Haha, thanks for the laughs. The project was initially an exercise in futility while trying to adapt it for marine use. Once completed, the light made an amazing boat that much more fun & useful. We were the only ones on the California Delta able to power ahead at full throttle after dark without having to worry about smashing into anything... especially partially submerged debris, such as logs, etc. Interestingly, it also did a great job at illuminating deep submerged objects through murky water. You could actually see at least 10 feet into the murky water way out in front while the boat was at speed. If anything, that was actually more impressive than the sheer beam distance through night air.

I used to work in San Rafael and had a large sail boat at Pier 39 in San Fransisco.

Thank you, and corrected. As I wrote this, I was still wishing I had thermal imaging instead of a xenon arc. I have a friend thats a tank platoon leader for the M1A2 bunch. I get to pop off a few night time practice rounds in Feb. Im hoping the range has some descent fun targets when I get my try.

ryansoh3 wrote:

Can’t believe I missed this awesome thread, here’s a nerco bump.

Im just glad you never got one. The darn thing would be turned into a 1kW laser and make the folks at Lawrence Livermore green with envy.

Hi Nikki. Welcome to BLF! These are the only reasonably priced 1kW military searchlights that I am aware of at this time. You can contact the seller if you questions. Good luck!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271606524719?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPage...

Xenon arc is about the only thing that illuminates semi submerged objects while at speed. Maybe that’s why we were usually the only boat “on plane” after the sun went down. Nice sail boat. Is that yours? I used to own a Morgan Islander 51’ in SF Bay.

Sorry I didn’t update this till now. The boat was sold with all hardware onboard to an illumination lunatic afflicted with “the sickness”.

I’ve been lucky to enjoy several hours playing with aviation, military and marine arc lamps. On the high end and by their very nature, arc lamps remain several magnitudes more powerful and versatile, with far longer range than LED offerings. I suspect that will remain true until a different technology (possibly laser) can some day be utilized to surpass Arc in these applications. As it is, each has its pro’s and cons. A few commercial arc lamp searchlights are now augmented with LED arrays to provide wide area lighting support while employing the main arc for long range illumination. Arc lamps aren’t designed to be cycled on and off and require time to heat up and cool down, which gives LED an advantage. Feasibility all depends on your budget, space available for installation and properly rated equipment necessary to support it. A complete commercial installation to match the light I reviewed can easily exceed $40k, so it can add up quickly.