| Psionic |
I found this auction on ebay, its for a 1000w metal halide bulb/ballast and reflector. I dont think the reflector is any good, but it may do until I can fabricate my own.
Here is the link to the auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...gory=26219&rd=1
His ebay ID is lytman, for when this auction is deleted.
He will sell these MH kits for $80 each, with $47 shipping to Canada. Shipping to USA will obviously be alot cheaper.
Send him an email, he will sell one to you.
What do you guys think? Should I buy? |
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| Video Freak |
| Um for what it is that would be a good deal. However, you would have to run a seperate circut to poerate that by itself, and its still not a point light source, so in short good deal but not for our purposes. Now, if you wanted to start a side buisness growing pot im sure that would be quite sunny. LOL JK " there is no hope with dope" LOL just had to say that. |
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| Psionic |
| With a custom reflector, how is that not a point light source? |
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| bitbyter |
| In larger metal halide bulbs the arc gap is about two inches across. Even when you have a proper reflector the smallest focal point you are going to get is about a two inch diameter. All the reflector does is take most of the light available and concentrate it into one spot, about the size of the original arc gap. I actually used a huge reflector and 400W MH bulb (the large vareity) in my first design. It worked well but the projector was just to big overall. I think 400W provides plenty of brightness but your lcd's contrast is more important in my opinion. |
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| Psionic |
| 400W wont produce enough light for 16' |
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| Video Freak |
| was that phrased in a question? produce enough light for 16' ............................16 foot image you mean? No sad to say,wish but it wouldnt. |
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| Bigg'un |
How's about these guys, I don't care about size, just quality of final image, it could be as large as a beer fridge for all I care :)
http://www.auroralighting.ca/lighting.html Canadian Dollars too yay. |
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| telemonster |
I too have been seeking a solution to build a very high output homebrew projector. My goal was a 10' wide rear projected screen (I wanted to build a portable "tent" to take to computer shows to run videos on).
You can see my notes here: <BR>
http://wiki.757.org/doku.php?id=pro...rhead_projector
<BR>
I'm in the same boat that I don't care about size, and I don't care about power draw. My laser system eats 3 phase / 208vac @ 30 amps per leg and can still trip the breaker.
One lamp:
HMI 2500W/GS $299.00
6000
500 hours
240000 lumens
Arc Length: 14mm
The thing I'm running into is the ballasts for these wierd bulbs are hard to come by. |
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| Squalish |
A rear projector has significant picture problems at this time, due to the screen material.
Could you consider a ceiling-mounted front projector?
That 2.5kw bulb is overkill, IMO, especially noting that it's going to cost you probably a dollar an hour to run the thing, along with replacing it every <500 hours and cleanup when it bursts. |
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| telemonster |
Well I found real rear projection screen material via eBay. It's about $230 for enough to do a 10' (or was it 12') wide 16:9 ratio display.
For that application rear projection is best. However, it would be awesome to be able to do outdoor movies... invite friends over and what not. Except the bugs that the light source will attract :-)
There is a 1500 watt version of the bulb as well, so that is an option if 2500 is way over the top.
My issues are:
#1, the ballast. Can I use the same type of ballast that is used to drive long arc 1500 watt MH lamps that are used for say, warehouse lighting? If not, the only ballasts are those from the photography world
#2, cooling. The LCD panel is going to be absorbing a ton of heat. Would it even be possible to cool a LCD panel? I figure a hot/cold mirror would definitly be used. The entire thing would be cooled by several high rpm blowers like those used on small frame argon lasers.
The output from the 400 watt projectors looks really nice, so I'm guessing 1500 would probably be enough.
My other train of thougt was to take a commercial DLP projector, and modify it to feed the light from a 1500 or 2500 watt bulb into it. These units are going to have good cooling already, so by forcing 30 times more air thru the thing, would that keep the optics cool enough? |
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| telemonster |
I should comment that my intended use for the rear projection setup is more trade shows / parties / outdoor type of use, not for an indoor home theater. I own a CRT projector, and am looking at building a 400 watt HID LCD projector for my office so I can leave computer data up on the wall without worrying about bulb life :-)
I had the idea of using steel pipe and handrail couplings to build a semi portable "tent" that has the screen ont he front, and is covered on the other sides. A first surface mirror setup could be used to reduce the throw distance needed. Imagine a really large rear projection set. |
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| Squalish |
Idea: If you're unconcerned about size, you could use a large-arc bulb at half the focal length of a very large fresnel (1m pavement-burners you can buy at alltronics for ~$50-$100), and at the other end, after the rays have crossed, use a smaller fresnel to collimate it.
This would make the effective arc length that the lcd sees much less, at the expense of making your projector VERY big (At this point, we're talking a dresser-sized vertical setup with a mirror at the top).
Also, you could bend a precondensor fresnel slightly to correct for the fact that you're projecting a line instead of a point. |
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| Squalish |
If the arc length is 2" long, when you use a fresnel that's 50" wide to project onto a 12" wide collector fresnel/LCD, you bring the effective arc length down to a little under 1/2".
You could also try some kind of very-close-to-the-bulb thick precondensor to bend the light enough that it crosses, which I THINK would be a pointsource - am I correct here? |
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| telemonster |
That $300 2500 watt bulb had an arc length of 14mm ... that is a short arc lamp, correct?
Would there be problems (outside of all the heat issues) with using that bulb in a setup similiar to the normal 15" diag LCD / fresnel lens set?
12' wide/9' tall ? (4:3) using 1200 watt to 2500 watt light source. Should be very bright as well... 14mm arc length, 1500/2500 watt bulb?
There is a 1200 watt version of the lamp, used in followspots and such. Cheaper, at about $130 for 750 hours. 100vac, 1200 watt, 90CRI Haven't found the arc length of the bulb (HMI 1200W/GS) |
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| Squalish |
In theory, yes...
I'm just sort of dismissing short-arc bulbs for my personal use because of the high UV output, the amount of focused forced air cooling needed, the replacement annoyance, and the short life/large cost.
I would judge 1.5kw to be more than adequate for a 12 ft screen, btw, especially if you use a short-arc bulb.
It's equivalent luminance(assuming equal lumens/watt) as using a 400 watt MH bulb on a 75" screen, which is just above the point where the screen becomes uncomfortably bright for some people. |
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| telemonster |
Okay the 1200 watt version is more affordable (I edited my earlier post with more information). Brings the cost down to something like 33 cents per hour. I looked up a professional 10,000 lumens DLP unit and the replacement bulb is 3,300 euros... for 1000 hours! The projector is insanely expensive on the used market even.
So if I dump the UV/IR using a cold mirror (or hot mirrror), will that greatly reduce the issue of the LCD turning black from heat? The 1200 watt bulb info was talking about how unfortunately you still have to have some sort of fan to cool it. Doesn't sound like it is going to be that hard to cool. The harder part will be finding a ballast setup.
It would be awesome to be able to project 20' wide. For greater throw distance, does the triplett lens just have to come farther away from the output fresnel? I had anticipated using a design like the ones with the drawer slides, only perhaps using electric screwdriver guts and a threaded rod to add some motorization to the setup. |
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| Squalish |
For greater distances, you just need to move the physical projector back or forward. AFAICT that there's a point(a distance away from the fresnel) that the triplet is focused, and you need a varifocal triplet to have even a small amount of headroom with zooming.
I highly recommend that you check out the Lumenlab forums(You buy their guide / subscribe) - big repository of information on a workable design.
Have you thought about a reflector yet?
You DEFINITELY need some cooling in anything with a tenth that wattage, and hopefully you'd make it out of aluminum + steel. I'm thinking that for 1kw plus, a decent centrifugal blower is going to be required, with good air movement over the LCD as well as the bulb assembly and the mirror (If the mirror will even take that much heat). One of the things that scared me about the small arc bulbs was that their spec sheets generally REQUIRE a few ft/second of forced air cooling, and delivering that consistantly focused on the bulb is difficult.
edit: Reflector that MIGHT fit a BT56 bulb: 4.2quart Norpro: http://www.life-ease.com/gripbowls.html |
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| Bigg'un |
| Word of caution, my cheap (doallar store ladle) discoloured after a short period of time with my 500 watt halogen. May not be that big a problem as a 400 watt HQI likely has a much lower heat output. |
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| telemonster |
Okay, the reason i mentioned focus is I would figure the farther away from the screen the projector is, the more room for adjustment needed for the focus.
My next issue is this... Ballast for the lamp. I found this multitap magnetic ballast that delivers 1500 watts:
http://www.businesslights.com/produ...&products_id=55
Then there is the bulb:
http://www.bulbconnection.com/ViewI...%2FGS/item.html
The ballast is targeted towards a commercial MH lamp (think warehouse lights). I can't find a definitive answer on the proper ballast for use with the HQI lamp.
If those two will work together, then the only issue to really solve is one of heat.
I could probably use 4000cfm AC fans and a blower for the lamp house.
It HAS to be metal, there is a risk if the bulb pops that fragments could ignite material around it. I will probably try to make a lamphouse in the box, with aluminum pipe going to blower to suck off the hot air. |
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| Squalish |
I'm thinking something quieter - a ~1 sone 100cfm (which nonetheless has a much, much higher capacity for moving air against pressure than a casefan) inline ventillation duct blower.
Maybe a reflector would be too hard to put together for this - matching the placement of <5mm areas you can't see in three dimensional space is going to be... difficult.
Biggun', the spoon discolored or the bulb? I linked a bowl that should be a solid steel hemisphere with a diameter of ~25cm.
Re the ballast, I'll look into it, but I doubt that a short arc lamp can be run off a ballast intended for a long arc lamp - the voltages just don't work out the same way over different distances. |
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| telemonster |
If the reflector was mounted ina manner that it could be adjusted... the way the club lights work is the reflector is mounted solid, then the bulb (MSR-400 / MSR-700) is adjusted.
There are studio lights that use these bulbs (HMI 1200W/GS) and ballasts that go with them.... Not sure what the prices are like. I tried to go after a setup to runa MSR-1200, but missed it. |
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| Squalish |
Okay, the 'huge fresnel for smaller arc' idea has been scrapped, and I'm abandoning long-arc 1kw bulbs.
After spending 3 hours figuring out a good layout, and then re-trying it with dual lightsources to represent the non-point sourcitude, I'm gonna scrap this idea - negative fresnels to collimate the light kill the effect, and I think you could probably get the same number of lumens for the same lumen/arclength ratio, which is relatively constant for 400w->1kw.
To clarify: The arc length is about proportional to the wattage and lumens, in most reasonable life bulbs. The 400w bulbs lumenlabs use have an arc length of around 25mm, the ones I was looking at were around 70-80mm for 1000w. The problem is that no matter how I toyed with a fresnel, the arc length seems to be about inversely proportional to how much light is usable at the triplet. Playing with fresnels just allowed me to accelerate the rejection of off-axis light that distance alone could get me, but which also hurts lumen output even more.
New priority is a low arc length 400w(One of the high CRI HQIs probably) or a <750w low arc length / long life bulb if I can find it. |
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| telemonster |
There are literally tons of shorter arc length lamps.
Single ended, MSR-700 and MSR-1200. The life on them is about 1000 hours though.
The bulb I'm looking at is the HMI 1200W/GS. Arc length is something like 24mm, 110,000 lumens. Going to need a cold mirror though, that is going to be a pain.
The really difficult part is finding a ballast. Early on I was hoping I Could use one of those cheap 2000 watt long arc bulbs, but everyone said it wouldn't work so I abandoned the idea.
I sent an email off to get a quote on this ballast:
http://www.warnerpower.com/pdf/HMIMSR1200_1.pdf
It is for driving the 1200 watt HMI and MSR bulbs. My goal is to be able to drive up to 16' wide image (outdoors or rear projection indoors at trade shows and such). I have bad feelings about cooling the LCD though. |
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| Squalish |
I need something with a long life. I intend to use this as my main computer monitor, many hours a day.
Find me something with an arc length <15mm that's in the range of >400w and <1000w, has decent color temp(4k-6.5k) and costs less than 2 cents/hour in bulb replacement costs, and you get a cookie :) |
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| telemonster |
I don't think you will find anything with those specs :-(
Is there really problems with arc lengths over 15mm?
Like 24mm? :-) |
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| Squalish |
Not at all, but generally, arc length and wattage are roughly proportional. Or rather, wattage * ratedlife is proportional to arc length, usually.
Although OSRAM xenon XBO lamps would probably be ideal (They're the premier movie theater bulbs), they're too short-lived.
I'm looking at the OSRAM Powerstar HQI bulbs now, and I like what I see, but their spec sheets + availability for this particular product are terrible(and they're one of the better companies in this regard).
They have 1000 watt bulbs with a 31mm arc length with excellent CRI, color temperature, and lumen output, that I have a hunch are decently long-life, but can't find the rated hours or anywhere to buy them - they're supposedly used as stadium/architechtural(sp?) directional lighting. This may mean that their only avenue for selling these is an agent that does bulk orders :(
Their US agent, OSRAM Sylvania (Oddly, I can't tell if they're a rebrander or a rebrander+competitor), may or may not carry their upper end HQI series, I havn't been able to find out yet.
Keep in mind with your lamp that it's most likely at dangerously high pressure - don't drop it, or you'll need exploratory surgery to remove the quartz shards. |
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| telemonster |
Nice lamp choice... interesting!!
I saw this brochure before but I believe I thought the arc length was too long.
From http://www.osram.com/pdf/service_co...star_hqi_pi.pdf
Powerstar HQI-TS 1000W / NDL/S
1000 Watt
90000lm
arc lenth 32mm
color temp 5800k
HQI-TS 1000/D/S
1000 Watt
90000lm
32mm arc
5900K color temp
Both 2000 watt versions are 4400/4100k.
