I finally finished the 1000W xenon searchlight project that I started earlier this year. The power supply is a slightly modified arc welder coupled with an automotive ignition coil for the starting pulse. benkrasnow.blogspot.com
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25 Responses to “1000W xenon arc lamp built into DIY searchlight housing”
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@saddork Thanks for tips!
@bkraz333 All iron powder torroids I’ve seen are yellow. Also if it was an output choke, it has to be iron powder. Another giveaway is it heating up. Iron powder cores have high loss, but are cheaper than gapped ferrite.
@saddork You may be right. How can you tell just from looking at it?
@bkraz333 That core is iron powder, not ferrite
My torch can do that.
WOW that bright!
very nice video, interesting, get another one built and do the fox searchlights thing.
@bkraz333 wow… you are lucky lol XD
@Termi87ITA I found it at a local surplus sale. It was very inexpensive since the seller (and I, at the time) didn’t really know what it was.
Where did you find the high wattage xenon arc lamp
I would point this to my douchebag neighbor who always complain about the smallest problem.
Well I didn’t understand a bloody word you said in the video, but that thing is cool as hell.
@LFMcLaren It’s true the original inductor used 3 strands of enameled 14AWG (or similar) wire. This might help lower the effect of skin resistance a little, but I think most of the heat is generated in the ferrite core itself due to eddy current and hysteresis losses. I haven’t done a careful study, but it seems to me the wire doesn’t get as hot as the core.
The original toroid inductor has got litz wire on it warped around it. I’m guessing you new one does not which would cause it to heat up due to an increased resistance from the skin effect.
I tried the bat signal idea a couple nights ago and found a problem with my mirror. I bought the parabolic mirror from Edmund Scientific, but it turns out that the shape is not a perfect parabola. It has a slight discontinuity in the curve, and so the searchlight output beam is not perfectly collimated. When I place something (like a bat-shaped piece of wood) in front of the searchlight, the beam just becomes a little dimmer without holding the shape. I need a more perfect parabolic mirror.
You need to add a Stainless Steel Trough Mirror (google it) to the inside of your can to increase reflectivity.
BAT LIGHT PLEASE :]
@5lkk True. I feel kind of iffy around both on their own though hehe. I prefer to stick to logic level signals. At least they don’t hurt when you mess up
@treborrrrr But in this project while there is high voltage low current circuit & a low voltage high current circuit, there is no high voltage high current circuit.
Teehee kickass
please, please, please DO A BAT SIGNAL
I wish I had the balls to play around with high current and voltage. Great job.
great explanation of how it works
Awesomeness in a trash can
I like this a lot. As a kid I remember being enamored with the huge rotating spotlights used to promote events at night.