# Modamag's Odyssey to the Dark Side



## modamag (Dec 5, 2008)

You know guys, I'm a big fan of LED for a long time.
I made my fair share of high power incands years back but it never really put out the WOW factor.

I was playing around one day with couple of my old buddies by flashing them with my measly 180 lumens of Draco light ... WHAM! BLAM! First thing they said is wow that's bright. "What was that ... a white laser?"

We then started talking about lights. I raised the topic that incands can do couple Ks worth of lumen. They just go hum hah. Their $40 Home Depot work light can put out the same thing. Yeah it's 120 VAC and is a troll to carry around but do they care. I parted from the discussion and felt a little embarassed that I didn't "SHOW THEM A THING OR TWO WITH FLASHLIGHT"

So consulting JimH, my incand informant. (He and I have been dueling LED vs Incand war for couple years). He then pointed me to Lux's crazily most powerful incand chart.
Well I first started out seeking something in the 5K lumens range, then almost immediately they found the Osram 64657 250W doing over 15K lumens worth. Holly [email protected]$. Surely this will impress my friends. Well not really. HD also have one of those 300W HID light which puts out rediculous lumens. So I figure I won't fight the lumen war. Instead I'll fight the lux battle. :devil:

I've manage to put the 64657 inside my Colossus. With the reflector tuned to maximize human perception, we'll see what they say after seeing this.

Let me now present modamag's version of the Vaporizer.






Just the lamp ... Admire the beauty ... Well at least for you ... I was almost blinded while taking these shots and can only do so during the off cooldown period.





Camera Setting ISO800 - f/4 - 1/10s
Base image with street light I have to severely stopped down -8.00 eV my camera otherwise the next couple will be overexposed.





Camera Setting ISO800 - f/4 - 1/10s
The monster on LOW, just couple thousand lumens ... la ti dah!
BTW: This is equivalent to at least 3 or 4 Mag85 on LiIon steriods





Camera Setting ISO800 - f/4 - 1/10s
Just plain old MEDIUM





Camera Setting ISO800 - f/4 - 1/10s
Now it's on HIGH. You know I'll be getting an earful from this neighbor tomorrow. I think I faded the paint of her white car.





I'm now just a happy as her during Xmas morning.

*=== Build List ===*
Collossus Extended Body
AW's prototype high output 3-stage incand driver 
Osram 64657 250W
8x 18650 Konion VT Lithium Ion Cells fresh of the charger @ 4.15V
Artic Silver Thermal Grease @ all critical joints

It's hard to perceive how big the filament of the 64657 is. I had to use the shortest standoff screws. As you can see from the MED picture there is a dense white spot on the road.

I did couple stupid mistake when playing with the light. Not being used to the soft start feature of AW's magnificent switch, I looked down the reflector and   WHAM! <eye closed> ... <second> WHAM! (when reaction to reopen iris). I think I'll start listening to the inductor hiss from now on as a cue.

The other mistake was shining the light in the air checking for pencil beam. Well within 15 minutes I got the PD flying chopper around my house. I hope it's just a coincident. I don't want them back when I fire up my next toy.  :naughty:

So far I was able to run the light for at least 5 mins hand held w/o any problem. The reflector coating is holding up well. According to Lux it's only about 240 degrees max, so it didn't posses any problem. The coating suppose to handle 400 degrees. It's amazing the amount of IR is projected out the front. Here in CA we're having a cold spell (almost 0* C), and you can literally see the smoke puffing the moisture in front of the Borafloat lens.

It was really weird that the neck of the light (where the switch is located) is the warmest part of the light. The battery tube and head was just luke warm. I think in part due to the interlocking reflector and massive amount of surface area.

The only QUALM I have is that the cycle time is just way too long. 5 mins of play and hours of recharge. I found out that my old Wolf Eye charger that I got from my Lion Heart kit is overcharging my cells to 4.5V  At least I caught it in time, so only 1 cell is overcharge. Luckily with an old Triton @ hand I just discharge it back to 4.1V Now that Wolf Eye is heading straight for the trash tomorrow night if I can tuned it down.

I'll have to build myself a 10 bay adapter, so I can use my FMA CellPro to charge & balance in 1/2 hr, but that's another day and another project.

Check! One incand project completed now gotta get back to my spotlight project 


Thanks to JimH, LuxLuthor, and AW for the motivation and inspiration.


----------



## lctorana (Dec 5, 2008)

Awesome.


----------



## DM51 (Dec 5, 2008)

Great stuff, Jonathan! I love the idea of this super-light fading the paint on your neighbor's car.

