Like the topic says - How cheaply can one have a light that lights up a guy sitting in parked car 500 meters away so well he’ll want to turn his motor on and drive away to get out of the light?
I want to light him and the car up well enough to make an ID. I don’t need a lot of spill. I only picked 500 meters arbitrarily, much further is possible if I had the right tool but 300 to 700 is very realistic.
Prefer portable but heck, even a 110v spotlight would be OK. My best thrower right now is a 50mm 2 cell T6 and it seems to get this reaction out quite a ways thought I can’t see much after 100 meters, . Would a Skyray STL-V2 or Fandyfire STL-V6 do the job or not really have much light at that distance? Do I need a HID for this?
I think you need a HID to get that reaction at 500 meters.
LED choices would just be to go from your current large diameter XM-L based light to a XR-E based light but even so I don’t think you are going to get that reaction.
Not a cheap solution but I always reach for one of my Hellfighters in a situation that requires me to light something up at a distance. Yeah I know, NOT a budget light if it is new (bought mine new) but I see used ones going for $200-$300 on *Bay all the time. $300 for a $5000 light makes it a budget light in my book.
Back to the topic at hand - a Hellfighter will do the job. A 35w or better Chinese HID (3.5” to 4.5” reflector) will probably do the trick as well. Some are very affordable.
LOL, I think I could have written your first paragraph after reading a few of your posts elsewhere . . I’m not in a hurry though, so perhaps I’ll end up there.
I know zip on HID lights and power, so any pointers will help. I’ll be using Google a good bit on this.
I remember a thread long ago (7-8 years ago) when the monster hotwire lumen showdowns were taking place, someone made a 110V hotwire spotlight with 11,000 lumens (or was it 15,000 lumens?) there was a pic of this barn and the thing just lit it up as if it was on fire! along with the hills in the back at about 500 yards away, it was totally incredible! and wasn’t that expensive IIRC.
Going to see if I can find that thread, I am positive it was 110V AC
GottaZoom: “LOL, I think I could have written your first paragraph after reading a few of your posts elsewhere . .”.
I think the light AlexGT is refering to was called the “Barn Burner” (short arc I think) and had a 10 or 12 inch reflector. I forget who made that thing. I remember he made a few of them for others but don’t recall the price. VERY bright and massive LUX rating. Read about it on C*F.
I can tell you the cheapest way to do that. But you won’t get very long runtimes on high and I’m talking like 10 min. But it will do the job cheaper than any way I know.
Go to Advanced Auto Parts and buy the big Professionals Favorite halogon spotlight for like $50. It’s weighs probably 10lbs, but it will out throw any light I know of for the money. I got one and even my Fenix TK70 won’t even come close to touching it. It will smoke a Dereelight. I had one of those, too.
Here’s mine.
I’ll show you how this light will smoke my TK70 at 350yds on manual exposure of 1 sec shutter speed, f/4.5 and ISO 400.
Reflector size is similar to my Titanium Innovation 3515 Mega Illuminator. Followed MR 2100 advise and upgraded the 35w to 55w ballast. Kickass combo not an urban light by any means. Spotlight from hell for less than $100.
Got a buddy with a remote control searchlight at the bow on his boat . . not much light out of it, but the remote works nice! Couple Hellfighters on remote pods under the house eaves . . that would be something!
I might add that’s a 120 watt halogon bulb on high. It’s probably 3000 lumens or more. But it will throw better than a lot of the HID lights on the market.
Look at the difference between it and the TK70 at 60yds on manual 1 sec shutter. There is simply no contest between the 2.
Incan lights are pretty bright, but the problem is low efficiency which in part means heavy and finicky SLA batteries (due to price) instead of lithiums.
I’m a little worried about hurting someone’s eyes with laser until a threat is determined, especially if it reflects off of a smooth surface like a hood/fender/etc.
Yeah, hard to see with little or no light! Plenty of magnification options if I can throw enough light. As IR sensors get better and cheaper, throwing light will become less critical but I think that’s still mostly a ways off.
Plenty of magnification options if I can throw enough light. As IR sensors get better and cheaper, throwing light will become less critical but I think that’s still mostly a ways off.