PCa replacement bulb

[driftin' by]

I'm in a bit of a bind... Leaving for Cozumel next Monday and just discovered the my the bulb in my Ikelite PCa flashlight is broken. Called a couple LDSs and they don't have any in stock. Knowing that LP is about the slowest shippers in all of e-commerce I'd have to fork over $13.50 just to get it in time! $13.50 to ship a tiny light bulb that cost $9.95!?!?!? Heck... a brand new PCa light can be had for $25! Is there any reason on god's green earth that a halogen bulb should cost $9.95?!?! :furious: It's not like Edison just invented the dang things yesterday! Is there something wrong with this picture?

Anyway, several power tool manufactures such as Makita, makes flashlight with the same voltage as the PCa, 7.2 volts. Makita sell these light bulbs for $1.50 each! I can get these bulbs at Home Depot, today. Is there any reason I should not? Has anyone tried doing this?

With that said, the PCa is the single best flashlight ever made IMHO.

 

[Firefyter]

Have you called ScubaToys? If they have it, they can ship it out today...

 

[Charlie99]

IIRC, the PCa bulb is actually rated 6.0V.

You can pop a standard 6 cell bulb of the same base style "PR6 ?????" into the PCa, but it will be much dimmer.

 

[DiveSite]

I have 1 in stock and can ship it out today USPS Priority Mail. Bulb and shipping $12.05.
If you're interested call me at (918) 664-5717. Dive Site in Tulsa OK

 

[driftin' by]

Thanks for the info. I'm gonna give the aftermarket bulb a try. If it doesn't work, I forgot that I have a Princeton Tec ImpactXL light that is working and ready to go thanks to its durable LED bulb.

Charlie99: Do you mean 6 is the number of cells? Actually the voltage on the bulb for the 6-AA PCa light is 7.2 volts. Each AA battery is 1.5 volts nominal. Since the batteries are in a serial configuration where the positive side of one connects to the negative side of another you multiply the voltage by the number of cells there are. I know it comes out to 9v but but for some reason, that I forget in science class, you have to figure that voltage of each battery delivering a continuous current of electricity drops to 1.2 volts each. That totals 7.2. Check for yourself on Ikelite's site, it's 7.2 for the PCa.

 

[Charlie99]

Charlie99: Do you mean 6 is the number of cells? Actually the voltage on the bulb for the 6-AA PCa light is 7.2 volts.

While awaiting shipment of the official replacement Ikelite bulb, I looked around at industry standard bulbs, and the closest one I could find was a 6.0V, 5W bulb.

Looking at the standard bulb info such as http://www.gilway.com/pdf/appl-tungsten.pdf you can see that driving an incandescent/tungsten/halogen bulb at 20% voltage overdrive will double the light output, increase the current about 10% (so power goes up about 30%), and bulb life is decreased by about a factor of 10.

6V to 7.2V is a 20% increase.

I don't know for sure, but it does seem to be a pretty good fit with the Ikelite specs.

Since I located the real Ikelite bulb before getting the 6.0V nominal bulb, I never bothered to try it out.