen flashlight is possible for <$100 but it will be lacking a regulator for that much.

So I would like to answer a few more questions about the arc discharge lights before starting on my Blue Blaster/HunterGatherer, but I will do it if it's possible and paste all that crap right here!!! (another joke).

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Klaus,

what kind of LED are you planning to use
on the output? or not an LED at all??

--Al

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

sounds like a good project and an excellent idea for a light...

unfortunatly i haven't the expertise you need in designing your circuits...i'm pretty much strungling to understand the z300 circuit, and this is a pretty simple one =)...

if some parts, pieces, etc. that aren't too hard to find are produced as a 'shopping list' i can probably build it and help to test ideas, but beyond that i won't be very helpfull...

i would, however, be interested in building something like this given time, money, etc...

i'm not sure that you would need/want/be cost effective to put a regulator on a rechargable light anyways...nimh batteries discharge fairly flatly, similar to lithiums...

i thought that ballasts are just voltage step-up transformers...in that the electricity is arced through the gasses causing them to glow which requires a high voltage but little current...like a jacob's ladder...i doubt that they regulate, probably just set up to multiply their input voltage...just a guess though...

MrAl -
sounds like we're talking HID or HPX...it would be hard to get a LED flashlight up to 1000+ lumens...that's 56+ white LSes...

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Klaus,

Yes, I'm very interested, but please understand that I have absolutely no knowledge or ability in this area. I can appreciate a fine light, but my technical capacity is 0. However, if these ever got to the point where you "manufactured" them in a limited run, and if in fact they were as small as a Mag 2D and ran for a hour then I would be most interested in buying one, if it wasn't outrageously expensive. Also, if flashaholics were actually successful in creating this lovely monster, perhaps there would be commercial potential in the LE/security/military areas?

Best Regards,
Brightnorm

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Thanx for all responses so far - let me go into some more detail

First of all I´ll describe where we stand right now:

William did some measures and came up with some nice Aluminum (6061-T6 to be exact...what everyone calls aircraft quality aluminum) tube - the idea is to have 24 pcs of NiMh cells running a 35W Osram/Philipps high-efficiency halogen MR16 bulb (at 40W+ and 1000++ lumens) running for an hour inside this housing measuring around 10" long and 2" in diameter. Details of this are still under discussion / development.

Reason to use this bulb/cell combo is the very good efficiency, good size and in our opinion a mostly perfect compromise between all relevant aspects like output, runtime, size and cost. Think again about the main points - Mag2D size, 1000++ lumens, 1 hour runtime, low cost (sub 100 bucks).

We so far are thinking more the halogen road as opposed to HID because of the much lower cost, easier implementation, easier avaiability, less issues with on/off problems, startup delays and so on. I personally believe that HID needs to come down in price significantly and get rid of its usability problems first befor it starts to be a real competitor - so far realistically the only advantage is the in real life just 2X higher efficiency compared to the best halogens driven at their most efficient voltage (like we´re doing) - which we´re making up for in Williams smart packacking efforts.

For runtime/size compare against that HID-thing for 1500+USD talked about lately - they are at around the same output with double the claimed runtime (2 hours vs 1 hour) but measuring a whopping 2,5" to 3,5" diameter at 16" length - we will be at 2" diameter and 10" lenght.

Some of the questions raised - no LED so far due to output reasons as papasan pointed out - besides some possibel tail-end one for gimmicks was discussed but not indepth so far - would need some circuit which isn´t part of the project so far due to lack of knowledge.

Wayne Johnson´s circuit I read about and I was hoping he might join the thread to see whats going on. On voltage regulation I´m honestly not shure - with that bulb and how we are driving it its probably not essential (my "old" design doesn´t use one) - but someone with more expertise could help us in determining cost/effort/gain issues to decide on if to use such or not.

