“What Should I Do With This reflector?”
Maybe something like this? 
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Arrival-Outdoor-Sports-12V-100W-9-Xenon-Handheld-Camping-Hunting-Super-Light-Spotlight-Flashlights-Portable/32835666158.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.nTlVRX
Maybe a 200watt car hid?
I just tried an XP-G inside it tonight and it works perfectly fine. Can focus it down to a super tight spot. Should work great with a CFT 90 or any bulb with super high luminance.
Thats what I was considering with the Philips DL50 fatboy bulb and a 85watt ballast. That ballast in the link may be 100watts input, but ouput is probably around 80watts or so.
A car HID would probably explode at 200watts haha! Even the DL50 Fatboy (which is essentially a beefed up D2S automotive bulb from my understanding) can’t reliably be driven over about 80-85 watts. To go above that wattage you’ll have to go with a high/low bay style HID bulb, or go an entirely different route like short arc or UHP or something.
If I can find the exact specifications for some of the UHP lamps, and assuming they have the same specs as high/low bay style HID bulbs, I could potentially use a normal HID ballast to power the UHP lamp, and not have to worry above hacking into a dedicated UHP ballast.
So I think its starting to be a toss up between CFT-90, UHP, and 80watt HID. UHP would produce much more spectacular results but is also a lot more difficult to work with and the electronics portion may be beyond my skill level, if a normal HID ballast won’t work. The CFT-90 would produce a very impressive beam for an LED light, and would be quite easy to work with, but wouldn’t be as awesome as the UHP lamp. The 80watt HID bulb would be awesome too and would probably beat the CFT-90 and be just as easy to work with. The 80watt HID is starting to look like its winning out but what you guys think?
The UHPs will get WAY MORE throw! They can have 10-times the luminance (luminance together with the front surface area of the reflector is what determines throw).
The CFT-90 will require a very large heatsink or active cooling if you want to run it at 40A.
You can’t use UHP bulbs with other ballasts. You could start by just getting such a bulb into the reflector and getting it focussed properly by running thre ballast off the wall socket for the time being.
Polar_Li over on CPF can help will all the little details. He built multiple UHP-based lights in the last few years.
UHP it is then! I have a feeling the CFT-90 wouldn’t be utilizing this reflector to its full potential. I’m leaning towards using the Osram P-VIP 180/0.8. It produces 8400 lumens and has a .8mm arc gap. I have not found a UHP lamp with a smaller arc gap yet.
I don’t know if I ever told you guys this or not but I bought this reflector from Ma_sha1. SOLD. Short arc spot light reflector That is the same guy on CPF who built the The Swan Blaster 260W UHP spotlight using this exact reflector. He got some impressive numbers with this reflector. I’m just a rookie so I doubt I will reach his level but I think I should get some good results non the less with a 180 watt UHP lamp.
I knew from your last thread and I also followed ma_sha1’s progress back then. Seeing him go was kind of sad. He did so many cool projects.
I think there is a 230W bulb with 0.8 or 0.9mm arc gap, it might have the highest luminance. The 350-400W ones are probably the most impressive though. What should definitely be considered is how much forced cooling you will need and how quiet you want the light to be.
Also, in general, how portable do you want the light to be? I think portability is really one if the key things that keeps lights interesting.
I wasn’t into lighting back when ma-sha1 was modding lights but he did make some impressive lights. Always sad to lose such talent.
As far as cooling goes I don’t want to use too high power of a bulb that requires a lot of cooling. Thats why the 1000watt HTI lamp I was originally gonna use didnt work out. Man the heat from that light could be felt from almost 5ft away lol! I really haven’t worked out a suitable housing or anything for the light yet but I’m thinking a small fan to blow over the base of the light and maybe another small one to pull cool air into the housing would be sufficient. When the bulb is in the stock UHP reflector there is no air blowing directly on the glass envelope itself so I don’t see why I would need it here.
As far as size, I really don’t see how I can make it a light that can be carried around. I mean the reflector alone is as tall as the Maxabeam and 2.5x as wide. And the Maxabeam is already a big light on its on. Once the ballast and power supply are added along with the rest of the housing to hold all this I really don’t see it being exactly portable. I envision something maybe the size of a small portable 3 drawer tool box. Something you can carry but when you get it where you want it you’ll have to set it down. I definitely want it powered off batteries though so that I won’t have to lug a generator or power cord around with me all the time. Its gonna be all self contained.
Ok, so you do want batteries. What kind of runtime you want? A 400W bulb could make the battery very large, although since you were thinking about a 1000W bulb it’s probably not a problem for you?
When I was going for a 1000 watts I had intended to power it off 120volts. I’ve since changed my mind about that and decided portability will make it atleast a bit useful and more fun. As far as runtime goes I think I would be happy with 20 to 30mins. If I calculated it right a 4s Lipo 10000mah battery will run a 180 watt bulb for about 40mins.
