[BC] NiteRider Storm / Blowtorch HID lamp info
martygoodman
As a companion piece to my posts on the Light and Motion HID ARC lamp, here
are some of my notes concerning the NiteRider HID lamp of a few years ago:
------------------------------------------
Disassembling and analyzing the NiteRider Storm / Blowtorch HID lamp
housing
(c) Marty Goodman Oct 12, 2002 martyg...@sbcglobal.net
WARNING!!!
I very strongly DO NOT recommend folks attempt to disassemble their
NiteRider Storm/Blowtorch headlamp unit beyond the point of removing the
four screws and, if it is necessary, replacing the HID bulb. Bulb
replacement is trivially easily done by the user, and NiteRider sells
replacement 10 watt HID bulbs for this purpose.
The module IS NOT DESIGNED to be disassembled further by the user, and it's
virtually certain that attempting to do so will BOTH cause very obvious
signs of tampering on the unit AND void any warrantees NiteRider may
provide. Indeed, I STRONGLY believe it would dishonest to hold NiteRider to
any warranties if you attempt to further disasemble their unit.
Having said that, some tinkerers will want to extract the Welch Allyn
NiteRider Ballast from the module, and get at the circuit board NiteRider
has added. Why? Well, maybe you're making a custom system with a different
voltage ballast (and battery), but want to use the bulb and housing. Maybe
you are just SO very offended by the fact that NiteRider's solid state
switch loses 2% of efficiency that you want to defeat that and add your own
mechanical toggle switch (or a better designed solid state switch using a
MOSFET or some such) externally. Or maybe you're designing a superior
ballast for the WA HID bulb, but want to use the NiteRider housing as your
prototype enclosure.
If you're in any of those categories, you (hopefully) are an experienced
hobbiest and electronic tinkerer. If you are not, DO NO READ ANY FURTHER!
Now that only heavy duty hard core tinkerers are in the audience...
After you've opened the NiteRider module by removing the four screws and
pulling off the long part of the housing, you will see a bare MR11 HID bulb
module. Gently pull this out of its socket by grabing it and pulling
straight up on it. Put the bulb aside in a safe place. You will expose the
socket that is set in the ballast. The problem now is how to remove the
cylindrical Welch Allyn ballast module which is surrounded by two nearly
semi-circular aluminum shims. Attached to the ballast is a plastic clip,
and glued to the clip, behind the ballast and currently not visible, is
NiteRider's custom circuit board for power control.
Your first assumption is that the highly visible two little plastic clips
that grab the ballast must be pried back, and then the ballast can be
extracted. THIS IS NOT THE CASE!!!! DO NOT try to do this! It WILL NOT
WORK!!!
The plastic clip IS the key to removing the ballast, but you must now look
closer. Start by looking where the obviously visible clips grabbing the
ballast are. Now, shift your examnination a bit more toward the outside of
the clip, to the point where the clip touches the inner wall of main housing
of the NiteRider lighting head. Now look a little ways DOWN and INTO that
housing, right between the black plastic clip and the black plastic lamp
housing. If you look very carefully, you may be able to see that the
OUTSIDE of the clip has a little perhaps 2 or 3 mm wide "tooth" on it that
is sitting in a little depression in the inside wall of the NiteRider
plastic housing.
To get out the ballast and clip and attached circuit, you must FORCEFULLY
insert a screwdriver between the black plastic wall of the housing and the
black plastic clip and manage to pry back the tooth from its catch point in
that little indentation in the wall of the inside of the NiteRider housing.
This may prove very difficult, because once you've jammed a screwdriver in
there, you will have wedged the ballast and clip into place and find it
impossible to move them. I actually ended up jabbing at that tooth (on each
side) repeatedly with various sharp screwdrivers and mini-awls to the point
where I DESTROYED the tooth, turned it into mulitple bits of twisted plastic
detritius, and at THAT point managed to lift out the ballast, spacers, and
plastic clip as one piece. You may be able to do this more elegantly, tho.
Note that the ballast is also somewhat held in by the power cord, so once
you beging to be able to pull the ballast out, you will have to shove the
cord (HARD!) back into the housing to allow the ballast to come further out.
You may very well damage or destroy a little bit of the inner ridge of the
groove that houses the weather seal gasket in the course of doing this! I
did. This I do not THINK is likely to significantly affect how weather
proof the lamp housing will be when you put it together, but I can't be
sure.
I suspect NiteRider has a nice, cleverly fashioned tool to permit THEM to
service these units.
By the way, I do NOT see NightRider as being under any obligation to make it
easy to do the above disassembly. Of course, I'd LIKE them more IF they had
done so, but I don't see that as being morally required of them in this
product.
The NiteRider circuit board:
Once you get out the ballast and clip and NiteRider circuit board module,
you'll find the circuit board has a 4013 CMOS chip on it used to provide
logic to operate the tiny, low current, push on push off button. There's
also a tiny LED and a resistor between it and power. Additionally you'll
see a 10K resistor between the 4013 chip and the base of a transistor on the
other side of the board. This tiny transistor drives the enable pin of a 5
pin Micrel MIC29152BU surface mount, 1.5 amp, low dropout voltage (LDO)
regulator chip. The Micrel LDO regulator is being used as a power switch in
this application. It presents a .25 to .30 volt drop between applied
voltage and voltage delivered to the ballast at normal lamp operation loads
of .8 to .94 amps, with inputs of 11 to 15.25 volts, resulting in a 2% loss
in efficiency in the system. Very curiously, at least on my and on a
friend's model, the LDO regulator IS NOT SET TO REGULATE AT ALL. At least,
there is NO regulation with inputs up to 16 volts, and the WA ballast being
used is rated to have no more than 15 volts applied to it continuously, or
no more than 15.5 volts applied momentarily. WHY they chose this regulator
for use only as a solid state power switch (and did not even try to use it
as protection from overvoltage) is beyond me, for they could have used a
MOSFET and had essentially NO losses in their switching device.
