Very frustrated with my Halcyon 18w HID

[Eric Sedletzky]

I got a Halcyon 18w HID from a friend a while back and it needed a battery. The batteries that came with it supposedly were tired and worn out.
I just got in the mail today a new battery from TNR Technical (Hawk) and gave it a quick top up charge and plugged it in. The light worked great for about 5 minutes then went out.
I topped up the battery again and checked the voltage, it read 13.83 volts. I plugged in the light once more and again I got about 5 minutes of burn time. I checked the voltage with it drained and it read 11.07 volts, After 5 minutes???

Has anybody had anything similar happen.
I'm not an electrical wiz by any means. I don't know if it's the new battery, the charger or some other component of the light.

I'm at wits end, I need my light!

 

[coldsmoke]

How long did you charged the battery? I think you would need at least 8 hours for a full charge.

Hunter

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I charged it until the full charge light went on, which was about 10 minutes. I assumed this meant that the battery came with an almost full charge. Since the first post I have charged and tested and topped up the battery several times and the duration is getting longer but not full length yet.
I'm starting to think it's the charger. How do you test a charger to see how much output it's pumping.

 

[Jasonmh]

Can't help much, sorry, but I can tell you that I have 2 of these lights and in my burn tests on my lights it takes somewhere from 3h 20mins to 3h 50mins to get to from full charge to 11 volts.
Do you know someone who has another charger you can try? It might also be worth calling Halcyon (it is it a Halcyon charger) to see if they have any recommendations. I would also top it off, unplug it, then plug the battery back in a leave it charging overnight to see if you get a different result.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Can't help much, sorry, but I can tell you that I have 2 of these lights and in my burn tests on my lights it takes somewhere from 3h 20mins to 3h 50mins to get to from full charge to 11 volts.
Do you know someone who has another charger you can try? It might also be worth calling Halcyon (it is it a Halcyon charger) to see if they have any recommendations. I would also top it off, unplug it, then plug the battery back in a leave it charging overnight to see if you get a different result.

I do have a friend that has a Salvo light (21w HID). I don't know the specs on his charger or if it's even close to what I have. I would have to look at the output info on the plate on the charger.
I will call Halcyon and see what they say.

Thanks for at least trying to help.

 

[Gombessa]

What kind of battery did you get (ah, voltage, dimensions)? I can't find "Hawk" on TNR but they have "Hawker," which from what I can see only makes SLA batteries (do you have a Proteus light?). Furthermore, none of their 12v batteries would seem to fit into even the halcyon 13.5ah canister - they're all too big. Also, are you charging SLA batteries with a Halcyon NiMH charger? I have a feeling that doesn't work very well.

Also, you can't test remaining battery capacity when it's not loaded. Even a depleted battery may show 13ah at rest, but when it's connected to a light and turned on, how fast does the voltage drop below 12v? A healthy 12v nimh should be ~14.5v when charged, and drop slowly to about 12v in the course of an hour or two while being run, and then hold steady at ~12v for the majority light's runtime.

 

[zen_man]

I don't think the voltage of the battery at 11v will suddenly "shut off" a light. It's not computer controlled like a newer car. However, a wire grounding out could cause both the light to suddenly shutoff as well as drain the battery. Do notice any excess heat? I'm no expert, and it definitely could be an issue with the new battery. Do you still have the old one and can you test it with it again and see if the light shutting off continues?

just some thoughts.

 

[Gombessa]

That's right. I think the ballast in a Halcyon 18w HID has a cutoff somewhere around 9.0-9.5v. Unfortunately, you don't want to drain a nimh battery below 10 or 10.5v or you risk permanently damaging the battery. During my last burn test, I had to manually turn off the light when it dropped below 10.5v.

The thing is, after you disconnect the light, once it's no longer under load, the voltage can come back up to 11, 12, or 13v if you stick a voltmeter on it. Of course, if you turn it back on, it'll instantly drop back to 9 or 10v. So you can only really test the true voltage while it's under load.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

What kind of battery did you get (ah, voltage, dimensions)? I can't find "Hawk" on TNR but they have "Hawker," which from what I can see only makes SLA batteries (do you have a Proteus light?). Furthermore, none of their 12v batteries would seem to fit into even the halcyon 13.5ah canister - they're all too big. Also, are you charging SLA batteries with a Halcyon NiMH charger? I have a feeling that doesn't work very well.

Also, you can't test remaining battery capacity when it's not loaded. Even a depleted battery may show 13ah at rest, but when it's connected to a light and turned on, how fast does the voltage drop below 12v? A healthy 12v nimh should be ~14.5v when charged, and drop slowly to about 12v in the course of an hour or two while being run, and then hold steady at ~12v for the majority light's runtime.

I got the stock NiMH battery that is an exact replica of what originally came with the light. Hawk is the guy who is the guru at TNR (I figured someone here knew him, I guess not). He knows exactly what it is and how to build the 2 - 12 volt in parallel pack with thermister for Halcyon 18w helios 9 models.

I don't think it's the battery.
I'm starting to think more and more it's the charger. I have a feeling the thermister impulse signal is prematurely shutting off the charger way before the battery has a complete charge. I'm going to call Hawk and see what he says. Maybe there's a protocol for getting new batteries up and running, a multiple charge and purge cycle maybe?
I've drained and charged the battery several times now and the duration is up to almost 2 hours. The full charge voltage is up to 14.33 now. We'll see.

 

[Gombessa]

what does your charger look like? I've heard that some of the older halcyon chargers have issues delivering a full charge to the batteries (the way to tell is to hook it up to a "watts-up meter").

As an aside, your experiences are an exact mirror of mine with an old dive-rite hid with a depleted battery. 5 min topoff on arrival led to 10 Min burn, various other charge cycles led to slowly increasing burntime but never over 1 3/4 hour...it was a bummer.