I hear that some searchlights have a “black hole” at the center of the beam. Is there a black hole obstructing the beam of the Maxa Beam?

The Maxa Beam does not have a “black hole” at the center of the beam from a 1° spot to a 15° flood. The tight spot of the beam in this wide range produces brilliant white illumination that is even and diffused. Beware of other illumination products that claim to have the only light completely free of this black hole; other illumination products do not offer more than a 15° beam spread. The Maxa Beam has no black hole up to a 15° beam spread. The optional Collimating Lens makes the Maxa Beam searchlight free from any black hole from a 1° spot to a 40° flood.

Why is the Maxa Beam’s output measured in Candlepower rather than Lumens? Can I convert 7.5 million Peak Beam CandlePower into Lumens?

Very often we are asked to measure the output of the Maxa Beam searchlight in lumens because this is such a common way to rate a flashlight's power. It is not possible to convert candlepower into lumens because these units measure different aspects of a light's output.

Lumens measure how much light comes from just the bulb itself. Lumens are fairly standard based on the type of lamp (Xenon, incandescent, metal halide, etc.) and the wattage that the lamp is running. This measurement does not take into consideration the design of the reflector, the optics of the light unit and how focused the beam of light is. This is important to note since not all of the energy that the bulb puts out gets directed into the beam. The lumens measurement is very good for things like a household light bulb and other types of bulbs that do not create a beam of light.

Peak beam candlepower measures how much light reaches a surface set at some distance from the light unit. Candlepower takes into account the performance of the whole unit, meaning that this unit of measurement is more relevant than lumen output when comparing long range lights such as the Maxa Beam Searchlight. You can take a bulb with the same lumens rating and put it into different light fixtures and get a very different candlepower measurements. To get the Maxa Beam's peak beam candlepower measurement, Peak Beam engineers focus the searchlight's 1° spot on a target set at a distance of 100 feet. The engineers then measure the amount of foot candles illuminating this target with a light meter. The formula for the peak beam candlepower is the distance squared times the foot candle reading at the brightest spot in the beam.

What is the width of the illumination field at full power? Can the width be mechanically varied?

Using the easy one-handed control of the Maxa Beam, the width of the illumination field can be controlled by the operator using a motor driven optics system. The beam spread can be altered from a 1° spot to a 40° spread in a matter of seconds. The width of the illumination field at different beam angles is as follows: