MB Sub LED Cave and Photon Hand Held on test.

[Mark Chase]

MB SUB LED Cave and Photon

On Test​

Led –Cave​

Photon​

Michael from MB Sub in Germany contacted me and asked if id be interested in testing out the MB Sub LED Cave umbilical torch and Photon LED Hand held. This tied up neatly with a weeks diving planned for the Orkneys and soon I was unwrapping my temporary new toy.

Before I start a little personal torch history is offered for perspective;

UK DR40 Hand Held (Sold)
Birchly Products 50W Halogen Hand held (Flooded and died)
Custom Divers 50W halogen Umbilical (Flooded and died several times)
Halcyon 10W HID Protius 3 Lead Acid Umbilical (I still own this torch no problems so far original bulb and 1 new battery)
Salvo 21W HID 9ah I still own this torch 1 new bulb in three years, original battery minor connection block and wiring issues 98% reliable)
Solus 1000W LED : On test only felt it was a little big but it’s a great torch
Solus 1250 LED Had it on test, Loved it, so I bought one


MB SUB LED CAVE FACTS AND FIGURES

The 1.64kg MB Sub LED Cave offers a 200m rated compact 9.6 AH battery pack and a single 1000 Lumen Osram Ostar LED. The head design is a fixed beam compact unit with a choice of Goodmans handle or hand held function. Canister is sealed for life Anodised Aluminium. No moving switches pierce the casing of the head or the battery pack with on off operation by magnetic proximity switching. The Battery pack is a LiMn, no memory, no natural discharge item with six hours burn time on max power and a further three hours on emergency power. The lamp has a high 1000lumen and low 600 lumen power setting accessed via a two position magnetic switch.

Switch operation is via a detachable ring. If the unit is used with a Goodmans handle the switch magnet is built in. If not you use this ring.

The small ball bearing seen to the left of the magnet (in the blue plastic casing), is the locator for the three switch positions. Off, Low Power and Full Power.

Charging of both the LED Cave canister and for the Photon Hand Held is via an internal jack plug protected by two 0 rings

The basic unit costs 759euro which comes with a travel charger and webbing loop mounting system. The following are offered as extras.

Goodmans Handle 67.00 Euro
Tank Holder clamp 59.00 Euro
Clip 48.00 Euro


There is also an option to buy the canister unit and the Photon hand held unit together and share a single lamp head. This option comes in at 899 Euro

Note: Piston clip is my own

Every item exudes the quality you would expect from a German manufacturer. A two year warrantee is standard and there is a three year extended warrantee as an optional extra.


The Charger was sent to me with out a power cord, but fortunately it took a standard two pin cable found on most electrical equipment these days, which allowed me to overcome this minor issue easily. Handy for travel, as I only need one plug and cable for multiple chargers.

I was swapping the torch over with Howard so I could shoot video and get his input as well. As a result I left it in the webbing mount mode and just cam banded it on to my 02 tank. The tank clamp is not cheep but for convenience I think id invest in one.

I mounted the canister on the 02 tank of my KISS using the cam band that supports the tank.

Having the control switch on the torch head made
this configuration easy to manage. The Goodmans handle has the same location ball and magnet operated switch. I found the switch operation easy once I was used to it and it could be done one handed as long as you got the handle on the right way round.

If the Goodmas handle was put on back to front, it wouldn’t turn the torch on. This minor inconvenience turned out to be a nice feature for transport. By turning the handle around there was no chance of accidental operation and subsequent heat damage. Under water it just meant unclipping the head and re clipping it the right way around.

I was initially concerned that the torch head and Goodman’s handle could become separated easily. In doing so the torch would turn off. I could imagine a scenario where a dangling torch gets caught and the Goodmans handle is ripped off and lost. In such an event you would lose the light source. I could see me cave diving with a spare on/off switch in my pocket. If you get the Goodmans handle a spare on off switch will come with the torch. This said I must stress it takes a considerable amount of force to separate the handle from the head and then only if the movement is in a

 

[Mark Chase]

DRY AND POND TESTING


Dry testing throws up some odd results but it does give some simple comparison data. Having tried out the MB SUB I decided it was in the same league as a 10W HID. As a result I did my side by side comparisons with a Halcyon Protious3 10W Hid Fixed Beam.