On chargers - there are also chips from Maxim and such for smart "DIY" smart chargers - problem with low priced available ones is that I fear they won´t meet the bill - as we are running the 24 NiM cells in a 2 x 12 seriel/parallel configuration to get some good 14.4 / 3.2A we need a loader for 12 cells in series (needs 18V then) and possibly loading at 1C rate (1 hour) and being smart too not to overload things - so the thing would need to be at somewhat 24V and 3,5A counting in some loss - and if someone can point us to such a thingy for 20bucks I´ll almost kill for it.

And here we are already at a some important point why I started this thread - not only to share the project with interested possible participants but also to gain some knowledge and to get some hints on where to get parts and where to look for things - hey - almost 1000 CPF members are worth more than at least 10 college educations.

William posted in a separate thread about his problems so far finding the Osram/Philips bulbs - also for tessting he was looking for some cheap MR16 bulbs - some URL I got over the time here on CPF already helped in tracking some good priced cells - but no idea where to get the MR16s - anyone can help on that ? and as well some other parts as well - like we are still looking for the right switch combo - ideal one would follow the rounded tube housing - no luck so far on those. Any help appreciated.

As William is in the US doing the mechanical part and isn´t as experienced with the electrical side and I´m sitting in europe it would be really helpful if someone in the US would join in to help William track the parts needed.

Now on to some specifics - lightuser - even if you "insist" on HID (which I guess we leave out for now as described above) you are still invited to join/share/participate as I guess most other issues we will try to solve in this project you can adapt to a HID design as well.

MrAl, papasan, - thanks for dropping by and any help on this charger / regulator issue would be highly appreciated and if you would like to participate in this project you are very much wellcome - but maybe your LED issues keep you busy and the you want to fight the battle just for LEDs sake . Maybe Wayne will drop by too later on.

Brightnorm - for some of the things no "knowledge" is needed - as written above sometimes you just need some good input - and often enough just some "hey guys - did you think of that or Did you saw this" is making a big difference - as I saw in some of your posts you at least do have the biggest collection of high-power flashlights any in this project so far has to compare.

Good so far - thanks again for participation to this point and lets see where we are going with this thing.

Oh yes - and BTW - still missing someone ridiculous - or was it something ??

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Klaus and others I see you have a good approach to the pipe-killer project. Here's some of my silly opinions on a few of the basic issues...

Ergonomics: I'd give some thought to using a smaller tube. I have some 2" aluminum tube and it's pretty uncomfortable for more than 20 minutes or so. After all, a D cell Maglight uses only 1 3/8" (i.d.) tubing. 1 1/2" (i.d.) should be the max if you want it to be easy to hold. In general weight can be quite high for handheld things >5 lbs. or more, but if the thing is hard to grip it will seem heavy way sooner. 2" might be hard to grip and stay comfy.

Arc discharge vs. halogen: they are good at different things and I was choosing arc based only on efficiency and performance.

Not all aspects of performance are better as you pointed out, such as the trouble you have striking the arc. I would want this light to be <= 3 lbs. and still 1000+ lumens, which is a lot to ask and only possible with the arc technology as far as I know.

Part of the reason I believe ike said the Dollarhunter whoops Nighthunter was so expensive was that it has an instant-on feature. For me that is not a big deal worth that kind of money, nor a disadvantage for a 21 watt arc light from W-A.

The advantages in efficiency and weight of the arc are preferable for me. The regulator is not so much to produce rectilinear output as to utilize and take advantage of the greater efficiency of the arc technology, ie. to eliminate some batteries and the associated dead weight. Whether it's twice as bright or half as heavy it just sounds wonderful to me either way.

Arcs get more respect in public to be sure. By respect, I mean there's a better safety factor if you're handling an arc for some reason. It's unusual looking and people oblige more, and they give you more room. The cost is no biggie if we sell off some of our family members (joke). I guess they see the blueish light and think that guy's a martian.

Chargers: whatever works best.