400watts seems a little high. From the research I have done aluminum reflectors are not as durable to holding up in high heat as rhodium is and that is partly why most of the high wattage searchlights are using rhodium reflectors. I feel like if I stay around 200watts, the heat will be less of an issue.
I would would expect more like 20-30mins because you need take into account the ineffciency of each part of the electronics. The ballast might have 90% and the step up converter might have 80-90% again (I’m just guessing on the latter).
I don’t know about the cooling. Again you could ask polar_li on CPF. He made a 400W light . His reflector also has the AQ coating like yours.
I would add a tripod mount to the light. That will make it much more practical. Threads for a normal photo tripod should be enough. You can get very rigid tripods on Ebay if you search for older ones (I reccomend old Velbon Aluminium tripods).
Concerning the batteries:
Li-Pos only make sense if you get really cheap ones. They have a lower cycle count (life expectancy) compared to other types of betteries, really suck in the (<=5°C) cold in the winter (I don’t know how cold it gets where you live) and are more dangerous than other cells. For a more longterm solution I would think about getting a custom battery pack with 18650 or 21700 cells and a built-in protection and balancing circuit. I would use cheap Samsung 30Q cells. They have a high-capacity and work great in cold temps. Or maybe a hobby LiFePO4 pack.
Yeah I wasn’t thinking about inefficiencies so you probably are right about it realistically being 20-30mins. I may need to use a 15ah or 20ah since I’ll have to power the cooling fan/fans too and thats gonna cut into the runtime some more. Also I typed lipo but I meant lifepo LOL. Thinking about this one. Custom LFP 26650 Battery: 12.8V 19.8Ah (253 Wh, 30A rate ) rechargeable battery
Polari has an account here as he posted a couple of times in my 1000watt thread. I pm’d him both here and on CPF to ask him to lend his expertise if he don’t mind.
The tripod mount is a good idea. I’m still trying to come up with a suitable housing for the light. I’ve been thinking outside the box and I think a 3 drawer tool box like this would make a good host. Would have to get someone to weld a mount onto the bottom of it.
And turn that into this.
Well technically your were thinking inside the box 
:partying_face:
Just so you know: there are two types of UHP bulbs. The well known ones for projectors and also Osram Sirius HRI bulbs for moving heads. They use the same tech.
How ironic LOL!
So I found this. Seems to be a simple 120volt 130watt UHP ballast and power supply all-in-one that does not require any signal to control the light. Google is certainly not being helpful in pulling up any information on it though. Aromat seems to be the old name for Panasonic electric works but I can’t find anything about Panasonic UHP lamp ballast. Hmmm.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aromat-GE130WUHP-SB1-Lamp-Power-Supply-Ballast-130-W-GE-UHP-GE130WUHPSB1/323009795729?hash=item4b34e25691:g:HTsAAOSwl8NVbgyv
Looks like a Cree CXA3070 would work nice for that.
http://www.cree.com/led-components/products/xlamp-leds-integrated-arrays/xlamp-cxa3070
Time for a booster to get it to 35v
But it’s really weak and you won’t get any throw because of the very low luminance (maybe 1/100th). Also, there are better companies for COB LEDs. The brightest ones are made by Citizen, 70000 Lumens at 500W.
True but that will require a significantly larger power supply and cooling required for it would make it even larger. Given the size of that reflector would make an unweildly light even more unweildly.
I don’t think that matters too much. It’s too large and heavy to carry around much anyhow. I think it’s all about performance. Combining a huge COB LED with an electro-formed precision reflector is a waste. You can use a salad bowl coated with aluminum foil for that and it would probably focus good enough.
Better, bigger, brighter CXB3590
http://www.cree.com/led-components/products/xlamp-leds-integrated-arrays/xlamp-cxb3590/
Yeah I don’t see these huge COBs making a lot of sense. I think it makes most sense to pair a high precision reflector to a high precision light source.
PolarLi got back with me! He really knows his stuff. Glad I contacted him as he gave me all the information I needed to get started building this light. The ballast PolarLi linked me too is 200w. So I’ve decided on what bulb I’m gonna use. Its the Osram P-VIP 240/0.8. Its the highest wattage bulb I could find with a 0.8mm arc length. Its has an operating wattage range from 190w-240w. 200watts is on the low end for this bulb but this bulb allows me to switch to a higher wattage ballast whenever I want to without having to go through the process of seperating another bulb from the original reflector, mounting, and then aiming all over again.
So the ballast has been ordered. I also am going to get my brother to custom make me an aluminum housing for the light. I was gonna use the toolbox but the weight on all of them that I could find that were the perfect size was just ridiculous LOL.