The Lynx SAR 5000
I am announcing the Lynx SAR (Search And Rescue) lamp as latest in this line of lamps.
It is primarily designed for a specific purpose as its name suggests, however I expect that it will become a popular lamp for the exploration of large underground spaces such as slate mines.
It is basically designed to give maximum possible beam power. This is done by 4 Cree XML 2 U2 emitters mounted behind centre spot reflectors as already used in some of my existing lamps.
A lamp of this type has been in my mind for some time and was originally envisaged as running from a supply voltage of 16.8 volts from 4S Li Ion cells fresh off charge, with the emitters wired in series as my normal practice. However this proved impracticable for several reasons. I saw charging as been done from a laptop charger with balancing and protection electronics built into the power pack. However, I have personal differences with belt mounted batteries, trailing wires etc, and with the emergence of new Li ion technology the possibility of such a lamp being powered by a helmet pack became a possibility. The issue was the 4S cells necessary, which would really have to be 2P by 4S, a total of 8 cells. Some helmet mounted battery pack!
The solution is to mount the beam emitters in two separate banks of 2 series, running from an input voltage of 8V (7.4V nominal). I have however done this in the past with the last of the MagnumStars with the front extension. Up until this design that lamp was the most powerful beam lamp I had ever designed, there are some of these out in the wild, still in use and giving good service.
The result is a new lamp and new battery pack designed specifically for this model which houses 6 cells, 3P by 2S with MOSFET based protection electronics designed for up to 10 amps output. The power pack houses all the cells in flat configuration and is actually quite manageable. The lamp weighs in at 300 grams same as the X6000 and the big battery, the 8HD6 at 460 grms which is not ridiculous. Dimensions are 120mm X 80mm
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One issue with lamp design is getting effective size reflectors into a reasonable size lamp. I have achieved this by reducing the number of bare flood emitters to 2, this ties in nicely with the supply voltage.
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Other features of the lamp have been developed from existing models.
There is a centrally mounted downlighter bearing 2 XML 2s at 200mA independently switchable, this idea is from the D1800 and is made from solid machined aluminium.
There is the blue ‘Nightrider’ battery fuel gauge, this is switched by turning the lamp upside down as in the X2000.
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There are 2 double throw switches, SW1 controls Beam Array no 1 at walk mode of 200 lumens, medium, and high at 2250 lumens @25 C. And Floods at low, medium and high, same maximum output as the beams.
SW2 controls Beam Array no 2 at pilot, medium, and high. And also the single mode downlighter.
It would have been sexy to have several modes on the downlighter but this is not achievable in the available space.
Inside the lamp there are 3 seperate switch mode drivers plus a small liner driver for the downlighters. Space has been utilised to maximum to accommodate all this by a change in design from mounting electronics on the back of the frontplate to mounting it all on the backplate. Also it’s actually the first lamp that I have designed on a computer, all the others where the great big drawing board in my head.
The combined full beam power of 4500 lumens from centre spot reflectors is worth seeing. The walk mode supplemented with the foot level downlighters is wicked.
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The two track heat sink platform of the big Lynx lamps is very effective and I expect that maximum power will be sustainable under most underground and outdoor conditions.
At this point in time there is no stock of this lamp until I have completed my own testing and evaluation. However I expect it to prove itself OK and will probably be in stock after Easter.
There are no plans to discontinue any of the existing models, this is an addition.
My avatar is a poor likeness.