Don’t get me wrong, if you can get a good price for the Magic scorpion 40W, it’s good. And make sure you ask Ric for a good copy and extra bubble wrap, quite a few got nicked for unknown reasons when they reach. (mentioned at CPF) Edit - hey is CNQG still selling them? I Can’t find it.
Actually from the pics, you can see that the Magicfire quite is a bit dimmer than the FF3. But it IS the cheapest small form factor HID.
I have the Trustfire X100, doesn’t throw enough (but then i have my bigger HIDs which does 2km and coherent light which does 5km max…enough already as it attracts too much attention! LOL!) but definitely up there in lumens.
It should be the PH50 first (can see the warm up burst) followed by the Magic Scorpion 65W….the Chinese HIDs have that whine initially. The whine “quality” seems to me like its putting a lot of strain on the cells, coz it loads them too much and voltage sags, and i know from my auto HID ballasts that when it sags a lot (putting the ballast to work in the lower end range of its operating input voltage) you’d get those coarser whine. But it seems ok in terms of output! There is quite a bit of difference for my auto ballasts when doing 12V and 24V (9-32V rated input ones only, don’t pump in 24V for your 12V ballasts!! 8)
380+ (nearly 400) for the PH50 and 360+ for the Magic Scorpion 65W. I think it should be around there for my Ebay 65W. Not sure about the 85W.
Anybody knows where do i get the Magic Scorpion 65W? :party:
56W input draw for the 65W scorpion. Seems like the Chinese bulbs are pretty efficient and not as bad it was made out to be…at least for our hobby budget use (of course with Osram/Philips they are slightly better in efficiency, but nothing out of this world bah…)
You can get scorpian 65W from Rick, cnqualitygoods
I’ve seen a 40W version Magic Fire/Magic Scorpian, it looked about 125K lux by eye balling it vs the Xecon HID shorty I had on hand, I think the quality varies that’s why some one got a under performer & everyone is copying that post, gave Magic fire a bad name, It’s not bad, I expect most of them performance is in line with a 35W HID
You are right, actually Ric did ask me if i would want to get one with DHL shipping thrown in (coz i was getting some other lights from him), but i decided to wait for others as I have too many lights and it’s not cheap….it was like 2 weeks before the CPF thread on this got created.
I was following the CPF thread then and when someone mentioned that the input power was a bit low + stories of nicks kept coming in (not an isolated incident, if i rem correctly it was reported here as well), i stopped following the thread and lost interest because the 5 XM-Ls are in the market already. It’s not a cheap light as well @ 200 shipped (BLF standards) but of course the form factor is great and there’s nothing like that.
At least for me, i am not surprised that it gets a slightly lower input power. I actually have a 75W slim ballast that gets me around the same OTF lumens as another 55W ballast.
Now the 65W Scorpion (228 shipped i googled) would be a totally different story. I think it’s on sale by other shops but CNQG has stopped carrying them (says sales overdue)
It seems that of late even the 85W Ebays dwindled in performance probably someone put in pretty high K bulbs (they could have ordered 6000K but seriously sometimes it’s beyond even their control and you know how things work there). The few 65W i have on hand perform pretty decently…mine are very much perceptively warmer than 1A tint and just a wee bit cooler than 3C.
I checked on Aliexpress, I purchased from Yongkang Greentime and he can get 4300K bulb/ballasts as well.
PS. Of course i’d expect those issues to have been fixed by now. Actually for lasers, i’d make sure i’ll email them and ask them to put into a brown box + extra bubble wrap. They don’t take shocks well.
As much as I love those super bright beam shots ( 8) )of the 85W HID, I personally find it a beast to hold. I was always the small form factor guy with torches but with greatest amount of power possible.
I’m considering a 35W HID as it’s the same size as the 24W. For ~20$ more it’s worth it. There are plenty of reputable sellers out there. Gonna jump the gun in a day or two, just looking out for the best deal.
Indeed it is not that easy to hold for long periods. I read that Yongkang Greentime (aliexpress) could offer a battery pack with Panasonic 3100s, if one is anal about the cells. (+$30 or so)
Oh one thing about the Magic Scorpion 40/65W is that you need to use good cells, esp the 65W. Probably at least some protected Panasonic 2900s. The current draw is pretty high, and protected cells are a must if you intend to use for extended periods. You could expect 3.5-4 amps draw under load on the batteries for the 65W (it probably goes up as it discharges, so lower performing cells gonna get pretty hot and sweat it out).
I should be receiving the 35W HID within the next few days. What sort of upgrades can one expect? Can the ballast and battery be upgraded?
Has anyone played around with the torch to increase output?
You can indeed change the ballast and bulb. But really no tinkering is needed with a hid since they’ll impress you no matter what if you’re used to seeing leds.
I’m guessing it’s not far enough away, but measuring at one meter I get 105k lux. My “lightbox” won’t fit the head of the light, but it’s over 2,000 lumens for sure. Xtars certainly don’t fit, but the flat top Tenergy worked! Warm up period was a new thing for me… I’m used to decreasing lumens not increasing. The first few seconds color shifts were weird too.
I got a Magic Fire Scorpion. It’s pretty big compared to my other lights, but still flashlight sized. It will be a while before beamshots, but I might take a pic of it next to the SR King and STL-V2.