And now a quote from Klaus:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>And here we are already at a some important point why I started this thread - not only to share the project with interested possible participants but also to gain some knowledge and to get some hints on where to get parts... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Answer: I thought the point of forums was to start an e-fight and generally get peed off, disgruntled, and specifically to have to change your name. This sharing caring stuff won't work at all.

(again deadly serious-)

Switches- how about a mini toggle switch from Radio Shack, because they come with little waterproof boots. They are easy to bump accidentally but you can make a little guard for them no problem.

MR 16-what was a good price? They sell low quality MR16s at home centers here for about $5 apiece. Is that too much?

Conclusion for now- whatever technology the light contains it will be a neat little pipe bomb whups I meant flashlight and I am happy to be a part of it. Your last one was a great idea and this one is going to be even better. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Mine may not start for a few weeks yet unitl I get some fatcs from W-A so yours may be the next one to win the grand finalist CPF new design prize (which will be a PAL keychain light, one pack of Boca burgers and a couple of balloons if they are still in stock).

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

>>>
and if someone can point us to such a thingy for 20bucks I´ll almost kill for it.
<<<
Your looking for an awful lot for 20 bucks, can it be done?
How about an automotive charger? If you can keep the voltage
supply for this light low enough, you can make a cheap automotive
charger. Would have to be less then 12 volts. Is this possible?
On the other hand, if you have to bump up the voltage in order
to charge you are looking at another boost/regulator circuit.
Using a battery supply around 9 volts nominal would make a big
difference, can you do it with this kind of battery voltage?
Did you have a bulb (or bulbs) picked out yet?

>>>
hey - almost 1000 CPF members are worth more than at least 10 college educations.
<<<
You never know who you may find here

I'll gladly add input if i see anything i think i can help with.
I'll check the thread from time to time, im sure other CPee's will too. It does
look interesting.

Good luck with your project,
Al

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Klaus:
Some might be aware of the 1000-12000 lumen project light for 50 bucks - so this older project taken as a "learning curve" the next one is warming up now.

With sofar William in the US taking care of some advanced tooling and myself taking care of the stuff inside we plan to provide the
Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer or something like that soon.

The flashlight is targeted to run for one hour at 1000+ lumens and be sized around Mag2D length but a bit larger in diameter.

The DIY pricing should be well below 100 bucks and we plan to provide all details for others to follow.

We do need some help in areas we don´t cover so far and I post this thread to see whoelse might be interested to join. Initially some guys like LEDagent and lightuser come to mind who were mumbling about some DIY HID project which BTW could also be fitted in here but so far isn´t planned from William and myself initially due to technical and economic reasons - but 1000lumens isn´t too shabby after all anyway. Also brightnorm seemed to be interested in such a thing lately.

I would also ask for possible some of the technical guys around here who are doing their circuit stuff for variuos applications as two areas could benefit from some more in-depth electronic knowledge where William and I do have shortcomings. Firstly some smart-charging circuit would come in handy as well as possibly some nice linear voltage regulation to have the bulbs run smoother.

Such circuits have been discussed and build by CPF members and maybe someone wants to join this team for this special project which I guess will be second to none so far.

Anyone interested to join and participate ?

Regards

Klaus<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hello Klaus,
For some reason I hadn't noticed this thread until now. I haven't been on the forum too much the past few days. Anyway lightuser mentioned the regulator board I made for him using the LT1070 IC. I designed it to handle 3 amps. It can be designed to hanle up to 5 amps, with proper component selection. This is an older chip, but it works. I am looking at many different chips and designs, both step up and step down technology. These are not lossy regulators but switching regulators, which are more efficient.

I am kind of new at designing these regulators, but they seem to work fine. I am working on making them smaller and more efficient. Let me know if you want me to design you a board. I'm having a lot of fun doing this. Email me with specifics (board size, current requirements, battery type, etc.)

