Wow lot of useful comments in the the thread today. I would love to go with one of the non-Chinese brand ballast and PSUs but we also have to keep in mind this is BUDGET light forum LOL. The price of some of the links and suggestions in this thread are starting to go considerably out of my price range.
Polari that article about the laser pointer VS the carbon arc searchlight was quite an interesting read. I still find it peculiar that the laser pointer was brighter and more distracting than the searchlight though. That would mean even the least powerful laser pointers have an equivalent candlepower rating of over 800 million. Thats kind of mind boggling
One of the other issues Im having is that all the used xenon arc microscopes and other arc light sources on ebay just about always use a bulb thats designed to be operated in the vertical position. A bulb that would be suitable for a spotlight would most likely need to be able to accomodate horizontal use more so than vertical use. For that reason Ill most likely have to purchase a new bulb. The stage projectors and other types of searchlight on ebay that use horizontal price ranges are, once again, out of my price range.
Anyway went by the store today and bought some reflector mounting hardware. Stay tuned for reflector mounting pics
I don’t think these common 2*AAA green laser pointers have anywhere near 800mcp at all especially at just a few bucks of price, otherwise I would change my hobby into lasers already lol! :bigsmile:
I think in this case it has something to do with the spectrum and the nature of the beam itself. A common light beam can be dispersed into seven constituent colors, for example by shining it through a prism; Laser beam however is monochromatic and they can only produce one colour, be it red, blue, green, or even pink colour… Well, I’m not sure how these things can explain why laser beam is more disturbing than the searchlights to the pilot, but I think it has something to do with the characteristics of the beam somehow.
Finally got the reflector mounting mechanism made. Made out of 16gauge steel. Need a few more nuts and I can finally permanently mount it and seal off the front of the reflector around the housing. Drilling through that pot was a huge pain. It must be hardened stainless steel or something. Took like an hour and a half to drill 4X1/4in screw hole and broke countless bits in the process lol!
Here are some pics I snapped of mounting mechanism.
Was on ebay searching for a used light I could buy to salvage parts from for my light and came across this. Dont know what to make of this as the normal price is nearly $10k.
Wouldnt that be a great price? :bigsmile: A C&F was my first xenon arc that started all the madness.
The part# you linked is for the remote focus control station. Youd still need the power supply and searchlight.
More pics of the mounting mechanism. The red stuff is a high temp silicon centering ring for the reflector. It might not be pretty but it does its job very well. Its gonna be covered when the reflector and lens seal is installed anyway so no need to worry about it looking good.
I also got the basic bulb mount made. Allows for full, easy, and precise adjustment of the bulb. Probably the most important function needed to be able to get the perfect beam pattern. Got to get my brother to make the bulb holder in his lathe but since I don't have the bulb yet I don't know the dimensions it needs to be.
And for fun here is a cool pic of an automtive HID being used as a test mule in the reflector.
Thanks guys. I thought on how to make the mount for quite some time and I'm actually pleased with how it turned out. Just hope it works as good as it appears to when I actually have a bulbs mounted and all the extra weight it's gonna add. I have several different length and strength springs to fine tune it's performance if need be.
Should work fine. Another option is to focus the lamp with this setup. Measure the height of the adjusting plate on each corner. Then remove the springs and use two nuts on each rod. One over and one under the plate. Since you have the measurement, you will be very close on fist try. That will never move, and you can still adjust it. Just a little bit more inconvenient.
Good idea! That would definitely hold the bulb in the proper place as you said. Ill keep that in mind.
Made the lens holder out of bent L brackets. Used some super glue to glue some rubber onto the bottom of the brackets to keep from scratching the polycarbonate lens. I dont think the outer edges are going to get very warm and thus the super glue should hold up just fine.
So I got really curious and wanted to know exactly how my light with a 35watt automotive HID bulb will stack up against the maxabeam. Since I finally got the lens holder made I was able to take it back outside again tonight without having to worry about beatles going up in smoke from flying into the bulb. Here are some of the images I took. The Maxabeam is on high in all the images.
Maxabeam on the right
Maxabeam on the left
About 150ft away from the lights. Maxabeam on the right.
About 300ft away from the lights. Maxabeam on the right.
The automotive HID is clearly much brighter as is evident in the first 2 pics. The Maxabeam still dominates on throw as is shown by the last 2 pics. I think this reflector is doing a great job at collimating the beam from a bulb with a much longer arc than a short arc. I'm thinking that means this will be a stellar performer once paired with a high output short arc.
That is some beautiful shots! Looks like you have a dark night sky and not too much light polution at your place? As for the beam, you will always get a tight hotspot and a bit of “corona” with a short focal length reflector as yours, but it will definitely collimate a lot more with a shorter arc.
We have the usual what appears to be about a 500watt Metal Halide security light in our yard as well as in several of our neighbors yards. Other than that the nearest bright lights are in the closest town about 5 miles away. Our night time sky is pretty clear. Just after I snapped one of the photos a really bright shooting star went streaking across the sky. One of the brightest I have seen in a while! Wish my camera had still been rolling...
It just kind of suprising to me how the maxabeam's reflector is several times smaller than mine and has a dimmer light yet is still able to out throw it. Arc length must have everything in the world to do with throw.
Just ordered the ballast but I have a few questions that I may have to call the mfg. about. So I found the ballast used on ebay. Its the Lumina Power XLB-300. Its rated at 300 watts. But when I look at the pdf file with the ballast specs it has a maximum output of 23amps and 25volts. If you do the math thats 575watts max output. If that's sustainable for a significant length of time I may be able to power a 500 watt bulb with this ballast. I'll write Lumina power to find out for sure.
I’m 99% certain that is a 300w max output supply. The values has to be separate max values (or a print error) On some xenon lamps, voltage can go down to 12 volt (12*25=300W) so that make sense.
So am I understanding you correctly to mean that if the ballast is outputting a max of 23amp the volts must be 13 volts or lower? And if the ballast is outputting a max of 25 volts then the amps must be 12 amps or lower? In other words it cant output 25 volts at the same time its outputting 23amps?
Here are some of the images I took. The Maxabeam is on high in all the images.
