Let me nego with them, i'll post new findings. This one not so easy to get. They are unwilling to sell the sample, not sure what issue with the SLA with customs.
I was supposed to have bought the SM5210, but mistakenly I was sent the SM5200. So now I have 2 "Yao 35/80s"
240W LED bar.
http://www.sanmak.com.cn/product_detail.asp?id=638&sortid=125&sid=143
The last time they said it was a sample and could not sell it.
They contacted me again (Guangzhou Sanmak) today. But a bit wrong timing, i am aiming to start off with astronomy and for that i need quite a fair bit of cash. I wanted to start for 2 times, but never got round to it...
But lets see what they can offer....
browsed this early this morning as i was looking at their sm5200.
minimum order : 10pcs....group buy?hehe
hope they could offer a reasonable price.
that light bar looks interesting. wish sanmak could provide us with some beamshots of both the 13" and the lightbar.
There are some listings with 1pc....
yup.but that 13 incher really caught my attention too.wish they would sell it on a per piece basis. btw is its 55w h3 bulb same in intensity as a 55w h4 bulb?
Will need to see the price. They tried to rip BVH of CPF off. Think they quoted close to 300 bucks. LOL!
Yes, H3 and H4 are just base variants. Same bulb.
Astronomy is more fun than flashlights :)I’ve done it in a relatively inexpensive way. I started out with 80mm refractor and then went to 8" reflector and now I end up using the 80mm refractor and 15x70 binoculars most of the time.
I don’t have any motorized gear and I locate things just by “star hopping” and by referring to a software program on my PC. What kind of telescope are you planning to get?
2100- do you know the $USD price of that lightbar? It looks pretty solid.
I've been interested in trying to check out the heavens since like 15 years ago but i still haven't started work then so stopped. Then 8 years ago i wanted to get one but i figured that i need to drive to a secluded place to ob so too much work/time (need to work the next day!). Just last year i wanted to start again but stopped, now want to start again. hehe.... I just moved to my place 2yrs ago which has a rooftop garden so it's going to be quite easy for me, i don't have to walk > 50m from my apartment. But there are turnstiles to negotiate so no SCTs or big mounts.
http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=1-599-2-83-997-16518
Going to use on a Twilight II Alt-Az mount. No Goto, so keep it easy by star hopping.
I figured that 2kg for the CF is not a lot of savings, but i'll be using this for quite a while, and due to the local tropical weather = lots of clouds, i need to be very fast. The CF looks good too.
The problem is the focusser as it slips a bit after a few minutes if you get in a heavy > 20 oz EP there, i guess for me starting out it's not an issue. When i was doing bird photography i had a setup which is not very ideal too (just a 486RC Manfrotto ballhead) but i managed somehow. I am not a very particular person, but i do appreciate some quality. But an upgrade to a Feathertouch or Moonlite is gonna cost!
Stellarvue has some good scopes with good focussers, but $$$...sigh. I think optically it's not going to make much of a difference esp with the ES at 127mm.
http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=1-600-765-1112-16852
I have a couple extra 55W, 75W and the big 100W ballast and bulbs available. I ordered the 35W version.
I negotiated for $165 shipped, $100 for light and $65 for EMS. It is 6kg shipping weight and 13kg vol weight.
Some pictures. The front bezel is actualyl 12.59", so the front visible diameter is probably 11.5" or something.
Now thats one hell of a reflector! if that thing throws close to a maxabeam we have a winner here. a pricey one at that. are your spare ballasts h3 or h4? this is a h3 bulb light so a h4 swap would need some modding.
keeping a close eye on this one.:)
I have like 30 over H3 bulbs 55W.... :D Purple, pink, blue, 30k, 3k, 4.3k, 5k, 6k, take your pick. Very cheap, 11 bucks shipped. I went bonkers last time with HIDs. They are also not "very dim" but i think they definitely wear down quicker than Philips/GE bulbs. But so far no failures (I don't use them that often anyway) It's hot, like XM-Ls i don't think anybody guns past 20 mins anyway....
But 75W I have only 1 pair of 4300K and 100W also 1 pair of 4300k.
I estimate 6 mil PBCP tops and 4 mil minimum with the 100W bulb (5mm arc length). It should beat the original Maxabeam, no doubt about that....which is at 2.3 mil.
Do you have a plan to adopt a son ? All the cool toys me likey !!! :)
Could you post some beamshots of that for maybe 100 yards or so?
Beamshots would be in the order of 2km or so, if i estimated correctly. (with the 100W ballast).
Anyway an attempted delivery was made yesterday Sunday, but nobody was around. Re-arranged delivery for tomorrow.
2km! Darn got to get one of these baby's. 1.5km would be fine 2km would be fantastic!
hope you could help me..:)
after your tests that is.hehe
Yes, 2km is using the international searchlight standard. If we were to use that standard to describe stuff like the Solarforce Masterpiece Pro-1 XR-E in a 50mm plus head, it'd be something like 223 metres range only. Or it's 4km range if we use LED flashlights standard.
I just wanted to see how large the spot was at 100M but if you want to do 2KM, that's fine too LoL. I"m not sure I'll be able to compare it to anything though if you tried to do it that far away...
Shucks, what a let down, the beam quality is pretty bad, the hotspot is sort of a star instead of circular like the SM5200 or Amondotech 3152. Of course such big SMO reflector HIDs are not really for even 10 metres white wall beam shots because seriously it would like real bad. On the lux meter it is just slightly below 2X the lux of the SM5200. I need to go out to 50 metres and measure (beam focus phenomenon)
At 2X the reflector diameter, theorectically it should get 4X the lux. Because of this "star pattern" hotspot, quite a fair bit of the hotspot is not focused at one point but spread over a star. So that's wasted light.
The funny thing is that the reflector is perfectly smooth and structurally it looks seamless. But the beam comes out like that.
It can do about 1.1km visibly and definitely is a upgrade over the SM5200 when compared side by side, but 2km is not possible. DAMNT IT! 
It's something like a Fenix TK35 vs a Crelant 7G5.....rather than a Fenix TK35 vs a SR90.