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Hi Wayne,

sorry for late response but I was busy otherwise

Coming back to the regulation - I have two questions on it you might be willing to discuss with us to see if there is actually really sense in using them in this project

Firstly we are using NiMhs which do have a pretty flat discharge curve to begin with - also as we are using 12 cells the voltage starts at around 15V under load and goes down to around 12V until the cells get pretty drained - then it really drops fast. The bulbs are rated at 12V but with thousands of hours of burn time so this shouldn´t hurt.

Did you read Willie Hunts writing on those MR16 bulbs ? I understand him in a way that he also doesn´t really recommend the LVR for this type of bulbs. My other concerns are that we would be losing probable 10%+ capacity due to circuit efficiency loss and would need quite some space for the circuit. We are trying to squeeze everything in a very tiny package (relatively speaking) and the other concern is the runtime - I would think that we won´t gain any runtime as the cells get pretty drained anyway and probably lose 10%+ .

Could you comment on this ideas / thoughts ?

Something else - didn´t you in a short comment mention that you built up charging circuits using different Maxim chips or was this someone else - don´t remember exactly.

TIA

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Klaus, I agree with you about regulators in a light like this, and I've changed my mind after doing some tests here. My original idea was to use a regulator in place of some of the batteries to save weight and space, but I see that a regulator can't step up amperages to be useful enough for these hungry bulbs and it takes up space and uses power too. I would still try and see if this thing could be an arc discharge flashlight though, if at all possible. Maybe I am aiming too high, since few or no manufacturers to date have made a compact D Maglight-style arc flashlight and mass-produced it. The voltage has to be pretty high for either halogen or arc discharge bulb, around 13 volts, which can be done with four times four AA-each battery packs. Is this what you were thinking? I can see doing this especially if they can stay in the tube during charging. Either way. You have two packs in series, parallel with the other two packs to get about 13 volts at the end where the bulb or ballast is. It is a good arrangemnent for this voltage. What size tube? I really think it should be a 1 15/16" or "D cell" tube, for ergonomic reasons.

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

lightuser - did you read the other thread with my 2D sized first project - there I used 3 pairs of 4AAs - 12 cells IMO is the perfect fit for an MR16 to run nice. For this prohect we are targetting at 24pcs of NiMhs as we want 1h runtime for the 35W bulb (driven at 40-45W) and anyway needed 24pcs NiMh as 12NiMhs dropped to low whereas 12NiCd were doing fine but can´t supply the capacity.

24pcs would fit either in a 4D mag when switch/bulb assy is removed (as in my 2D with 12pcs) or in a 5D with the switch still in - William didn´t wanted the huge size (length) of the 5D and is designing his own housing using a tube at approx 10" length and 2" diameter to fit the 24pcs of 24AA cells.

As I pointed out I also would love the HID for efficiency but besides this "too cheap for me" Nighhunter thing at 1500 bucks, the rumours from Brock about some Mag-sized novelty "soon-to-come" and PeLus plans to do a mag 2D sized WA-HID using 8 NiMhs I´m not aware of other items available. As I wrote earlier for now the price and ease-of-use of the MR16 makes me go with it - so also no problems with start-up, run-down, blown ballasts whatsoever - maybe I´m just too stupid for a HID project too

On the diameter - my modified 2D Mag/Brinkmann got that soft grip sleeve and is almost at 2" - still fine to hold - but this will certainly depend on the size of your hands - mine I think are hmmh average - William tried the 2" diameter tube and said its fitting great to his hands - the nighthunter is even at 2,5" diameter.

Mr. Al - the charger would need around 18V to load 12 cells in series - the automotive ones are upto 13,8 and I think they are not really smart enough to perfetly load NiCds or NiMhs anyway - still working on that - for now I might use my "dumb" one from a US robotics modem and William may use his tool charger until we find something better.

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Klaus, you may want to consider Li-ion cells for your project, as far as I know they are the highest Wh per Liter (about 350), only Lithium primary batteries have a higher power density.

