This HID-light isn't half bad!

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Okay so these lights have been popping up from time to time. Misleadingly called HMI - they are in fact HID not HMI.

I picked up a ballast & a 140W bulb for $125.00 from here.

PDF here

Just quickly checked it out, and it's pretty decent; puts out quite a bit of light, and flicker is manageable. Has a 5 min warm-up and cool-down period.

Combined with an alu-reflector and/or softbox, this might be a lightweight way to travel with some ~700W of "daylight", and using only 140W. Might try and run it off an inverter next....
Yep, ran perfectly fine off a 300W (I think) inverter, and it was a cheap modified sine one, not a pure sine one.
hid.jpg


I'll probably put one of these into a box with a batterypack and an inverter. Should be sweet.

CRI isn't awfully high, maybe upper 80s?

Would also be very neat, I reckon, as a replacement of a household bulb if super brightness is required (just check max ratings and temps of fixture to avoid fires, etc.).
 
What is the heat like off the bulb? would it be safe in a nylon china ball? Since I don a lot of run and gun I am very interested . Well done on the inverster test! so could it be used with the chimera mogul speed ring and a reduuction adapter? Thanks.
 
That's cool. Question, what kind of connector goes from the lamp to the ballast? Do you think it would it be possible to modify the AC cable from an off the shelf E-27 base fixture (Photoflex Starlite, Chimera Mogul Base, etc.) to go from the head to the HID ballast? Also, tell me about the flicker of the 140W lamp. What flicker? Will it go away completely by fine tuning the shutter speeds? Or is it always present, even in a small way? Thanks for doing this.
 
Brian: The bulb definitely gets hot. Although I have no comparison, I reckon it may be putting out as much heat as a standard 150W incandescent (just with more umpfhh!). If your china ball can handle 150W then it should be okay: note that I wrote SHOULD: no guarantees, and a fire extinguisher nearby is recommended!

thisiswells said:
Question, what kind of connector goes from the lamp to the ballast? Do you think it would it be possible to modify the AC cable from an off the shelf E-27 base fixture (Photoflex Starlite, Chimera Mogul Base, etc.) to go from the head to the HID ballast? Also, tell me about the flicker of the 140W lamp. What flicker? Will it go away completely by fine tuning the shutter speeds? Or is it always present, even in a small way? Thanks for doing this.
Click to expand...

Connector is standard three prong US plug/socket.
Flicker is a funny thing: I have two alu reflectors here; one is modified and very short cable, the other is about 10 ft long. The flicker seems MUCH more prevalent with the long cable. It appears that cable length/quality is important.
I'd have to do some testing to find out exactly where and when the flicker shows up on the video (IF at all). From looking at the LCD, there's horrible strobing at 1/1000 shutter. Anything less than 1/500 and I can't notice anything.
None of this testing was done scientifically though, and I literally only took 20 minutes to do all this testing.
The lights are used for video all the time though, so I REALLY doubt that if there is flicker, that it can't be overcome with shutter speed adjustments.

It remains a great light for certain things. No replacement for HMI by a long shot, but worthwhile nevertheless.
 
It lists the bulb as being 5200K, is it noticably less "blue" than say a true HMI or even a CTB gelled tunsgsten?
 
Is it dimmable with the cheap dimmers used for incidentals? Anymore news about flicker? This seems to be a great light for a nylon lantern ball. Has anyone tired this yet?
 
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