Lidl Spotlamp

Umiq88

http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20070215.p.OsramSpotlight

Looks good think ill be getting one should do for lamping within 100yards anyway can anyone give an idea of how long it will last in the catalogue it says 6v 4.5Ah.... is it worth getting?

civdef

Batteries like that are normally good for 5-10 minutes of light when hooked up to a big lamp.

J.R.

I have a lamp similar to one advertised but mine is only 2 million candle power - battery lasts about 20 minutes and then takes about 5 hours to recharge.

I just use it if checking something in the garden but out lamping at night it wouldn't be suitable - hence the cheap price

johngalway

I saw that lamp advertisied as well. IMO generally those lamps with inbuilt batteries just aren't suitable for the kind of lamping we do. I reckon you'd be much better off looking in car shops etc for the lamps that plug right into the ciggie lighter and get a decent battery in a backpack for yourself, if you're not going to buy a purpose built gun light that is. My brother in law has a 20 million :eek: CP lamp that lasts 20 minutes. It's as big as a small suitcase too What's the point?!

I got a lamp off my dad, he bolught it yearssssssssss back and forgot he had it. It's a 1 million CP Night Guard I think. You'd easily shoot out to 150 yards with it. Sometimes you can have too much light.

E@gle.

civdef wrote:

Batteries like that are normally good for 5-10 minutes of light when hooked up to a big lamp.

i agree. a mate of mine bought a lamp like that before battery was gone in no time. best off sticking to the auld motorbike battery set up. (well thats what i use anyway)

Umiq88

Thanks lads saved me €16.99 will wait and see how i get on with foxes and the .17 and buy a lightforce if i need it

J.R.

We use a Lightforce 140 lamp which is perfect. The battery we use is a house alarm battery - bought it new for € 15.99 and then bought a suitable trickle charger for it from a model car / planes shop for € 22.99. All you need is some sort of holder with shoulder strap to carry it.

The battery lasts about 5 hours. We usually go out for about 3 hours with the light being switched on / off throughout the night and it has never let us down. It is a much cheaper set-up than the custom made lamp battery and charger.

The same battery is used for the pigeon magnet so it has proved to be great value and not too cumbersome to carry around.

E@gle.

what candle watt power do most people use??

Mine is 700K and does me fine

Degsy

5 million!!

johngalway

Using an on loan Lightforce 170 at the moment while my 140 is getting fixed. Can't remember exactly what candlepower they are but the info is out there. Use a 1 million cp lamp from the car.

civdef

Candlepower is a bit of a fuzzy unit of measurement best reserved for marketers.

jimbo 22

while we re on the subkect of lamps is there a dimmer switch you can buy to stop your battery from disipating real quick.

I bought a lightforce 140 scope mounted

I have a philips which is better than the lightforce (hand held one) and want to attach a dimmer switch because the light is to strong sometimes for close up pidgeons etc)

johngalway

Probably find something cheaper yourself but here's a start

jimbo 22

johngalway wrote:

Probably find something cheaper yourself but here's a start

not cheap are they.... its first time ive seen one of em...

Ill try e bay


cheers man

Vegeta

The problem with cheap dimmer switches is they are usually just a varibale resistor which will use just as much power on as they do off. This gives no saving on battery life just the ability to dim the beam.

So if the dimmer switch is expensive more than likely its because it saves power when the beam is dimmed. Make sure though before you buy it

Umiq88

Not nessecarily a dimmer on say half setting will drop half the voltage on the resistor and half on the lamp. Depending on the value of the resistor it shouldn't use nearly as much current as the lamp. High resistance and high voltage equals low amps i dont nessecarily know how that will turn out in practice though.

Vegeta

psittacosis wrote:

Not nessecarily a dimmer on say half setting will drop half the voltage on the resistor and half on the lamp. Depending on the value of the resistor it shouldn't use nearly as much current as the lamp. High resistance and high voltage equals low amps i dont nessecarily know how that will turn out in practice though.

Yes you are correct in theory, the voltage remains constant, the resistance increases so therefore the current drops and the battery should last longer. Its just a lot of dimmer switches are lossy in terms of heat and make very little savings then on battery life as a result

So as I said be careful when purchasing them, the one linked above is quite expensive so you'd hope the components being used are high quality and it works well.

you could buy all the stuff to make one at www.farnell.com for peanuts

E@gle.

Degsy wrote:

5 million!!

ya would probaly blind the foxes to death with that