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Lightbright,

you are certainly right on Li-ion´s advantages - but then William and I would need a very generous sponsor for the cells and a different and more expensive charger as well .... I think if you add cost to the weight/capacity equation nothing can beat the NiMhs.

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

I HAVE A FEW IDEAS, LET ME SHARE THEM WHITH YOU. HAVE U GUYS THOUGHT OF USING OSRAM MR16
TRU AIM IR 37W. THEY SAY IT'S AS BRIGHT AS 50W, IT ALSO HAS A LENS.AS FOR THE BATERRIES
THERE IS A BATERRY HOLDER AVAILABLE FROM RADIO SHACK FOR 4 AND 8 AA CELLS, AFTER SLIGHT MODIFICATION THEY FIT NICLY IN D CELL FLASHLIGHTS. IT ALSO VERY CONVINIANT TO CHARGE CELLS SEPARATLY FROM THESE HOLDERS OR THE WHOLE THING COULD BE HOOKED TO A SELF MADE CHARGER.I'M NOT SURE WHAT PART NUMBER OF THE HOLDERS ARE BUT I'LL POST THEM LATER.

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

kenshiro
THE REASON THEY DONT FIT IS THAT CELLS DON'T TOUCH EACH OTHER,IF U CUT OUT PLASTIC IN BETWEEN THEM, JUST ENOUGH FOR THEM TO TOUCH EASH OTHER ,AND MAKE FRONT AND BACK OF THE HOLDER ROUNDER IT'LL FIT NICELY, ALSO CUT OFF THE TABS ABOUT 0.25 IN. I WISH I HAD A SCANER OR DIGITAL CAMERA TO SHOW U GUYS HOW I DID IT, BUT I'LL THINK OF A WAY TO SHOW IT TO U.

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

alpg,

thanks for your input - we are pretty much at where you are leading us - you might also check out the older thread regarding the 1000+ lumens project light where the first one was explained in more detail.

best regards

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Alpg,
I've tried those radioshack battery holders..... they don't fit!
What kind of "slight" modification are you talking about?

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

Update:

We are getting closer - tooling is moving forward - electrical stuff is being sorted out - smart charger is added - power supply selection done - this one will be awesome.

With the help of the rerating tool Ike from WA sent (thanks Ike) I was calculating the averages for the overdriven Osram MR16 bulb - keep in mind that the Osram IRC bulb itself is very efficient to start with - being overdriven things get even better.

voltage 12V to 14V so some 15% up on average for calculation (starts at 15 down to 13 - most of the time around 14V)
rerated life 5000h to 950h - still loooots of hours - typical flashlight bulbs are at 20h or so
rerated current 2900ma to 3150ma (I even see a bit more than that - around 3330ma)
rerated candlepower :hold your breat: 900 lumens to 1500 lumens - I mean I knew it was bright

Just to confirm this theoretical data - today I tried one of those MillionCandlepower things with one laaarge reflector running off SLA and using a 55W H3 bulb - this thing was no comparison - PERIOD !!!! The beam of the old 2D DIY light was much whiter, brighter, smoother, and had a much larger and more even hotspot - and all this in the much smaller package and weight and much brighter and similar runtime

Wait ´til you see the new one

Klaus

Re: CPF project light "Ultimate Nighthunter Dominator Killer" at 1500 lumens/1hour

klaus.
in your previos topic you said that meg-lite is expensive in germany. exactly how much does it cost. Also are the 1/2d nicd easy to come by there and how much they are? I also need your opinion on one thing,what if one uses 3.6v lithium D xenon bulb xp104 and rigtwright film on the lens of 2D meglite.Theoreticly it sould be as bright as 4d mag with sure-fire like beam patern, not bad i think,
the cost: baterries about 10USD each,bulb 2USD light 15-20 USD film 30USD will buy you enough film to use on 30 lights. And also how is that project movig along. I cant wait to see results. if the light would come out as good as you said, and wouldn't be outgegiosly expensive i would consider buying it, or parts.