Test1: 1.5 M up and back at a 45 degree angle.

MB Sub

10W Halcyon HID

As can be seen above, the 10W Halcyon has a slightly tighter beam with less definition at the edges. It looks more intense with a definite hot spot in the middle As is often the way with HID the centre of the light spot is burnt out and the LED gives a less intense and arguably more useable light.


The MB Sub at a distance of 10m maintains a tighter beam than the Solus 1250 over the same range. Side by side with the 10W Halcyon the MB Sub was brighter.

MB Sub at 10M

At a distance of 5m the MB Sub maintains a tight spot with clearly defined
peripheral light spread.

IN THE POND

This pond is 4.5m across at this point The MBSub on the right, doesn’t really have the raw punch to pick out a spot on the far bank. Then again neither does the 10W HID to the left.

Seen from in front and above the difference in the white light of the MBsub and the blue light of the Halcyon 10W HID is apparent. It is also possible to see the tight beam offered by both torches. The MB sub (left in this pic) seems to have a bit more punch than the Halcyon 10W. They both have very similar cone angles on the peripheral light.

At this point I’d like to bring in the Photon hand held. This is basically a hand held battery pack for the LED Cave head.

It can be purchased as a separate item or as a package with the LED Cave. It takes the same Goodman’s handle as the LED Cave and offers a comfortable and for some divers a very familiar way to use a hand held in preference or as back up to an umbilical. A big advantage as I see it is there for divers who do not want to accept a drop in light performance when switching to a back up light. You can switch to a hand held back up that clips straight into your Goodman’s handle and offers the same light quality as your primary umbilical light. You will never have to kick your self for forgetting to re charge the primary light again.

This is a pretty neat trick even if the Photon hand held is a little chunky. Exiting a cave or wreck penetration on a pathetic back up light was never at the top of my list of fun things to do. I really liked the idea that I could swap to my back up light and carry on with the advantages of a Goodmans handle and maintain the quality of light output.

However, aside from the bulk of the Photon as a torch there is also a far greater issue for me in that the Photon’s burn time on full power is only 60mins. A further 30mins is available on emergency power but that’s really not adequate to back up a primary torch with a possible 9 hour burn time. As an emergency tool it would limit me to a max penetration time of one hour. Still a big dive for a lot of people but it’s not exactly a monster dive to go deeper than one hour into a shallow water cave.

It does however have the 600 lumen low power setting which will extend the burn time to 90mins. Whilst this may defeat the object some what by not being as powerful as the primary torch, it still punches out more than adequate light, so if you need the extra burn time you could choose to run it on low power.

Whilst I am aware that the Photon was not specifically designed as a back up light, I do see this as a good use of its abilities on open water dives. As a stand alone hand held primary light I feel the burn time is too short. You can’t swap battery packs between dives so on a multi dive day you’re going to have to recharge the battery between dips unless you plan each usage at 30mins or less.

The chunky handle of the torch suggests big batteries and long burn times but sadly the fact is 1000 lumen LED bulbs munch through power just as bad, if not worse than HID’s do.


TESTING IN THE SEA

First dive with the MB Sub Cave LED was on the 25,000 ton Battle ship “The Markgraf” in Scapa Flow. Howards Salvo was dead due to water ingress to the switch so he got first go on the MB Sub. The Markgraf is pretty much upside down in 45m of water. Vis was poor at maybe 3-4m and our plan to survey the wreck on scooters didn’t really take off. The only way to dive her properly that day, was to get inside.

Following Howard we made several attempts to do this but we failed to find a path big enough for our rigs. Whilst we were trying I was however impressed by the tight beam offered by the MB Sub compared that of my to my 1250 Solus. As a signalling tool I felt it was an improvement on the Solus and comfortably in the same league as the 10W Halcyon HID

After the dive the summery from Howard wasn’t as supportive. His main comment was the LED lacked the punch of his 21W Salvo. He felt he couldn’t see far enough through the murky water to ensure there was a way through. His overall view was; lovely compact torch, but needs more punch.

For the rest of the weeks diving he asked to borrow my 21W salvo

I carried on diving the MB Sub. Unlike Howard I wasn’t looking for the MB Sub to compete with a 21W Salvo. It only has a 1000 lumens. My 1250 lumen Solus had more punch but still couldn’t out lazar a Salvo. The 2500 lumen Solus I am told, gives the 21W Salvo a good run for its money, but I have yet to see one of those in action.

