# New Short Arc Heavy Iron in My Inventory - AEG XSW30U (E) German Leopard 1 Tank Light



## BVH (Aug 6, 2017)

On May 15, using information kindly provided by CPF Member PolarLi, I began searching for an AEG XSW 30 U German Leopard 1 Tank light. On May 16, I hit pay dirt. A company in Germany had a fully functioning light, Control Box, Remote Controller, all cables and a power supply for sale. I excitedly emailed them and got the reply that “they cannot sell to an individual, only a company”. Not to be deterred, I emailed back that I have a company name and would that do? They said yes and so began the long process of getting the light here. It took about 8 weeks for the company to obtain an export license. Then another week for actual shipping and finally, another two weeks to hire a Customs Broker to take the shipment through Customs and deliver it to my door. And wouldn’t you know it, the day that the package arrived, I had to make a short trip to Utah so I wasn’t able to “play” until this last Thursday night.

The light itself is 14” x 14” x 22” long and it is quite a bit heavier than the VSS-3a. It has electrically opening shielding doors on the front, electrically open and closable half-circle IR filter doors that pivot over the clear glass front window from inside the case and the light is two-position focusable. There is a re circulation cooling fan in the light but no outside cooling air is used. No heat exchanger which is surprising. I would guess that the relatively low power level of 450 Watts coupled with a large volume, high mass, heavy-weight case allows for only recirculated air to be enough. So far, after a 25 minute run, the fan has not stayed on after the run. It sure is scary turning off the light after a long run and not hearing a cooling fan at work. I keep waiting to hear the "explosion". The reflector is about 11” in diameter. The coating on the reflector is also in excellent condition. The light utilizes a Retro-Reflector to reflect forward shining light back into the main reflector. There is a total of 4 slide out handles – two pivot-out handles in the back and two slide-out handles on the bottom. The light is in excellent condition with some normal use scuff marks in the paint. No dings, no dents, no damage of any kind. The only issue I have noted is that the Light-to-Controller cable connection at the controller has a loose pin fit so it has to be wiggled a bit for the connection to be made. I may look into new connectors.

The controller box/ballast is also quite heavy and contains a DC to DC Converter to provide regulated current to the lamp regardless of input Voltage which ranges from 23.5 to 30 Volts. There are no easy access Voltage measurement points on the input or output so measuring actual input and output power of this particular light will have to wait until I can rig up something. I did measure 29 Input Amps and the unloaded Power Supply Voltage was right at 27. If I use those figures for total Input power, then she’s consuming about 785 Watts. That is right In-Line with the maximum and minimum Watts power consumption I listed below in the Technical Specs. With a DC to DC converter being used to regulate the light, an overhead of 350 Watts to run all the other “stuff” seems pretty inefficient to me. The controller/ballast also contains resettable circuit breakers and the front shielding doors open/close toggle switch. This unit is also in excellent condition.

The Remote Control contains the “System On” toggle, Pilot light for "Visible Light" , “Lamp On” toggle and pilot light, Tight and Wide focus toggle and pilot light and the IR/Visible protected toggle switch. The white plastic has yellowed and I’m hoping it will clean up. The panel faceplate is in very good condition. The cable sheathing is not original, too short and looks like someone may have re-wired it at some point. All the toggle switches are very firm in their action.

The power supply looks to be a military unit that came from some other source as the light was originally powered by the tanks' electrical system. It’s a 24 Volt/1200 Watt unit powered from 230 VAC, 50/60 Hz. A cooling fan was retrofitted into the side of the case in sort of a Mickey Mouse fashion. It is in average condition overall. EDIT: I no longer use this power supply. It was not providing sufficient power to achieve 1st or second strike ignition. Sometimes, I could not ignite the lamp after a dozen strikes.

ADDED
Technical Specs/Information:

Light Intensity - 30,000,000 cp in Spot Mode, 5,000,000 cp in Spread Beam
Light Beam Angle: 1.2 degrees in Spot Mode, 1.8 degrees in Spread Beam
Power Consumption: 24 VDC - 700 Watts Max, 29.5VDC - 950 Watts Max
Lamp Wattage: 450 Watts


Observed Performance:

