1kW Xenon Arc Tank Light

[IgNITEor]

Optiforms? Welcome Todd!

Might you be an employee? I seem to have lost contact with my dumpster alert
person from a few years back.
What may be one's failed production or custom piece is another one's treasure!

 

[IgNITEor]

Duplicate post deleted. It's late, I'm SO tired.

 

[dizzytats]

Brought back from the dead just in case any of yall might still be looking for one of these. I have about 10 of these units for sale. No control boxes, just the lights.

 

[BVH]

Without reading all the past posts to see if it's already been posted, I thought I'd use the excuse to break out my VSS-3A to take some input power measurements and document power requirements for the light. Someday, I will rig something up to measure power at the lamp connections. My systems consists of:

Realtec Flotrol 25Volt/100 Amp DC rectifier, model A100F25 fed from 240VAC.
Input cable length to control box is 18 feet of Carol brand high strand count, Orange jacketed #4 cable available from McMasterCarr.
Cable from control box to the light is 4 feet of the same cable.
Flowtrol is POT adjusted to 28.6 Volts unloaded which results in 28.02 Volts measured mid input cable under load after boost circuit is terminated. I could adjust for 28.8 Volts loaded but these lamps are 35+ years old and I don't want to push it to the max.
Ambient temp is 62 degrees F.

Inrush current measured: 87, 88 & 93. 93 was the first measurement when stone cold. 87 & 88 measurements were after sitting for 30 minutes after a 5 minute run.
Steady Amps after termination of boost circuit is about 55 Amps. Steady Watts is about 1545.
All of these number would be a bit higher if input Voltage was upped to 28.8.
Another reference point: At the ambient temp of 62 and after a 5-minute run, after turning off the light, the cooling fan continued to run for 90 seconds. After a later 3-minute run, the fan turned off when the light was turned off. However, about 30 - 40 seconds later, the fan came on for about a minute. As the manual indicates, always leave power "On" to the control box for at least 5 minutes after turning off the light - or longer if the fan is still running.

Added 8/15/16

Lamp 1 - 19.7 Volts, 51.1 Amps = 1007 Watts measured at the lamp after 10 minutes of run time.
Lamp 2 - 18.5 Volts, 54.2 Amps = 1003 Watts measured at the lamp after 10 minutes of run time.

Input at the light was 28.02 Volts.

Ballast resistor temp - 412F @ 10 minutes of run time.
Discharge air - 138F - @ 10 minutes of run time.


First video shows Ammeter reading from startup through termination of the boost circuit. Total time till boost circuit termination is 3 minutes. (Notice the pitch change of the cooling fan at 3'30" into the video)




Second video shows True Inrush Current and True input Watts during boost and through termination of boost circuit

 

[Kestrel]

Some idle browsing this afternoon, one of these units is for sale here; no idea if a good deal or not but figured that the bump wouldn't hurt:
http://www.e-sarcoinc.com/an-vss-3-search-light.aspx

 

[BVH]

For those that may be interested - A little observation of the above ad for sale: As the ad says, it's a VSS-3, not a VSS-3A. The control box shown is the "Remote" control box only and is not capable of running the light. The cable shown is for the light-to-Main Control box (not shown or included) and may have to be modified on one end to work due to thread differences. Price is very high compared to Ebay units.

 

[NoNotAgain]

For those that may be interested - A little observation of the above ad for sale: As the ad says, it's a VSS-3, not a VSS-3A. The control box shown is the "Remote" control box only and is not capable of running the light. The cable shown is for the light-to-Main Control box (not shown or included) and may have to be modified on one end to work due to thread differences. Price is very high compared to Ebay units.

BVH, Ever had dealings with SARCO? They're stuck in the 18th century. All of their inventory is listed on file cards. If you attempt calling to find out if an item is in stock, you usually get the response, "Well Machinegun Dave isn't in right now, can you call back later?"

Sarco was the place to find all types of military surplus firearms parts. The were located in New Jersey for many years. From what I've read, they were forced to move to PA due to the high capacity magazines being verbolten in New Jersey.

With the markings on this light being Yiddish, these are Israeli surplus.

