OT: GigaLight, just for fun.

farss wrote on 8/8/2007, 8:46 PM

I have no idea what use this might be to anyone here but it's pretty damn impressive.
Well OK, there was someone who wanted to do a bit of UFO spotting. I guess if you could mount a 3000mm Canon lens onto your camera and then mount the whole shebang on an old AA turret you'd be laughing.

Before anyone tries using one of these, bouncing the light off a piece of foamcore at a range of less than 1000 yards mightn't be such a good idea.

Keep in mind that this is only a 1KW arc, typical 35mm projectors are 2KW to 5KW xenon arcs.

Bob.

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 8/8/2007, 9:37 PM

Ho-ho-hooo!!!

As somebody said on that sick forum, "Holy Snikes!"

Not to mention:

It is better to light one multi-kilowatt xenon arc megalight than to curse the darkness.

Oh the joy :O)

rmack350 wrote on 8/8/2007, 11:11 PM

Wow is right.

There's a comment in there that they pointed at a board 8 feet away and it didn't get hot, so I'd say your foamcore at 1000 yards is safe, but man! that things got a lot of throw!

8 feet might be okay but I'd be wary of getting closer.

Speaking of things burning, the year that 4kw pars came out we had one to show at the rental house I worked at. One of the local gaffers stuck his light meter into the unlensed beam while talking to a friend. I think i was probably the only person who noticed the wisp of smoke start to come off the meter. It was just dumb luck that he took his reading and pulled it out of there in time, 'cause he wasn't watching. Also dumb luck that he stuck the meter into the hot spot but not his hand..

Rob Mack

Patryk Rebisz wrote on 8/8/2007, 11:30 PM

those are useful in creating sun rays -- the kind of straigh rays sun would create coming through a window.

farss wrote on 8/8/2007, 11:46 PM

Good call,
we've had a couple of clients who wanted to create moonbeams through windows, couldn't really help as that takes a fearsome amount of light to get enough dispersion off the dust in the air. Now I've got an excuse to buy a couple of these things.

My lamp supplier is waiting for someone to pass on, his prize possession is left to her in his will. It's a 50KW arc lamp, batteries not included :)

rmack350 wrote on 8/9/2007, 9:27 AM

I did a wrap-out of a big spot several years ago and noticed they were using Xenon arcs to make light beams in the building. My understanding of it was that the units couldn't be pointed downward because they'd burn up, so they rigged 4x4 mirrorboards in the grid they'd installed and bounced the beams off of those.

Of course it also might have been that the instrments were too heavy to hang but I think the explanation I got was that those particular units couldn't be rigged pointing downward.

Trivia.

Rob Mack