The beam and spot produced by this light is phenomenal! Think “Maxabeam” but on Super Steroids. The beam is tighter than my VSS-3a, which up until now, was my tightest beam Heavy Iron light. The pics below show the flood beam and then the spot beam. Both are 1.07-mile/1885 Yard shots of the top of a hill. I would guess the beam hotspot is about 50-70 feet in diameter at the 1.07 mile distance. When I fired it up and shone it on the target, I was really amazed at the brightness, clarity and definition of the spot on the hill. I snapped some shots and then decided to toggle to “flood”. Was I ever surprised to find that I was already in “flood”. (I don’t read German) So…..I toggled to “spot” and….. Holy Moley….Maxabeam on Steroids! It was difficult to believe what I was seeing. As with the Maxabeam spot at long distances, I could not make out what was being illuminated because the spot is too tiny but I have zero doubt that if I was up there with the "Times" in my hand, I could easily read it.




























































The amount of light on the hill in this video is quite a bit less than what I actually saw thru my Ziess Binoculars. The pic below is a much better representation.



A 12X zoom shot: The amount of light on the peak 1.07 Mi distant is very representative of what I actually saw thru my 7X Ziess binoculars but the beam itself is too bright.




A medium Zoom shot




Another No Zoom shot





This is not my image but shows the reflector and lamp mounting system. Tthe front dome shaped item is a retro-reflector. The image was taken by Frederik on the Militarfahrzeugforum Forum.


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## nfetterly (Aug 6, 2017)

Always enjoy reading about your finds and usually the work required to get it going. This looks pretty wild.


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## sledhead (Aug 6, 2017)

Another spectaculiar light and resurrection. The hassle you went through to get that beast is to be admired! 

Those fans are singing!!


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## Str8stroke (Aug 6, 2017)

Wow. Cool score and impressive persaverance on your part. I can only imagine how much coin it took to get that puppy to your door! Any guess as to what year (or time frame) this light was produced? 

I am not sure what is more impressive, that light or your Snap On box! lol 

Thanks for sharing.


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## BVH (Aug 6, 2017)

That Snap-On box was purchased in about 1982 when I turned wrenches for a living. Still one of the best purchases I ever made. There is no tool that feels as good in the hand as a Snap-On, in my humble opinion. The light, shipping from Germany, Customs fee and Customs Broker fees totaled about $2,300. I would guess this was a later light - (E) Series? and maybe somewhere between 1970 and 1975? EDIT: I just noticed the "BJ 83" with the "83" being in a box on the Controller panel. I wonder if the "83" is the year of manufacturer/year built. I did a couple English to German translations on Google and German words beginning with B and J came up a few times, but not together. So maybe it's an 83 vintage.


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## Dave D (Aug 9, 2017)

Another excellent addition to the collection!! :twothumbs


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## BVH (Aug 9, 2017)

I just got lucky and scored the complete operation and maintenance manual - a 17MB PDF for the light unit. Only catch is that it's in German. That will slow me down a bit and make the fun last longer!

The light does utilize a retro-reflector in front of the lamp to shine forward projecting light back into the main reflector. I bet that has a lot to do with how fantastically this light throws such a small beam and spot. I'd like to get the specs on the lamp to see what the arc gap is.

WOW! This manual is a 17 MB PDF and super detailed down to component level testing, full electrical schematics showing each PC Board population with values for resistors etc and is 575 pages long.


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## BVH (Aug 9, 2017)

As I go through the giant manual and find specs and other interesting info, I will update my first post in an effort to keep all the data in one place for those that may come after me with one of these great lights. In some cases, it may add to the post, in others, it might change wording in the original post such as finding that there is a fan in the light. I changed my wording in the original post.

Technical data added to 1st post.


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## get-lit (Aug 9, 2017)

Very cool find! I look forward to studying it once I get back from vacation.

The manual could be translated to English. There's online OCR (optical character recognition) tools that generate text from PDF scans.
That text could then be translated with Google translate. But at least the drawings are in English :thumbsup:


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## BVH (Aug 9, 2017)

I've been looking into the scanned PDF with OCR option earlier today.. And of course the one I looked at said "OCR function is down now, please try again a little later".


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## PolarLi (Aug 12, 2017)

Just back from vacation, and I see this :twothumbs Great find!


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## BVH (Aug 26, 2017)

Alexander over at the German flashlight forum has one of these lights and made a thread some years ago. He has great pics of the insides of all the components.

http://www.taschenlampen-forum.de/threads/xsw-30-zielscheinwerfer-vom-leopard-1.23189/

From day one, when I would flip the ignition switch, it would take a few strikes to ignite and while striking, fan motor noise would pulsate quite a bit. Come to find out that the power supply that came with the light was failing somewhat. I made some new input cable adapters to run the light off my 100 Amp, 29 Volt (set for a loaded 27.7 Volts) Reltec Rectifier and I now have immediate ignition and no Voltage sag/fan noise pulsations. I'm much happier with the light now. I thought the lamp might have been worn to the edge of being able to strike.


