Hi - have some photos of comparison of the 10watt halogen and the 10watt HID along side each other.
Shots were taken a few minutes apart using Canon A540. Manual mode, 1.5 sec exposure, F 2.6. Conditions were identical.
The bike in the scene is 35' away and the white fence about 50' away.
The photos are at the bottom of the page.
The HID is obviously considerably brighter.
Hi,
I am nearing completion on the ballast for a home brew hid lamp using the Welch Allan bulb (10w). THought I would share a few pics of the proto types that I have traversed along with the first version of packaging for combo light of two mr16 lights, one HID, one LED. The concept is LED for climbs, HID for descent. Where I ride we only have long continuous ascents followed by the descent.
As has been mentioned here in the past, the HID ballast is an interesting and time consuming challenge. Lets just say that what started out as a quick project to avoid the purchase of a $500. lamp has turned into several months of spare time spent tuning a design, purchasing prototype parts, blowing up a perfectly working 12 volts power supply, purchasing an oscilliscope, winding transfomers, finding myself attached to the hot end of a few kilivolts, and toasting the wifes table cloth during a demo, ...etc. Needless to say the $500. seems like a bargan.
However, that is all history. What I have now works quite well for supply voltages from 14 to 10 volts maintaining a very stable operating point for the HID lamp. At this point I am about to move to miniturize what you see in photos and do a small prototype run of the ballast on a reduced size circuit board. My question for the crowd here is: Would anyone be interested in exchanging a hid ballast hardware built on a small circuit board for a mechanical design that looks a bit sexier than assorted plastic plumbing parts flying in close formation ? I have some interest in doing a kit build where a number of participants share their expertise to get a few of these put together. Some sort of "peoples HID".
If there is interest out there among you DIY-ers drop me a line.
Regards,
Brian B.
Shots were taken a few minutes apart using Canon A540. Manual mode, 1.5 sec exposure, F 2.6. Conditions were identical.
The bike in the scene is 35' away and the white fence about 50' away.
The photos are at the bottom of the page.
The HID is obviously considerably brighter.
Hi,
I am nearing completion on the ballast for a home brew hid lamp using the Welch Allan bulb (10w). THought I would share a few pics of the proto types that I have traversed along with the first version of packaging for combo light of two mr16 lights, one HID, one LED. The concept is LED for climbs, HID for descent. Where I ride we only have long continuous ascents followed by the descent.
As has been mentioned here in the past, the HID ballast is an interesting and time consuming challenge. Lets just say that what started out as a quick project to avoid the purchase of a $500. lamp has turned into several months of spare time spent tuning a design, purchasing prototype parts, blowing up a perfectly working 12 volts power supply, purchasing an oscilliscope, winding transfomers, finding myself attached to the hot end of a few kilivolts, and toasting the wifes table cloth during a demo, ...etc. Needless to say the $500. seems like a bargan.
However, that is all history. What I have now works quite well for supply voltages from 14 to 10 volts maintaining a very stable operating point for the HID lamp. At this point I am about to move to miniturize what you see in photos and do a small prototype run of the ballast on a reduced size circuit board. My question for the crowd here is: Would anyone be interested in exchanging a hid ballast hardware built on a small circuit board for a mechanical design that looks a bit sexier than assorted plastic plumbing parts flying in close formation ? I have some interest in doing a kit build where a number of participants share their expertise to get a few of these put together. Some sort of "peoples HID".
If there is interest out there among you DIY-ers drop me a line.
Regards,
Brian B.
