$30 Home made Fluorescent Dive light - amazing yet a little disappointing experience.

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Craig66

Contributor
Messages
644
Reaction score
291
Location
New Jersey
# of dives
500 - 999
Just returned back from a live aboard in Belize where I had a chance to dive with my homemade fluorescent dive light and had the most amazing results.

First off thanks to the great help and advice of Glowdiver I was able to make what I feel was the perfect light. I had available a 1000, a 500 and a 250 lumen lights. I used a Rosco's Permacolor Dichroic Filter #34600 Medium Red Blue Stage lighting filter. from B&H ( $7 special order and can't take a couple of weeks to arrive). I combined it with all three of my lights and found that no matter which of the lights I used I was getting a lot of overpowering of the white light especially in the central spots. I then added two Rosco lens and this was perfect. When attached to my 1000 lumen DRIS light It gave off an amazing blue and without any real overpowering hot spots. (2 filters including S&H = $20). I secured the filters onto my light with a electrical insulating tape.

I then made a yellow cover for my mask. I drew an outline on a yellow plexiglass sheet and using fire and a running tap was able to direct the flame in the areas I needed it and so I had a perfect outline of my mask. Drilled two holes on each side and using zip ties and an old mask strap made the perfect over the mask filter mask ($10 on ebay)

The only downside to my set up was the need for a second light as my filter would stay attached through the whole dive - which was not an issue for me.

Underwater it was phenomenal. Without the mask I had a good light source although all was blue. With the filter on it was almost pitch black except for the most amazing vibrant fluorescent corals that stood out amazingly. It was really an amazing experience.

SO where the disappointment. Unfortunately where we were diving the only real organisms that had significant fluorescence was the corals and while it was beautiful it was a little disappointing. I did get some fluorescence on the spots of a lion fish and a lizard fish/sand diver and a few spots on the urchins but aside from that did not see much else. The live aboard we were on actually had a sola night sea and my results were as good so I do not feel it was due to lack of a good functioning light in the correct spectrum although it is certainly probable that a light in a different spectrum might have seen other things.

Definitely worth doing if only once to get an idea of what is down there in the fluorescent band.

Craig
 
Craig I'm glad this worked for you. I really like that you stacked them. One of my experiences was to have a bit of washing out with a powerful light, but doubling the filters may have been more effective than just a dimmer light. That makes me wonder about maybe stacking two different filters. I will admit this is a bit of a novelty item. The primary life that fluoresces, are the corals, but if you look closely you can see some amazing details that you may have overlooked with standard lights, amd it is fun to discover a free swimming creature that does fluoresce.
 
Link or details to the build?

Boosted98, thought my description was pretty detailed but if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them.

---------- Post added June 6th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ----------

Craig I'm glad this worked for you. I really like that you stacked them. One of my experiences was to have a bit of washing out with a powerful light, but doubling the filters may have been more effective than just a dimmer light. That makes me wonder about maybe stacking two different filters.

The doubling was definitely helpful against the washout and as you described, even a dimmer light still had washout. I thought about combining the Rosco and Wratten which have slightly different spectra but did not get to try it. My reasoning was that potentially it would lessen what you would see as it would block out some of the frequency of the other filter but certainly worth trying.

---------- Post added June 6th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ----------

The primary life that fluoresces, are the corals, but if you look closely you can see some amazing details that you may have overlooked with standard lights, amd it is fun to discover a free swimming creature that does fluoresce.

Totally agree and I hope my title does not imply that it was disappointing. It was definitely one of the nicest night dives I have done but had I seen more organisms fluoresce it would have been the ultimate> Especially because of the double filter I was literally ldiving in total darkness only punctuated by these amazing patches of florescence. Definitely something that should be tried at least once by anyone comfortable with night diving. And at the cost of $30 or so it is definitely affordable.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom