80W UHP flashlight project

PolarLi

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Thanks guys!
But now the real job start, get everything to fit inside here :green:
ZtU33HJ.jpg
 

A_L_R_O_M

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PolarLI!
May i ask you?
Did you actually try to drive the bulb for significant period of time?
Let's say 20min or 1 hour?
I'm experiencing some blackening in the arc chamber while underdriving the bulb and jumping arc, but i think it's due to electrodes, they are not pointed exactly... non original bulb.
You are driving it at only 80W Significant loss of efficiency and flickering arc may occur. I just want to have a person with who i can talk about those issues. And have you tried to hot-restrike bulb immediatly after power off? I did that for 150W build and it caused a lot of damage to electronics and forced me to investigate and repair components. Now i'm using antenna coil around upper electrode, that drops ignition voltage to hot-restrike...
 

PolarLi

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I've had five "long" runs and a few short ones with this lamp, and so far no problems. I first tested this lamp, as it was with the glass reflector and the original antenna coil. Two 30 minutes+ runs and some short ones. I did observe voltage increase with less cooling, as you would expect. I could go from around 55 to 67-68 volt with less cooling. The voltage is still a little low, but it doesn't seem to be an issue with this one. Then I did a long run with the bare lamp after I made the new base, and now without the antenna, and got the same result.
And now I have two 30 minutes runs inside this reflector, and it's still good.
But, the ignition isn't perfect with this lamp, but it's been like that since new. No difference with or without the antenna.
The lamp always ignite immediately. But the igniter continue to run, and this make the lamp flicker 2-3 times before it stabilize. Not optimal, but it is what it is. Have never tried a hot restrike.
However, since I've been messing with UHP for a while now, I have a few different lamps. So I did try a "100/120w" lamp with this ballast. And you would think it was a better match to run at 80W, than this 180W lamp. Well, it wasn't. The 100/120 lamp flickered badly when warm, so definitely not good for this. Funnily enough, the ignition was perfect on that lamp... But I rather take some flicker the first two seconds, than constant flicker.
 
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A_L_R_O_M

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Well seems to be it's working fine.
However i would expect blackening after a while, failed tungsten-halogen cycle ( I tried to drive using automobile ballasts, it seems to be ignition causes tungsten to evaporate but due to not enough Temp it's not being transfered back) I only noticed that after checking the bulb, looking through it using light.
And the point to use antenna is only hot-restrike for me, it helps while pressure is still high. Like 35% reduction ignition
57ccd46a
The vey first 10 sec are missing, it seems to be interesting info there.
Do noticed the color shift while driving at 80W?, i just want to know is it really enough to evaporate and build high pressure.
 

PolarLi

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Have never tried this lamp on a ordinary UHP ballast, and it's hard to judge color temp by eye. But I will compare the beams on a target with the 350W UHP lamp in the Francis light when i'm done. Just waiting on a day without rain or snow, so I can do some long distance testing.
Regarding efficiency, I figured it can't be that bad. If I do throw calculation based on reflector area*luminance*reflectivity*glass transmission and compare that to my own lux readings I did on this and the Francis light with the 190w lamp, this lamp driven at 80W, has exactly the same luminance pr watt, with the same arc length, as the 190W lamp had, driven at full power. And is has 30% more luminance pr watt than the 350W, but that would be considered normal for the bigger UHP lamps.
I may be overlooking something obvious here, but feel free to correct me :poke:
 
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A_L_R_O_M

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Sorry for long response )
Time difference and tired/ill !!!
I'm trying to compare book knowledge with real experience.
http://docdro.id/TCwSx4W
It's complicated things.
I tried to power up my 200W burner with ~120W and ~200W. Measured current was 1.4 A and 2.5 A ( was higher when voltage is low ( start phase) and drops after, even on standart magnetic ballast)
Huge difference in brightness, i made a switch connecting additional ballast in parrallel ( inductive magnetic), which allows me to choose the mode.
Drop in brightness was not equal to the power drop, looks like drop in efficiency, but the good thing is that actual drop do not affect the center of luminance so much. Looks like corona and outter discharge is affected (not sure which words to use) Actually i appreciated more the 120W beam, more pencil like and more stable. ( i remember, since i pushed it to the full power the arc starts flickering, i forgot about it, sometimes it stable btw)
However i believe the failed tungsten-halogen caused blackening, it is slowly raising, since it is working, but not perfect. The very bottom and up inner arc chamber surface is not very well heated. I found in book that temperature should be within 1100K and 1400K range. Was suprised, since i believed in much lower temps.
 
