Wanted: 17000 Lumen, narrow (d < 3 mm) beam LED light source

Hi,
For a very specific use-case I’m looking for a lighting solution that:

  • has high electrical efficiency (considering LEDs / LESs)
  • at least 150 Watt outgoing light power
  • outgoing beam is formed (focused to infinity, straight beam) with diameter around 3-4 mm
  • wavelength does not really matter (from 450 nm - 3000 nm, the longer the better, doesn’t have to be in the visible range)
  • can be switched on to c.c. 0.3 sec in every 1 sec more than a couple of million ( 1-2 x 10^6) times without significant performance loss
    Do you have any advice, which LED/LESs source to use , and where to get the necessary beam shaping optics from ?
    thanks in advance for the ideas,
    Cheers,
    G

Welcome to BudgetLightForum

So what you’re looking for is an 150W+ IR laser?

I’d assume that such high power laser would be deemed illegal in most countries and would be quite difficult to build.

I hope you enjoy your stay, narrowlightbeam!

Sounds like a laser designator. most likely not gonna find it on a civilian market, but i bet there are some laying in Ukrainian fields right now.

Hi,
No, no laser, that is the very point! One can easily get such a laser, but the goal is to avoid all the safety hassle (eye safety) that comes with lasers…
Here is an example for such a LED that I’m looking for, but would need a more robust / industrial one and corresponding optics:

Cheers,

Eye safety will matter with a narrow beam no matter what, as the light is intensely concentrated.

On reddit, I saw people pointing their flashlights into reflector telescopes to get narrow beams, don’t know what sort of light sources work best. Here’s an example. Reddit - Dive into anything

It has the same pattern as an aspheric, the emitter pattern is projected into the beam.

So wait, wait, you basically want a 150W emissive light source?

Well, a monochromatic green or even blue light source would be your best bet then.

Thanks for the pointers ! About eye safety: sure, but the effect of non-coherent light is orders of magnitude smaller….so using LED instead of laser tremendously helps safety.

I don’t know man. I think you’ll end up with the same energy concentrated in a small space anyway. It’s like building a laser, but the hard and inefficient way.

You cannot get a straight beam from an incoherent light source. The beam angle will be a function of the diameter of the source and the distance to the focusing lens or lenses. You are asking for a laser that isn’t a laser.

Out of curiosity… What is this specific use case?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say you are asking for the impossible (high powered & 3-4mm diameter beam)… Reason being is that it’s physically impossible to make a dream diameter smaller than the size of the emitter.

With that out of the way, how about the Acebeam W50?

:slight_smile: Cannot disclose the use-case… you are right about the beam spreading property, but I do not need to have that beam on a long distance, the target is only c.c. 1 m away.

When I was a kid I tried to make an apparatus for vaporizing insects from about a dozen photo flash tubes and a half circle reflector. I got it to vaporize their wings but that was about all. I may have underestimated the power required…

So actually you need a 3-4mm diameter spot on a surface?

Why not use a big lens and the sun? Ultimate in energy efficiency.

So you want 17,000 lumens concentrated onto a point no more than 4mm in diameter about 1 meter away?

To accomplish this I think you will need a point light source that is capable of emitting over 17,000 lumens with an emitting surface area no larger than the diameter of the 4mm target. Plus you’ll need a really big lens. To get 17,000 lumens on the target your LED will need to emit substantially more than that as some will be lost due to inefficiency in the lens.

Note that you won’t get a laser beam that goes in a straight line. Instead, the best you can hope for without a laser is to duplicate the “use magnifying glass to concentrate sunlight onto ants”, except instead of the sun you would be using an artificial light source.

I’m not aware of any 17,000+ lumen LEDs with small surface areas. There might be such a thing, but if so, they aren’t used in flashlights.

Perhaps a carbon arc lamp of the type used in movie theater projectors?

i agree with the above, I and I think a lot of people on this forum would like to know how to do it.
Basically I think you would need to focus the light source to a point then focus your lens train on that spot. When you start adding up the loses in the lenses you are going to need a lot of lumens the only thing that can do it is short arc.
A recycling collar has an aperture and if there was extra LEDs placed inside the collar so the light from them doesn’t exit the aperture but is reflected onto the main LED. The efficiency will drop but it should increase intensity. I have had a few goes at building it without success but I haven’t given up.
The lenses will not only have to be large but also have long focal lengths.

Soo, power of the sun in a 4mm straight beam without being a laser, to shoot a distance of 1m…. :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

I suppose you want it to be handheld as well :stuck_out_tongue:

Is that a thermal lance or something?