Thread: HID lighting and shooting related electronics

hi all, i repair HID and LED lighting systems as well as night vision and thermal imaging systems. if anyone needs advice etc feel free to contact me.

Hi, where are you based?

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I have a hid spot light and I checked to see how much power it sucks at the local auto sparkys as I was keen on using the likes of a kontiki battery. Smaller than a car battery. It was sucking 7. Umm amps/volts? I'm not sure of the increment. But they said I would be lucky to get an hour from one of the batteries. And to go shopping for an led spot light. Iv looked but can't find much. My question is can I get an led spot light to be as powerful as hid? I'd like to use a smaller than car battery. I'd like maybe 6- 8 hours run time. Normally I'd use my hid on a 12 volt quad bike but I want to use it on a 6 volt two wheeled bike.
And ideas?

stretch: in good old shaky town, christchurch
bully:the average draw on a 35watt HID is approx 4amps. 35 watts of energy is consumed in the discharge tube and the rest is dissipated as heat in the inverter.
LED hunting lights have come a long way but are still to diffused to concentrate a good pencil beam. you can get 6 volt to 12 volt converters online and they work pretty well. try battery cell or battery masta to see if you can get some decent lithium batteries as they dont weigh much and have a good output.

Oh thanks! I will look at an inverter. Didn't really think of that. Or if anything 12 to 6 volt not 6 to 12.

no problems bully just make sure you take care of your lithium batteries and use the correct charger. they are very dangerous to charge with a lead acid charger and will light up like an inferno!

I'm running my 35 Watt HID off a 16000mAh 4s (14.4volt) Lipo battery. Its small, and relatively light compared to a car battery or Gel Cell.

Run time is in the order of 5 hours.

Previous to getting the HID, I was using LED spotlights. All I can say is that the LED brigade still have a long way to go to match the throw of these HID spotlights.

quentin: agree with the LED situation but they are getting better so maybe in a year or 2 they will be great. at present quite diffuse and ok at short range but lack the "startle an look at me" on bunnies.
the Lipo batteries are great, sometime a white back there were potassium batteries that were small, light and had huge output capacity. problem was that they generally ran at 60-80 degrees C and if one leaked on you it was both heat and chemical burns.

pm me if you want to advertise here buddy

Yeah the 6 to 12 volt converters arnt cheap.

no bully definately not cheap but if you get one from aliexpress etc not that bad either maybe a couple of hundred which if you spotlight frequently isnt that bad

A de-domed Maxtoch is not too far behind an HID @bully. A couple of spare pairs of 18650's in your pocket will give you 5 hours or more.

Originally Posted by gadgetman

A de-domed Maxtoch is not too far behind an HID @bully. A couple of spare pairs of 18650's in your pocket will give you 5 hours or more.

Thanks. I did think of that. And I still might. I just like the idea of endless power. Like straight to a vehicle battery. I will think about it. At least I have a few options now.

Welcome Gonetropo.