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PolarLi

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So the good news is that i'm basically finished, and I got all the parts inside :thumbsup:
whpOQrL.jpg


...well, almost all the parts. I accidentally broke this power inductor off the ballast. The clearance beween the ballast and host, was so small, that tiny thing was the one that snagged :duh2:
Oh well, it only needed a small adjustment, and a new one is ordered.
cpWoXDT.jpg
 

PolarLi

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Final update, for now.

Got the part the other day, so finally is everything working:

vBnFdlj.jpg


And this is how it ended up inside. Looks pretty crammed on the pictures, but it ain't that bad. Plenty of air around all the hot parts.

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The neoprene pieces on the battery, is to force the airflow over the ballast. I have tested it with temp probes on both ballast and reflector, and nothing was hot.
I can probably slow down the fan quite a bit.

imEMVOE.jpg


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I wired the battery meter to the second button on top, so I can toggle between volt, percent or off. I connected the relay to the red LED that came with the host.

oYW3DcT.jpg

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Charging setup. I usually have the display on, so I can monitor the voltage:

UywqnuW.jpg


Front button activate the relay, that power the ballast.

JpZF5Uv.jpg


Main switch on the back:

RpQsba5.jpg


Acebeam K50v3 for scale (I didn't have any bananas :():

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Definitely a sleeper look :thumbsup:
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AREAGug.jpg



Beamshot at 104 meters:

w01zgMn.jpg


And a video that show a cold start. It take about 20 seconds to get good useable light. The last part of the video is about one minute in, when the lamp is fully warmed:

https://vimeo.com/213286050

So to sum this up, i'm overall pleased with the light. But there is of course a couple of things I would like to improve. The most important thing is a safety feature. The main switch on the back is really easy to turn on, and the momentary power switch is even easier to press. The light can be accidentally activated inside a bag under transport, with catastrophic results... To solve this, I will add another momentary switch in series with the other, so you have to press two buttons at once, to turn on the light. The other thing I would like to improve on is the color temp. There is no denying it does have a blueish tint, especially in the spill. I haven't compared it to my other UHP yet, but It's very visible side by side with a LED light. However, I can't really say I see to much blue in the hotspot, so it's no big deal. And when you pass 200-300 meters, color temp is pretty irrelevant anyway. I may try out another type of lamp, but that's not a high priority right now. The performance is otherwise great. I clocked in 6.3 Mcd yesterday with everything installed in the host, and after some ceilings bounce tests, I figured it's around 4800 lumens. I'm also very happy with the battery pack/runtime and weight. 40-50 minutes on the only setting: "turbo" and the complete light weigh 1390 gram, or 3 lb. It's obviously not the most robust thing in the world, but hey, atleast I have plenty of spare glass :naughty:
 
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A_L_R_O_M

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Very nice.
Please tell me something about bulb's life after a long period of time.
 

PolarLi

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Thanks guys!
----
Alrom, I will definitely keep you updated on the lamp. Although, I won't use the light much in the comming months, as I'm running out of darkness here in the north. One month from now, the sun won't set anymore for the rest of the summer.
Anyhow, I did do a 47 minute continuous run today, to see how the battery held up, and if I noticed any changes when the voltage dropped and the fan slowed down.
 

