8000 lumen 100 watt HID handheld spotlight conversion.

I have been tempted to make a similar cigarette lighter socket powered lamp to keep in the car for a while. Nice job! I will keep an eye out for that host.

Thanks. They still havent coughed up your refund yet? Give DHL CS a call and explain to them that you need an immediate refund and cant wait any longer. Maybe they'll cut you a break. If you used paypal, I think they have the primary responsibility for insuring the delivery of your package.

If I find another host, I'll PM you. I like this one because its not a pure spot beam. It provides a descent amount of controlled flood with the 100W HID bulbs. Browsing the completed bids on ebay, they seem to be going for around $50... not bad considering the quality of the host. There were a few similar coleman variants and they all appear to use the same reflector and lens.

DHL needs to refund the seller since they were the shipper. Once that happens he will reship the order.

Very very nice mod Flash. Those beams look like they're coming from space! Do you have a Jeep Wrangler?

Looks like you could have lit up the top of that ridge as well.

Nice work!

I thought a 100W HID should keep cooler than a 100W halogen since it's more efficient?

It reaches the top of the ridge with ease. Its only 350' high and 3000' away. If the reflector were more focused, it would put a massive spot out there. I much prefer this reflector since it still gives a good hotspot with descent spill... you see everything, not just what the hotspot is illuminating.

Good catch! I thought so too, but then there was that funny hot plastic smell I detected before I drilled the holes in the host. In the dark, I did note that when I turned off the 100W incandescent bulb, it dimmed quickly as the filament cooled. With the HID at turn-off, the entire quarts tube & envelope were glowing bright orange-hot for several seconds. Thats some pretty darn hot glass. I would guess that the surface temperatures (for at least this particular model HID) far exceed the 100W halogen it replaced. If the host were mounted on a car bumper moving through the air, I wouldnt be concerned because it takes a while to reach full operating temperature. I built this light with the intent that it could remain on as long as desired without worrying about a melt down. As a bonus, the host is threaded from the factory for a standard camera tripod, so I'll be using that option as well.

Not only you have your own plane, you also have your own airport :-)

Well not quite, but Im very lucky to have private access to such a great beautiful place.

I showed the searchlight to a police man last night. He was so impressed with it that he almost wouldnt give it back to me. LOL!

5Amp draw @ 12Volts = 60Watts consumed less losses your output to the globe will be around 50Watts unless it breaks the laws of physics there is no way your light is feeding a 100Watts to the globe, but still probably as bright as a 400 Watt incandescent globe.



A 35Watt HID consumes around 42Watts and output is about 3500 Lumens just guessing you may be seeing 5000 Lumens.



Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

No bad news at all.... only good. Its at least 3 times brighter (spill, range and apparent brightness) than the 2 x 35W HID's with 5" reflectors in my friends aircraft landing lights... everyone agrees its probably even more than that. Amperage draw are manufacturer claims. My DMM only goes up to 10 amps so I have no way of verifying what is actual.

Just goes to show how silly the manufacturer is, he obviously missed Electronics 101 :)

If you meter goes up to 10 Amps you should have no problem verifying the manufacturers claims.

I tried and it blew an expensive proprietary fuse on my fluke DMM. The amperage far exceeds 10A during startup.

That’s encouraging. Have a look at some of the 4 cell lipo hobby packs far lighter to carry around and most of the ballast I’ve seen have no problem with the higher Voltage.

That is just soo impressive! I love the way you make the whole build sound soo straightforward!

( wiping drool from face)

I have noo real use for that, none whatsoever, but dang man I like it.

3000 foot equals 960 meters ! Hot d***! Love it

The DMM fuse is rated @11A fast blow and cost a 2 week wait plus $17 to replace. The light was running and thoroughly warmed up when I quickly swapped the DMM inline for a reading. I figured that it wouldnt exceed 10A to restrike while it was still warmed up. It did start to reignite the glowing hot bulb for a second and then followed by a pop. I thought I had destroyed my DMM. I'll be using one of my cheaper DMM's (with cheap fuses) for now on when in doubt of actual current load. I should have known better with this setup.

The light will be ran mostly from a vehicle lighter plug, or a small portable genset with a longer power cord and the light mounted on a tripod. IMO, its actually too bright to walk around with while trying to spotlight things. Shine it at something lightly colored close by and you see a brilliant blue spot burned into your retinas for several minutes every time you blink. It probably does best at illuminating wide open areas, or distant targets. The SLA I have is super heavy duty, top rated, hard to kill and it was free. Its also far safer than a huge multi-celled lipo pack. I'll leave the human bomb testing to the more adventurous for now.

I keep forgetting to barrow a clamp meter for true amperage readings. If I can get one, I'll update the post.

Do you own any HID conversions you can share with us?

I would encourage anyone that is interested in this to have a go at it. The mod itself is very simple and mostly involves time in considering wire management, bulb mounting depth and ballast mounting. You can get the 2 x 55W HID kit for about half as much as the 2 x 100W kit, and the 55 watt might be more practical in most situations. If you have a friend to split the cost, you'll each wind up with your own searchlight cannon for nearly half price.

Did I really need something like this? Oh hell no... but it is fun to play with and others certainly enjoy it.

Again, all credit goes to 2100 (for teasing me for ages with his HID beam shots and links).

I´m not going to build one of those. My wife would shit MY pants if I start waving that thing around. Besides I´m already way over my light budget for the last 3 months and 3 months to come.

Just a curious question here.. if one were to buy the 2 x 55W kit, and install in some H1 housings (Hella or the like) could this be used for regular automotive highbeams? (say in a truck or car with smaller circular headlights)?

Anybody have any thoughts on modding this to ramp up/down the brightness (instead of trying to rig up separate low beams)?

Thanks