You need a hobby charger for your cells, I think - it will work out cheaper and more staisfactory than using a bank of 2-bay ones, or very slow parallel charging using an adapter with a low-output charger. Certainly don't use the WE one - it relies on a protection circuit to terminate tha charge, so it is totally unsuitable here.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Dec 5, 2008)

Jonathan, sent PM about finalizing total. I can't wait to see these heads, and want to include it in reflector shootout.

This is going to be a legendary creation you did!!! Great pix, but I want to take a bunch when I get the parts.

You had me smiling and laughing when reading about this. Way to go ! :thumbsup:

There are some other things I want to do with this setup. Won't be able to have long run times due to heat. :devil:


----------



## JimH (Dec 5, 2008)

Congratulations, Jonathan. Great job. Welcome to the dark side ... er, actually the bright side.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Dec 5, 2008)

Just a promo that this thread uses Jonathan's Colossus sold here.


----------



## mdocod (Dec 5, 2008)

modamag said:


> I found out that my old Wolf Eye charger that I got from my Lion Heart kit is overcharging my cells to 4.5V



All the wolf-eyes chargers use cell protection to terminate the charge.

Just be thankful you didn't make the same mistake with unprotected LiCo cells eh?

Eric


----------



## Taboot (Dec 6, 2008)

The car was actually blue before you started...


----------



## karlthev (Dec 6, 2008)

Nice! Jonathan, PM to you.


Karl


----------



## BSBG (Dec 6, 2008)

Very impressive .


----------



## Rayne (Dec 6, 2008)

You probably faded the paint, melted the tires and destroyed the tint. You might have to invest in a pair of welding goggles. Nice build btw!


----------



## donn_ (Dec 7, 2008)

> AW's prototype high output 3-stage incand driver



What's the story on this? I assume this isn't the same thing as the AW soft starter?


----------



## modamag (Dec 8, 2008)

I got a little more time to play with the light today. Still have a  on my face.

I also checked out the battery state during one of the run and found the following.

33.2V --- Fresh off the charger
29.7V --- LOW mode (estimate to be 3K lumens)
28.6V --- MED mode (estimate to be 6K lumens)
26.8V --- HIGH mode (estimate to be 9K lumens)

So... do you guys think we can push 9x 18650 through this thing?

My next step is going with a 8S2P setup to minimize the voltage sag. Estimate is 29.2V under 10A draw. Really darn close to the flash point.

*donn: *

The switch is similar to the MagD incand driver. The difference is the higher max voltage and current. I believed the inductor and hexFET have been upgrade.

It does also have that flash mode which I find totally useless. IMHO it does more damage than good.


----------



## lctorana (Dec 8, 2008)

modamag said:


> 26.8V --- HIGH mode (estimate to be *9K lumens*)


 
Erm, you call this the DARK side??

What's your "normal" lighting, then? Carbon-arc lamps?


----------



## DM51 (Dec 8, 2008)

LOL! I'm adding this to The BIG Lights thread in the Threads of Interest sticky.


----------



## Daniel_sk (Dec 8, 2008)

LOL, check out the neighbor's window on the last picture - someone was watching you .


----------



## wquiles (Dec 8, 2008)

Simply amazing !!!

Looking forward to more pictures 

Will


----------



## petrev (Dec 8, 2008)

modamag said:


> . . .
> 
> I'll have to build myself a 10 bay adapter, so I can use my FMA CellPro to charge & balance in 1/2 hr, but that's another day and another project.


 
Hi MM

I believe Lux has a couple (or 3) of the Voltcraft 4-Bay charge adapters left in his stock that you could easily wire to charge 8 (or upto 12) cells at a time
Adapted for 18650 HERE

Give him a PM

Great Torch - by the way :twothumbs

Next up on the list - 12x 18650-A123 cells (or 10 or 11* AW* IMR18650)- and an Osram 64663 HLX 400W - Hyper-Colossus for the most Incan lumens in a handheld Torch ever . . . :duck:

Cheers
Pete

ps. More Pictures Please


----------



## IgNITEor (Dec 9, 2008)

modamag!

Man, that's some nice INSANE use of the infamous coiled-coil! Osram quartz seems to be the toughest around :thumbsup:. Hope you get the charge/runtime cycle where you can really use it.

Two FAA towers are 5 miles or less from my back yard, I'm sure they have my position vector'd by now for the cloud-burning I "accidently" perform.
I try my hardest to shutter things when thumping blades approach from the other side of the house. I've always wanted to figure out what channel they use and monitor that freq. to check on their plans.

Your neighbors are gonna come for you when the power goes out for awhile!!


----------



## csshih (Dec 9, 2008)

Daniel_sk said:


> LOL, check out the neighbor's window on the last picture - someone was watching you .



woah.. that's funny.


----------



## Flea Bag (Jan 12, 2009)

Will this thing beat something like the Barnburner for throw or is this more of a flood beam?


----------

