8000 lumen 100 watt HID handheld spotlight conversion.

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

I must say this was very interesting to read. Also thanks for posting pictures...pics always makes things better. :)

Has anyone tried using these 100W HID's in a Automobile low beams, whether it be Projector or Reflector Housing?

Man always want better... :)

Welcome to the club, Edzar12.

I hope you enjoy your stay. :)

I dont think running these in projectors or plastic reflectors because It would produce too much heat and melt plastic reflectors/housings and in projectors burn the aluminum reflective surface.

Hmm..I did do some research and yeah I agree with your statement. what I haven't read on, is the 75 watt HID. Maybe this could work. I might have to trial and error these :) Thanks for your comment ^^

I converted a pair of Hella’s top-of-the-line incandescent off-road lights to the same 100 watt HID’s I used for the spotlight. These are the Hella Rallye 4000 cornering lights with the large 10” reflectors. I had to lightly grind the back of the glass reflectors with a dremel to allow the fat 100 watt HID envelopes to fit inside, and the H1 HID made a perfect fit into the stock bulb retainers and maintained the same position as the stock bulbs.

Result: 18,000 lumens total OTF with a flawless 160 degree mega-wide angle beam. I was surprised that the beam cut-off and focus did not change! Looking off to the side as I drive, I can see about 200 yards to each side. Great for spotting wildlife waaaaay off to the sides of the trial. The beam directly ahead completely blots out the factory high beams, so I turn them off with a relay wired to a toggle switch during operation. I hid another toggle switch under the dash to arm and disarm the master to keep curious passengers from flipping the dash switch and blinding oncoming traffic. I have been using these for the past 3 years without incident and they see a fair amount of off-road abuse and high vibration. The 100 watt ballasts are large and get hot, so I hid them behind the back side of the front bumper where they receive plenty cool air. They take about 20 seconds to completely warm up, but are still far brighter than the factory high beams from the moment they are activated. After they have warmed up, they can be turned off for a minute and turned back on again with minimal warm-up time. After driving for a while and getting spoiled with bright even HID lighting, toggling from HID back to the factory high beams is almost like completely turning off the lights!

I just landed a third light housing, but this one has the euro beam reflector to throw a medium spot beam way out front. Its not like I really needed it, but the price was right and I have space on my bumper for all 3. Now for another HID kit, relay, switch and more wiring to select wide, spot or both.

Beautiful work Flashpilot!! :+1: