Recommendations: rechargeable light, primary, recreational, night

[BDSC]

I really like the lights from BigBlue. Very high quality. Maybe the best lights I've seen. They are now the only lights I dive with.

 

[tbone1004]

GoPro on wide is 114* diagonal btw. On Medium it is about 90*, in narrow it is about 75*. Vertical FoV is about 85, 60, 47. Not saying the Mako is a bad light or anything, but the gopros are wider than you might think and you want the light wider than the viewing angle of the video so you don't have dark edges

For signalling in OW it is important to have somewhat of a tight beam, but more important to have proper buddy positioning since the only way to signal on OW is to get the guy in the face with the light since there are no walls to work with.

If you don't wan tto pay $16 for the batteries from DGX, just buy direct from battery space. fun fact, these are the batteries in most laptop battery packs, the can lights, and most other li-po battery packs, get the good ones, Panasonic is probably the best right now. Much better than the cheap ones that come with the lights.
18650 Li-Ion Rechargeable Cells -- OEM from Japan/Korea
Hi Power Panasonic Lithium 18650 Rechargeable Cell: 3.6V 2900mAh (10.44Wh) - NCR18650PF (0.87) - UN 38.3 Passed

 

[Pyro_]

FYI that mako looks like it is the same as the archon D11V

 

[stuartv]

GoPro on wide is 114* diagonal btw. On Medium it is about 90*, in narrow it is about 75*. Vertical FoV is about 85, 60, 47. Not saying the Mako is a bad light or anything, but the gopros are wider than you might think and you want the light wider than the viewing angle of the video so you don't have dark edges

For signalling in OW it is important to have somewhat of a tight beam, but more important to have proper buddy positioning since the only way to signal on OW is to get the guy in the face with the light since there are no walls to work with.

If you don't wan tto pay $16 for the batteries from DGX, just buy direct from battery space. fun fact, these are the batteries in most laptop battery packs, the can lights, and most other li-po battery packs, get the good ones, Panasonic is probably the best right now. Much better than the cheap ones that come with the lights.
18650 Li-Ion Rechargeable Cells -- OEM from Japan/Korea
Hi Power Panasonic Lithium 18650 Rechargeable Cell: 3.6V 2900mAh (10.44Wh) - NCR18650PF (0.87) - UN 38.3 Passed

tbone, looking at those Panasonics (up to 3400mAh! Wow!!), they don't mention those are being protected. Does that mean they are unprotected?

 

[tbone1004]

yes, which is why you can only put them in battery packs and they aren't sold individually.

 

[stuartv]

FYI that mako looks like it is the same as the archon D11V

Sure does! And the Archon is even less expensive. Nice!

---------- Post added January 20th, 2015 at 02:10 PM ----------

yes, which is why you can only put them in battery packs and they aren't sold individually.

Okay, now I'm confused. It sounds like I should not buy any of the Panasonics on that page, as they all appear to be unprotected. I see exactly one protected 18650 on that page and it is a no-name brand. ???

 

[muzikbiz22]

GoPro on wide is 114* diagonal btw. On Medium it is about 90*, in narrow it is about 75*. Vertical FoV is about 85, 60, 47. Not saying the Mako is a bad light or anything, but the gopros are wider than you might think and you want the light wider than the viewing angle of the video so you don't have dark edges

For signalling in OW it is important to have somewhat of a tight beam, but more important to have proper buddy positioning since the only way to signal on OW is to get the guy in the face with the light since there are no walls to work with.

If you don't wan tto pay $16 for the batteries from DGX, just buy direct from battery space. fun fact, these are the batteries in most laptop battery packs, the can lights, and most other li-po battery packs, get the good ones, Panasonic is probably the best right now. Much better than the cheap ones that come with the lights.
18650 Li-Ion Rechargeable Cells -- OEM from Japan/Korea
Hi Power Panasonic Lithium 18650 Rechargeable Cell: 3.6V 2900mAh (10.44Wh) - NCR18650PF (0.87) - UN 38.3 Passed

Any noticeable difference between 3.6 v and 3.7 v ???

 

[tbone1004]

sorry, just means you do have to use a smart charger since they won't auto cutoff, using protected cells is generally recommended if you are charging them in a series and what not since each cell doesn't have individual protection during charging. During discharging, having protected cells is recommended if you don't have low voltage cutoff in the controller, but most higher quality lights have a low voltage cutoff.
no difference in voltage, nominal voltage is all subjective anyway since the XML's in question run around 3v or so, so there is a step down in voltage anyway. You won't notice a difference.

 

[stuartv]

During discharging, having protected cells is recommended if you don't have low voltage cutoff in the controller, but most higher quality lights have a low voltage cutoff.

This is mainly what I would be worried about. I left my new DGX600 turned on the other night when I went to bed. It had the battery that came with it in it. I didn't know about "protected" vs "unprotected" at the time, so I didn't realize that I could possibly kill a battery that way.

The next day, the battery was so dead that the charger that came with the light wouldn't charge it. I learned about protected vs unprotected and looked and the DGX website says the battery that came with the light is protected.

I also bought the DGX 2-pack of Tenergy batteries with their 2-channel charger. I put the DGX battery in the Tenergy charger and that charged it.

So, the question is, how do I know if a particular light has protection against over-discharge? Look at the specs and ask the manufacturer if the specs don't say? The DGX page for the DGX 600 light says its controller will protect against thermal damage and reverse polarity, but it doesn't mention a low voltage cutoff.

The info on the Archon D11V does say it protects against over-discharge.

If the DGX 600 also has a low-voltage cutoff, then I guess I am good to go to get some of the Panasonic 3400mAh cells. Sweet!

 

[tbone1004]

the DGX600 should, if the tenergy charger charged it the battery isn't toast, just too low of a voltage for the battery charger to detect, email DGX and ask them.
If the battery has a protection circuit, make sure you check the total length with calipers since the protection circuits add a few mm's, may not contact properly in the light if they are unprotected. If you already bought batteries you'll be fine with them, you're not doing dives anywhere near long enough to worry about the extra time, just make sure you are swapping between dives