A_L_R_O_M

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Thank you!
If it is inteesting to you i will give you my results with different bulbs
I tried new lamp, and it's jumping arc once again.
it seems to be when current is high it's making a several connections on each electrode. And Philips patented current shape ballast is trying to keep only 1 connection to relieve arc jumps.
I'm very interested for your setup.
Will make an huge update for my project. I hope it will help for all of us. I modified it a lot.
I can now run for an hour+, my light is consuming around 17A for 9.8 v LIFEPO$ setup and nothing is blazing hot, except radiator :)
Before there was a blowing mosfets, capasicitors and almost broken ballast to to poor voltage control
 
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PolarLi

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It's definitely interesting! By the way, when you say blown mosfets and caps, was that on the power converter or on the ballast itself?
 

A_L_R_O_M

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Actually 1 ( i have 2 pieces, but i think i can repair) ruined ballast for the voltage pulses. Poor filtration, and a bit too high voltage (420-430 with some spikes around 40V sinus, terrible until i took my oscilloscope)
But blown mosfets and capacitors were only at power inverter.
Actually it is not designed well, it must be upgraded. What i did to inverter - i replaced mosfets with some IRL series 3705, not a big choice of FETs in my country.
Snabber RC connected to the drain's ( first ~ of a transformer, push-pull design)
Snabber parameters- 2 ohm resistor and 30nf capacitors(USSR works better that chinese, measured with the oscilloscope voltage spikes)
The problem is, when the upper mosfets closing it creates voltage spikes, inductivity of the transformer. And they were very high, and some high frequency ringing . Now the spikes are only a little bit higher than main voltage and absolutely no ringing. Also no ringing or spikes at 320 V powering mosfets, filtered with the coil and film capacitors. That reduced heating of the fet's greatly, but some heating still there, especially on the first low-esr silver-tantalum capacitor ( ЭТО-2 15 V 400uf). But no blazing hot surfaces. I added good radiator to the ballast radiator and installed 2 fans creating enough air blow to cool down components.
The only problem is to find very high quality bulb with the electrodes pointed exactly to each other and 0.8 true arc gap, precision portion of halogens(bromide-mercury) Extremely clear quartz glass.
And for the first run with the high power setting should be at least 30 min to reduce risk of the arc jumps and blackening.
For what happened to my bulbs is:
Only a few 2 min runs, due to no high-capacity battery setup - failed tungsteen halogen cycle.
Several attemps to strike the arc when bulb is hot, but no stable arc - off within 3-4 seconds, blackening suddenly appeared.
Due to low quality halogens and tungsten with a poor glass - overheating started in the arc chamber, quartz crystallized, consuming tungsten, mercury, whatever.
Now the tungsten-halogen cycle cannot clear the arc chamber, even after a long burst - the blackening only grows, until the bulb will fail/boom( unwanted due to very good reflector, don't want to ruin,)
The electrode shape - was flat surface, instead of original osram/philips shape. I installed new bulb and after 15 of 150W run, suddenly arc jumps appeared. I think if there will be no blackening and quartz crystallizing, i will wait until the right shape will be formed. But i'm afraid i will ruin reflector with the blown bulb. The 25$ and 6$ silver not the big deal compared with a very high quality reflector/base.



IF you want some help for the boosting your ballast... I think it can be done with the reading datasheet of controlling IC, which resistor of feedback loop to change.
But the actuall improvement must be done with the transformer, as they are almost at their critical current setting. I thought of buying some of "100W" ballasts, but i realised that i must build my own ferrit-core transformer and replace mosfets + may be IC levels can be reached so it cannot drive mosfets any higher. And the current shape is not like in philips, so flickering will appear ( it just matter of time), if 150W+ setting will be done. With your 80W setup, i think no significant arc flickering will be, due not enough current in arc to reform the electrodes. I think you found the bulb with the good portion of mercury-argon-halogens, and electrode initial shape is good so there is no flickering even if the form of automotive ballasts pulses is not perfect for our bulbs. BTW, even if the lifetime will be reduced to 300+ hours it is acceptable for us, i believe. Because each strike vaporizes tungsten ((((
 
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PolarLi

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I do keep an eye out for blackening. Don't want the lamp to pop in that reflector :crazy: If I start to see any weird behaviour, I will replace it with something else.

