Originally posted by oldwolf
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The bulb depth commonly used for stock Tamiya bulbs is 9mm. With high powered (HP) “purple” bulbs this works, but “shot gunning” starts to be common depending on bulb location (mantle vs barrel vs stand alone clap/fixed mount). Changing to a narrower then 6mm internal diameter tube greatly combats the “shot gunning” effect. There is another effect that happens too which is “splash” or IR light energy bouncing off light colors objects and hitting tanks completely out of the normal “safe” beam pattern. The more powerful the bulb the more this happens.
With the HP “clear” bulbs the depth in a 6mn internal diameter tube needs to be increased to from 9mm to 12+ mm in order to have a spread pattern similar to the “purple” bulbs at 9mm. Because of this increase “hidden” and/or “mechanical” placement becomes more of a problem for those that do not want to install the IR bulb in the barrel.
Yes the “clear” HP bulbs have more range, but how much more range is really needed considering the “purple” HP bulbs can easily reach a targets (with property installed Tamiya and LegoDEI receivers) well beyond 150ft (50m) in bright sunlight. That’s a long distance and lining up a shot at 150+ ft is challenging regardless of bulb.
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