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## BVH (Sep 2, 2017)

I added two videos and 3 pics at the bottom. Managed to get a 12X zoom shot that turned out very representative of what I saw.


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## flipperwald (Oct 8, 2017)

I'm trying to get one of these to work. What is the polarity of the 24v input on the controller?


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## BVH (Oct 8, 2017)

flipperwald said:


> I'm trying to get one of these to work. What is the polarity of the 24v input on the controller?



In my 10th pic of the connectors on the controller, the large connector on the bottom right with the large male pin in the center is the Positive input.


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## flipperwald (Oct 9, 2017)

Thanks!


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## 169045 (Apr 13, 2020)

Hi all 
I have just got one of these lights and power boxes 
Is there any one who has a electrical drawing for one ? 
Some things work but others don’t , 
Cheers 
Adrian


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## 169045 (Apr 13, 2020)

BVH said:


> I just got lucky and scored the complete operation and maintenance manual - a 17MB PDF for the light unit. Only catch is that it's in German. That will slow me down a bit and make the fun last longer!
> 
> The light does utilize a retro-reflector in front of the lamp to shine forward projecting light back into the main reflector. I bet that has a lot to do with how fantastically this light throws such a small beam and spot. I'd like to get the specs on the lamp to see what the arc gap is.
> 
> WOW! This manual is a 17 MB PDF and super detailed down to component level testing, full electrical schematics showing each PC Board population with values for resistors etc and is 575 pages long.



Any chance of a copy if still available ?


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## BVH (Apr 13, 2020)

Make a few more posts so you can PM me your email address. I can send the original German language PDF manual and a version that is somewhat translated into English. Towards the end, there are some wiring and cable diagrams that might help you.


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## BVH (Apr 13, 2020)

Or post your email here temporarily and then edit it out after I send the pdf.


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## 169045 (Apr 13, 2020)

BVH said:


> Or post your email here temporarily and then edit it out after I send the pdf.



Sounds like a plan 
[email protected]

i have it mounted on my tank and plan to use it with the active Ir the tank has


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## XeRay (Apr 13, 2020)

169045 said:


> Sounds like a plan
> [email protected]
> 
> i have it mounted on my tank and plan to use it with the active Ir the tank has



Wow you have a tank !! And I thought I was ready for the zombie apocalypse !


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## 169045 (Apr 13, 2020)

Yeah Mate 
picked up a wrecked m5/1 Australian centurion and upgraded the engine form a m60 Patton like the idf and Swedish did


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## Kestrel (Apr 13, 2020)

Remember that line in 'Tremors', when Michael Gross was asked what he had cannon fuse for ?

When I think why some people on CPF would have a tank light, lovecpf


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## Kestrel (Apr 13, 2020)

I'm thinking that the rest of us, would /really/ like pics now.


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## 169045 (Apr 13, 2020)

Kestrel said:


> I'm thinking that the rest of us, would /really/ like pics now.


 
https://youtu.be/Qled4WJl4go

https://youtu.be/bf-Z-WBCeFc


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## BVH (Apr 13, 2020)

Great to see another one of these lights up and running! What are the issues with your light?


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## XeRay (Apr 14, 2020)

That's cool, don't you need to keep the barrel out of the dirt ? Or does it have a cap ? Either way, wouldn't it be best to raise the barrel up when going through a deep ditch to keep it from digging into the ground ?
Do you have any artillery rounds to go with it ?


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## 169045 (Apr 14, 2020)

XeRay said:


> That's cool, don't you need to keep the barrel out of the dirt ? Or does it have a cap ? Either way, wouldn't it be best to raise the barrel up when going through a deep ditch to keep it from digging into the ground ?
> Do you have any artillery rounds to go with it ?



Its fully bombed up 
64 main rounds 
2000 50 cal 
8000 30 cal 

in the vid it looks like the barrel hits the Ground it never does


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## XeRay (Apr 15, 2020)

Is there a cap over the barrel to keep dirt etc out, when not in use ?


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## 169045 (Apr 15, 2020)

XeRay said:


> Is there a cap over the barrel to keep dirt etc out, when not in use ?


 Yes it has a canvas cover or a rubber cap


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## DoctorMemory (Apr 17, 2020)

Cool.


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