Last year, when the user Enderman asked for low voltage short arc solutions, I did a test with the same type of 12-380v power inverter you have, but I only tested it for 10 minutes or so.
When it comes to electronics, my knowledge is pretty basic, so a lot of what you mention, is beyond my skill level. But I did read somewhere you should have schottky diodes on the rectifier, so that's what I used. I didn't see any flicker or arc wander on that short test, but I did lose about 15% power to the lamp, so it definitely had some issues compared to when I ran it with a ordinary 380VDC powersupply. The inverter also had the same problem you had with overvoltage if I increased input voltage, so I never went any further with that setup.

7pFqZCJ.jpg
 

A_L_R_O_M

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Here is some news!
I installed new bulb, cutted from ceramic socket/reflector as you did, thank you for pointing that it can be done easily with dremel/diamond cutter , before, i was thinking to contact Phoenix wick company ( Japan)
Really 0.8-0.9 mm arc gap but electrodes are mispointed!
But it's an original lamp, since the color is different and tungsten-halogen is finally working perfect
Lamp was blackened due to ignition(wire was broken and ignition arc caused flame over insulation) But!!!!! now is clear.
And i can notice beam is better, more yellow/white (warm) on 150W!!!
So, Polar Li!!! - actually chinese non-original bulbs have a poor portions of bromides ( halogens) or whatever :(
Will upload picture of blackened old bulb after only 1 hour of use...
I'm happy, and i hope our bulbs will last long enough :)
 
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PolarLi

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So you're saying the new lamp (philips or osram?) was having misaligned electrodes, and did become black because of ignition problems, but cleared up after more use, and is now working great? Either way, it's great news that you got it to work!
And yes, there's no doubt there is quality differences between various lamps and brands. So far, I have only used lamps that comes with the reflectors. Perhaps the quality controll is overall better on those, than the "wick burners" you had issues with?
 

A_L_R_O_M

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Yeah, i get brand new Osram P-VIP 180 0.8 from BulbAmerica for 49 with shipping(within US)..
I get the wick burner out from reflector and realize that electrodes have different shape, like original ones, but misaligned too.
Actually there was a blood portion o_O, in the quartz tube, where it was broken to fit in the ceramic/cement socket, i felt like Whoooah - is it real....
I installed bulb in my NH-01 mod, but made bad soldering between HV wires and ignition arc sustained for 3 sec burning wires and caused blackening in the bulb, like it was before with the old lamps.
But after only 20 min of use arc chamber seems to be clear!
And the beam looks more like MH bulb but almost pure white with slightly warmer colors.
That's why i start thinking about chinese wick burners - they simply don't put the halogen mixture or their portions are smaller, may be they have dirty halogens.
Quality seems to be as bad as it can be, in the original chinese Osram factory, may be i was unlucky this time..
But they put halogens and electrode shape is correct, except misaligning electrodes, due to misaligned quartz tubes.
They actually have to weld 2 tubes together with the arc chamber correctly.
Anyway i will show you it :)
Just need some time...
P.S forget to say - warm up time reduced greatly. Like ~70 seconds, compared to the ~130 s before to achieve 100% and no color shift.
 
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PolarLi

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Thanks for the info. Perhaps it's still a counterfeit lamp you got, but just built with better specs, but poor assembly? Anyhow, what you said about warm up times are interesting. With the automotive ballast, this lamp is fully warmed up after 70 seconds too. I just tested this with the lux meter indoors, and filmed it while the lamp was ramping up. After 20 seconds, I have 50% output, after 40 seconds I have 75% and 100% after 70 seconds.
I also tested the 350W Francis with the real UHP ballast, and it needed 60 seconds to 50% and 110 seconds to 100%. However, the Francis light has very efficient cooling, perhaps a little too efficient... So I might have been able to reduce the warm up times a little on that one.
 
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