And yes, this light is way over priced which is a Sarco hallmark.

 

[BVH]

Some additional Power specs:

Lamp 1 - 19.7 Volts, 51.1 Amps = 1007 Watts measured at the lamp after 10 minutes of run time.
Lamp 2 - 18.5 Volts, 54.2 Amps = 1003 Watts measured at the lamp after 10 minutes of run time.

Input at the light was 28.02 Volts.

Ballast resistor temp - 412F @ 10 minutes of run time.
Discharge air - 138F - @ 10 minutes of run time.

 

[BVH]

Received two brand new looking lamps from Part2go on Ebay. They are ORC brand, same as the one that came with the light. I don't know what happened with the first lamp but when I got to the end of the threads screwing it in, I just began to "hand tighten" it and it blew. Since it was in the factory extractor, it was a Strong but muffled BLUMMMPH and much of the quartz was contained and no internal damage to I.R. shield, reflector or anything else. I had all my safety gear on but there was no significant flying debris even with the back fan cover off at the time. Vacuumed out the debris and installed the 2nd new lamp with no issues. It fired right up. Ran it 12 minutes with no issues. I'd sure like to know what happened with the first one.

 

[FRITZHID]

Sounds like a manf defect to me, they do happen now and then. Glad you and your light are ok! Pays to use proper protection

 

[BVH]

Just for documentation purposes, here are some close-up pics of parts of the VSS-3/3a lamp. Made possible by the purchase of 12 lamps and the safe arrival of 10.

For the few owners out there, if you have any bad lamps, please dont throw them away. It would be fairly easy for a lamp company to make new lamps for us if the bases are supplied. If you don't want your bad lamps, send them to me and I'll strip them down and keep a stockpile of bases for use someday.



The Anode end of the lamp with Quartz gone.




Here you can see the inner quartz stem fitted within the outer Quartz stem. You can also see the moly foil contact material wrapped around the electrode stem.




Bare Anode base after potting compound and electrode removed




Anode end with electrode removed.




Inside the Anode base




Side view of the Anode electrode.




Tip of the Anode - 5/8" long, .436" in diameter




Wire connection to electrode which runs out the end of the base & is welded. There was a ball of very fine steel wool stuffed into the "pocket" shown in this both on the Cathode and Anode ends.




Side view of same




Inside of Cathode base where the plastic tangs are epoxied in-place

 

[BVH]

Complete light, control box, remote box, crate, cable ends, lamp extractor: (don't see any cables and don't know if cable ends are workable (solder cup type or not)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/252846237878?ul_noapp=true

 

[vadimax]

Complete light, control box, remote box, crate, cable ends, lamp extractor: (don't see any cables and don't know if cable ends are workable (solder cup type or not)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/252846237878?ul_noapp=true

A record "TWO MAN LIFT 75 LBS" makes it poor EDC But as a roof top sentry light it should be perfect.

 

[vadimax]

Wait! Infra red from an arc bulb? How is that possible?

 

[FRITZHID]

wish i could afford to sped $400 on another one and have a dueling pair but.... wife says no more new lights this yr.

 

[FRITZHID]

Wait! Infra red from an arc bulb? How is that possible?

Xenon puts out plenty of IR.

 

[vadimax]

Xenon puts out plenty of IR.

Strange to me. In my world arc bulbs emit blindingly white light. But this switch:

makes me guess.

 

[FRITZHID]

there's a tubular glass filter that moves over the bulb in IR mode that blocks almost all visible light. it starts in IR mode and then a motor pulls the filter out of the way when switched to white mode.

 

[BVH]

I don't know how many of us have the -3's. I have a source for 11 lamps. I've purchased from them before with good results. Any takers? If all 11 are purchased, we can get them for $125 each shipped to my door and then a few dollars more for me to ship to individuals.

 

[NITE LITE]

Hi I haven't checked this board for awhile.
I still have mine . I haven't used it in forever. I reconfigured my mounting platform (HMMWV) for the light and can no longer mount the light to it.
I was thinking of selling the light but an extra bulb would be a plus .
I'm in.
Keep me posted.
George