The WA ballast in stock NiteRider Storm and HID lamps is Welch Allyn model
B10N003, the model intended for use with 11 cell NiCd or NiMH batteries,
designed to accept continuous voltages varying between 13.2 and 15 volts AT
THE BALLAST to produce power to the lamp itself varying from 8 to 11 watts,
respectively. This ballast is characterized by having blue and black wires
coming out of it.
Welch Allyn currently makes four different unregulated ballasts for their 10
watt HID bulb. Here are their characteristics:
Note the voltage given to deliver 11 watts to the bulb is the MAXIMUM
voltage that the system can take continuously. The voltage given to deliver
8 watts to the bulb is the MINIMUM voltage the system is recommended as
being driven at.
Input Voltage that
will deliver Absolute Max
to the bulb Instantaneous Wire lead
part # 8 watts 11 watts Voltage colors
-------- ------ ------- ----------- ------------------
B10N004 9.0 11.0 11.8 black / yellow
B10N001 11.0 12.5 13.0 black / white
B10N002 12.0 13.6 14.2 black / red
B10N003 13.2 15.0 15.5 black / blue
Welch Allyn's specs also state that if you hook up the ballast with reverse
polarity, you WILL destroy it in less than one second. And that the case of
the ballast should never be allowed to get greater than 90 degrees
centigrade. And that the nominal starting voltage is 6,000 volts. "Ballast
Reset Time after Shutdown" is listed as 3 second for all four of the above
ballasts.
A parameter called just "Shut Down Time" (I'm not sure WHAT that is) is also
listed as being 3 seconds.
Further comments: Welch Allyn claims their ballast is 85% efficient in its
literature. The several ballasts that have been measured by Willie Hunt
were found to be only 75% efficient.
Willie also believes, based on preliminary experimental data, that the Welch
Allyn 10 watt HID bulb will perform far better, and surive adequately, when
driven at greater than 11 watts... perhaps up to 14 or 15 watts. BUT, he
found that the BALLASTS made by Welch Allyn tend to overheat and go into
magnetic runaway and fry the bulb if you TRY to make them pump more than 11
watts into the bulb. He has made an experimental ballast that he says is
over 90% efficient, capable of delivering up to 25 watts to a HID bulb (thus
suitable for driving either the 10 or 20 watt Welch Allyn HID bulb) AND,
additoinally, is regulated to take a wide range of input voltage and
delivery constant power to the HID bulb.
I have tried to make the information provided here as accurate and clear as
I possibly can at this time, given my current level of experience and
knowledge of the subject. However, this article is JUST one tinkerer's
comments, and while I pride myself on mostly provided good and accurate
information, I have been mistaken in the past. Also, product design often
changes over time, so even IF (by some odd chance) everything I wrote above
is 100.000% accurate for what I was disassembling, it may not be completely
correct for future models of NiteRider HID lamps or Welch Allyn ballasts or
bulbs. Tinkerers are advised to use the above as a guideline, but to
wherever possible CHECK MY RESULTS before proceeding with any major
modifications based simply on faith that what I wrote is correct.
Happy Tinkerering! May your soldering iron always be warm.
Ride safely!
---marty
Appendix A
Here's the data from testing I performed a day ago on the NiteRider LDO
regulator, with it feeding the NiteRider ballast and HID bulb. This is
clipped out of a post I up up on the BikeCurrent mailing list yesterday.
The Test:
I measured (using the SAME precision 4.5 digit, calibrated voltmeter) the
voltage on the circuit board where power was applied to it, and the voltage
that was being delivered to the WA ballast, as well as current going in to
the circuit board. I then calculated wattage being sent to the lamp, and
delta V, the difference between voltage being applied and voltage measured
at the input to the ballast.
[USE a NON PROPORTIONAL FONT to display the table below!]
Results:
Volts Volts delta Watts in total Watts
IN to ballast V Amps to ballast in to board
------- --------- ----- ----- ---------- -----------
12.5 12.25 .25 .81 9.9 10.1
13.0 12.74 .26 .83 10.6 10.8
13.5 13.23 .27 .86 11.4 11.6
14.0 13.72 .28 .89 12.45 12.2
14.5 14.20 .30 .91 12.9 13.2
14.7 14.40 .30 .92 13.25 13.5
14.8 14.50 .30 .93 13.3 13.6
14.9 14.60 .30 .93 13.5 13.85
15.0 14.69 .31 .93 13.7 13.95
Conclusions:
The LDO regulator in the NiteRider ballast appears to never reach its
regulation point. It also does introduce a voltage drop of from .25 to
.31 volts, which (at the current drawn) results in what I calculate to be
roughly a 2% loss of efficiency of the system overall.
NOTE these tests are of an old (2002 vintage) NiteRider Storm and
Blowtorch system... their more recent HID products may well behave
differently!
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