I was keeping the mental comparison with a 10W HID in mind and also the concerns over signalling ability often raised by cave divers when discussing LED. If it’s not a lazar sharp pencil beam they don’t seem to be interested. Even if the HID torch is (IMHO) rubbish at illuminating the scenery in the cave they still seem intent on getting as tight a signal beam as possible.

I tend to dive wrecks. Signalling power is important but so is seeing the wreck. After diving with a Salvo 21W of over three years I have now discovered I prefer less intense less powerful torches that illuminate the wreck in a way that I can actually see what I am looking at.

The Solus 1250 is admittedly a bit wishy washy on long range signalling, but its absolutely fantastic at lighting up small items on the wreck in front of me and giving a comfortably wide beam in the 5-10m range. I can’t really argue against those that say is a poor signalling torch. I’d try and say you should never be so far away as to let this become an issue but I don’t bother, because I know they are right. I have yet to see a decent signalling torch that’s LED.

Until now.

I think the MB Sub is the best signalling LED torch I have used or seen so far. Its beam is not quite as tight as the 10W Halcyon HID but it makes up for it by having slightly more power than the Halcyon. In side by side tests the MB Sub is the clear winner. No it’s not going to impress the owners of 21W HIDs with its power and punch but its better then the 10W.

In the following video I have lent the MB SUB to Howard after its use on six dives. I am using a 1250 Solus for comparison but in the first section. I believe the MB sub is on low power. That night I charged it up and in the second half of the video I am using the fully charged MB Sub and Howard is on a 21W Salvo.


VIDEO (Sorry I have upload issues ill get this up asap).

CONCLUSIONS

If any one out there wants a torch of at least 10W HID capability with a monster burn time and a fantastic balance between quality light output, signalling capability and rugged construction then the MB Sub LED Cave is defiantly the torch for you.

LED has a reputation of being rugged and reliable. Whilst I have herd several comments referring to the complexity of power managing super bright LED’s I have yet to hear many horror stories of broken torches.

MB Subs offer of 2 years warrantee free (with three years at an additional cost) is made by either a company 100% confident in their product or a ruthless giant who is happy to brush of claims for faulty goods.

Seeing as the diving community that is willing to spend 760 euro on a torch is very very small and that the internet is very very powerful I am inclined to believe the former.

Having great confidence in your primary torch to work and perform correctly is a wonderful thing and its worth paying for. The Focusable 9ah 10W Slavo’s are a similar price so id have no problem opting for the MB Sub there.

475 euro for a fixed beam Halcyon 10W HID is the third option but having only 2 hours burn time on the Protius 3 and the bulky lead acid battery may rule it out.

CONCERNS

My only concern is the detachable on off switch. I am worried about accidental loss during a dive, which to be honest, is probably a very slim possibility. I am also concerned about the longevity of the locating ball and possible rust and subsequent failure of the magnetic switch.

I am sure with proper cleaning and maintenance these issues can be kept in check but I feel they do detract from the rugged and indestructible design concept. I am informed these locating balls are a quality stainless steel and have been used successfully in similar applications for over 18 years. That’s very encouraging information but if I were them Id stress this on the web site as I found the idea of a locking ball of this type in a salt water environment, where things clog up with salt crystals and rust easily, to be a tad concerning.

What I'd like to see is some form of fail safe. IE you need to pass a magnet over the switch to switch it on then it will stay on until a magnet is passed over the switch again. In this way loss of the Goodmans handle / magnet/ locator ball will not leave the diver blind. Alternatively id like some way of locking the Goodmans handle to the torch so it can not be ripped off when crawling through wreckage or a restriction in a cave.

I stress again that it takes a fair amount of effort to detach the handle. If I had the torch over a long period and happily snagged it a few times without the handle coming off I may dismiss this as an irrelevant issue, however on the basis of the limited exposure I enjoyed I think it’s worth a mention.


WOULD I BUY ONE?

If I was in the market for a 10W power out put torch? Yes definitely. Id get it in preference to a 10W HID. I feel its balance between illumination and signalling power in that range is excellent.


ATB

Mark Chase