DIY HID lights, is it possible ?

You are right about the dangers of HID's. The lamp is usually integrated with the ballast, a device to take the low DC voltage and boost it to 400+ for "ignition" of the arc and about 90 V for running.

The best bet for a DIY solution would be to find some inexpensive HID foglamps. They are made but they will cost about $400 a pair. Throw in the batteries and you could buy one off shelf for less. I have the Cygolite Z and only paid $280 from PBS online.

Quoted message said:

Considering I could run a 10W bulb for about 5 hours ish ... is there
anyway of making up a DIY HID system ?

Some people at www.candlepowerforums.com bought a set of lamps and
ballasts and made their own torches. The rub is you can only buy the
components in sets of 10 IIRC.

BTW what cells did you use for your battery? I'm in need of a 12V
battery with 6Ah or more; thinking of using using 10 "D" (mono)
cells.

Mark van Gorkom.

Andy asked:

Quoted message said:

... is there anyway of making up a DIY HID system ?

If you don't get an answer here, it might be worth posting the same
question on rec.sport.unicycling. I believe Roger Davies of
<URL:http://www.unicycle.uk.com/> made his own HID system for muni, I
expect there will be others.

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Mark van Gorkom said:

BTW what cells did you use for your battery? I'm in need of a 12V
battery with 6Ah or more; thinking of using using 10 "D" (mono)
cells.

Some AA NiMH cells are now 2.3Ah each, so that's easy. Maplin sell
battery holders for these, or you could get a small motorbike battery,
depending on your aversion to weight.

Hewwwwm ?
"Andy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi,

I was speaking to my mate the other day about DIY lights ...

I currently have a DIY halogen setup. 2 lights one running a 10W wide
beam the other a 20W spot beam. This is powered by a 4.3 Amp 12 Volt
NIMH battery I constructed.

Now using both lamps I will only get around 1.5 hours of light,
obviously I could go and get a bigger battery etc, but I've heard alot
about these new HID lights where a 10W bulb outputs the equivalent of
a 40W halogeon bulb ...

Considering I could run a 10W bulb for about 5 hours ish ... is there
anyway of making up a DIY HID system ?

I've done a few searches and no one seems to have done a DIY version
of this, I'm assuming this is becuase of all the fancy electronics
required ? apparently you need to start the lamp using 4000 Volts or
something ... which sounds rather scary and might require a bit more
waterproofing than my current B&Q plumbing setup :-)

Anyway I was hoping someone might "shine some light" on if they think
it is possible and if so at what cost ?

Answers on a postcard and all that ....

Andy said:

Hi,

I was speaking to my mate the other day about DIY lights ...

I currently have a DIY halogen setup. 2 lights one running a 10W wide
beam the other a 20W spot beam. This is powered by a 4.3 Amp 12 Volt
NIMH battery I constructed.

Now using both lamps I will only get around 1.5 hours of light,
obviously I could go and get a bigger battery etc, but I've heard alot
about these new HID lights where a 10W bulb outputs the equivalent of
a 40W halogeon bulb ...

Considering I could run a 10W bulb for about 5 hours ish ... is there
anyway of making up a DIY HID system ?

I've done a few searches and no one seems to have done a DIY version
of this, I'm assuming this is becuase of all the fancy electronics
required ? apparently you need to start the lamp using 4000 Volts or
something ... which sounds rather scary and might require a bit more
waterproofing than my current B&Q plumbing setup :-)

Anyway I was hoping someone might "shine some light" on if they think
it is possible and if so at what cost ?

Answers on a postcard and all that ....

I've considered doing it, buy purchasing a car halogen spot, and a HID kit
for a motorbike from www.misterjung.com.

Quoted message said:

BTW what cells did you use for your battery? I'm in need of a 12V
battery with 6Ah or more; thinking of using using 10 "D" (mono)
cells.

I use 10 3.3 Ah "tagged" cells, forgot what the size is there
basically a little bigger than AA, but nowhere near the size of a D
cell. I can quite happily fit my battery into a pocket or a saddle
bag, I think 10 D cells would have to be a bottle battery.

Check out www.budgetbatteries.co.uk thats where mine came from, tagged
cells have little bits of metal on each contact point allowing for an
easy soldering action to put them together in series.

Andy