H1KDS seems to be part #
I can't seem to find hours, or US prices. The UK prices seem to be cheap. I mean, if the bulb only costs $150 USD and lasts a long number of hours.... It might be perfect for my 12'-16' wide projector project. |
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| telemonster |
Nice! Watch out, the 2000 watt versions have a much lower color temperature.
Will this run on a standard industrial 1000 watt ballast? |
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| telemonster |
Uh oh:
http://catalog.myosram.com/srvc/z_m...TM1ODUwMjIyMjE=
50hz??
Eye Lighting had some lamps that were perfect, although ballast was expensive. Short arc, and 2500 watts. Not availible in US, Japan only.
Something about still needing to get a fixture approved. |
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| Squalish |
They have the transformers, capacitors, igniters, and frames available seperately on the osram sylvania catalog site, but no extended info on any of them, nor places to buy them.
Osram Sylvania: Business lighting section has an email inquiry pending re availability, response should be 1-2 days. My record with actually getting manufacturer responses on product information is about 50/50, but I presume that they should be responsive since I'm asking where I can buy their products. |
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| telemonster |
Awesome. I got a reply this morning from warnerpower.com, who makes ballasts to drive 1200 watt HMI and MSR lamps.
Sticker shock, I must say:
-------------------------------------+
Ethan,
Thank for you for your interest in Warner Power. The ballast you are looking for
is our part number 70-004710. This ballast requires a separate ignitor, part
number 50-002900. Lead time and pricing are below:
70-004710 $1,959 6 weeks ARO
50-002900 $226 6 weeks ARO
Please contact Kathy Bolduc at the email above if you would like to place an order.
-----------------------------------+
Yowsers. |
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| Squalish |
:)
| quote: | | Thank you for contacting Sylvania concerning OSRAM products. Osram, our parent company , has a separate product line. You may inquire about Osram's product through their authorized dealer in the US Bulbtronics. Their toll free number is 1 800 624 2852 |
I found the HQI-T on their website, but I'm not sure if this is the long arc version or what.
The prices... I'm not sure if they're for the case or for the bulb. I'll have to call.
The HQI-1000-T (not TS) is "Unit(1) price: $723." In that column it says "Case qty 1," "Mast qty 6," "Pkg qty 0."
The HQI-2000-TS is "Unit(1) price: $979," "Case qty 1," "Mast qty 10," "Pkg qty 0."
Is there any chance you actually go through with $2k on a ballast? All rationality tells me someone wouldn't, but then again, you wanted to pay $300 for a 750 hour bulb :) |
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| telemonster |
No way, could never drop that kind of $$ for a ballast. I could get a used club light from eBay and pull the ballast out of there. Evidentially a MSR-1200 ballast will run the HQI-1200.
I like the idea of $100 ballast, $300 bulb for 750 hours, 16' wide display :-) But I'm not sure if it's realistic.
MSR-1200 + ballast might be the most economical solution, as MSR-1200 bulbs can be had for $100 and do 1200 watts @ 750 hours. |
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| Squalish |
According to an argentinean spec sheet, the HQI-T has a 50mm arc gap.
On a british vendor's catalog, the HQI-TS 1000 D/L is $743 :( And no mention of quantity. |
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| Squalish |
It took a while, but I've finally nailed down ballast+igniter for the HQI-TS 1000w/d/s:
| quote: |
Recommended products if used in a 60Hz environement:
- OGLIS 1000W140 220-240 V 60Hz 20880891
- ZRM 12 ES/D 22082268
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| quote: |
Below please find the requested information.
Material number - 20880891
Description - OGLIS1000W 140 220-240/60
Quantity - 1
Price - 157.59 USD each
Availability - stock, Norcross (Atlanta), Georgia
Material number - 22082268
Description - ZRM 12-ES/D
Quantity - 1
Price - $75.78 USD each
Availability - 4 weeks
* There is a $50.00 minimum for each order.
* UPS ground shipping to any continental US or Canadian locations is included in the price of the product.
* For the first order, we require prepayment, payment by credit card (Visa or MasterCard) or C.O.D.
* To place an order, please fax a purchase order with the ship to, bill to, sold to information along with a copy of your sales tax exempt certificate (if applicable).
* Validity of quote 3 months
Please let us know if you need additional information or can be of further assistance. Thank you for your interest in Tridonic products.
Best regards,
Christine Anderson
Tridonic, Inc.
4405 International Blvd.
Suite B113
Norcross, GA 30093
770-717-0556 x 201
770-717-7969 - fax
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As well as either a 240v circuit or a 120v-240v convertor of suitable wattage, which should run me I think $80, and the 50uf high-voltage(need to find out how high) capacitor.
With this much spent, I'd probably be hurting myself if I didn't find a decent elliptical reflector, which should dramatically increase light output. |
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