If you can find a 90cm mirror all you need is a 100w HID kit. All up cost about AUD$280
1km
3km
Sitting on my living room floor, I’m already 4,992 ft above sea level. So yeah, in winter we do get some LOW clouds if the winds are blowing “upslope” from east to west against the mountains. Normal cloudbase for cummies (when there are any) is around 3,000 AGL. This side of Colorado is a desert, so they’re kinda scarce. But yeah… huntin’ zepplins…. that’s the goal. And yeah, it’s a felony and a Federal crime to point a laser at an aircraft. Plus, it can be dangerous. Commercial laser shows require an FAA variance. There’s a form that must be submitted, etc. Conventional searchlights are OK as long as you’re not being a douchebag and hotspotting aircraft.
The Osrams max out at around 4.3 amps per Djozz’s posts. I went with a 3-amp driver from Mountain electronics b/c it was $4.60, and a 4-amp driver would have been $20.00. Likewise, the led was about $6.50. It’s not anywhere near the SBT90.2. But it doesn’t cost $130 from Mouser either. And, it’s still pretty much the king of intensity for 1mm2 dies. Enderman’s “Optafire” & “Lightcanon” are the two projects I’m emulating. My design won’t be as powerful as his. But it’ll be cheaper and that will allow me to just build more units and gang them together. I’m not looking for numbers with this project, so I don’t need a single giant emitter. And yeah, I’ve seen those videos. Every encouraging, even though I’m going with a 100mm aspheric lens (if Fasttech ever ships it).
Same plan, smaller & fewer emitters.
Oh, I can find a 90cm mirror. Phoenix Electroforms can make me a nice Rhodium-plated one. It’ll cost about $5,000 US. And if I had that kind of budget, I’s just save up a bit and get a Sperry carbon-arc and smoke all ’da fools. The reason you don’t see reflectors bigger than 90-120mm is because holding tolerances at that size is extremely difficult. Enderman used an 11” (about 275mm) Phoenix reflector and it cost him the equivalent of a week at Disneyland. There’s a guy on Ebay selling glass parabolics up to 14.25”, supposedly made by Buffalo Precision Glass. But I can’t find any projects that have ever used one. And $280 for a possibly sketch optic is too rich for me. I know the cheeze-grade 100mm Fasttech aspheric will work b/c Enderman already proved it would. And it’s only $7.63 plus shipping (and maybe 3 months of waiting).
Where would one even start to look to find such a relic? And how much is one of those anyway? Must be worth a pretty penny.
My Nitecore TM39 just came in today. Did a bit of testing around the house/neighborhood but I really need to go somewhere else to test it properly. I will say the SBT-90.2 is one impressive piece of semiconductor. This thing easily lit up an apartment complex that’s ~400m away on low (200 lumens) and absolutely obliterated it with light in turbo, to the point where to my eyes, it all just looked washed out and all I could see was white. Ppl im that building must’ve been thinking there was a chopper looking for someone, although after a while they’d probably realize they never heard it and realized something else was going on. (There’s a chopper that patrols through this area pretty often, but I’ve never seen a searchlight on it). Can’t wait to try this out by El Morro and shine it on the side of a cruise-ship and don’t worry, I won’t aim it at any harbor pilots, lol. There’s a mountain peak close to my house where I can even see the sealine, the airport, El Morro and all of that, might go by there tomorrow night and hope it’s not full of cops like always. They just loooove killing people’s buzz up there.
The buffalo glass mirrors are very good quality and the easiest way to get the effect you are looking for. The HID is cheap and doesnt need so much cooling.
Is there any thread you could point me to of a how to of someone building a really high power spotlight? I don’t care about efficiency or size, I’d just love to build something that can be seen from miles and miles away and can throw a very defined beam at the clouds miles up in the air. Preferably something that’s relatively affordable to build too, under a thousand dollars and even better if it didn’t total more than $500. I just wanna obliterate the clouds and have a “batman signaler” type of beam. I’ve always wanted one of those since I was a kid.
Go read grin’s threads.
A royal blue LED is going to be more visible in the air than white. More efficient also.
Endermann did a bunch of those. Nice reflex lights with water-cooling, you could take out the Death Star with one of those.
Well, maybe.
Please do it and take out that Death Star—that thang has been such a pain in my arse.
Same here. Always blowing up my favorite planets…
Neurotoxin:
Search on this forum and/or YouTube for Lightcanon (one ‘n’, misispelled by Enderman on purpose) and “Optafire”. Those are Enderman’s large aspheric projects. Basically, they’re what I’m trying to replicate.
As for carbon arcs, Bob's Searchlight Page
Thanks for the update. Is this your project?
FYI: I promised my professional lighting engineer relatives (who design very large lighting systems for stadiums, high bays, etc) and that I wouldn’t try short-arc HIDs. I was cautioned that miscalculating the optics, or using a sketchy reflector, could reflect light back into the lamp. And that would cause it to explode and shower a 10-ft area with 1,000-3,000 degree shrapnel traveling at Mach 6. According to them, it’s already happened more than once and has killed at least one person. LEDs may be low power compared to an Osram short-arc. But a white flat probably wont try to kill me and burn my house down if I look at it wrong.
No worries, I have many lights half built, I have also experimented with different reflectors/mirrors and lens.
One thing I will say about both and is something to think about.
A short focal length will give you a fatter beam and more lumens.
A long focal length will give you a narrower beam with less lumens.
This can be demonstrated with a jig I made, the lens dont really matter for what I am trying to explain. But they are spherical from edmunds optics primary 150mm dia 600mmFL, secondary is 100mm dia 100mm focal length.
Thank you, will do, likely tomorrow as it’s late and was just getting on the laptop very quickly to upload a pic in another thread and go back to Netflix. Looking forward to seeing more progress from your project!
And Jesus Christ, those carbon arcs sure are worth a pretty penny!
New parts have arrived! (most of them)
Spotlight project:
3.3vdc, 40 amp CC power inverter/supply
Osram CSLNM1.TG
3.1 amp driver
Arctic Silver 5
old penny (for size reference)
Still no word from Fasttech regarding the lens, except that “expected delivery” is tomorrow. Considering that’s in communist-years, actual delivery may be later. We shall see.
Halloween/Christmas display:
12vdc, 29 amp CC power inverter/supply
Ray Wu’s Store (on Aliexpress) “10-watt” dumb RGB floodlights, IP-66 rated
Light-O-Rama CMB-24 controller (already had that, included for reference)
Yesss, parts are getting here… hopefully the remainder arrive in a timely manner. 
The 12v rgb flooders are up and running. I ran them through the basic “hardware test utility” for about an hour.
Flash flood warning:
I’ll probably start testing the spotlight this weekend.
Still no word from Fasttech, but I doubt they’ve even shipped my lens. Looks like that’s going to be the McGuffin.