Dive light from E-Bay -- Great buy!!!

[dberry]

Spoolin01, Please report back, if you try running one down "too far". And thanks for all the info, including the link to the cree wiki. It was nice to see a guide to the alphabet soup used to label the LEDs. It's clear from the codes and rated output of the different LEDs why there is such a variation of the different devices on the market, and how fast they have evolved in just a couple of years. Although it might be hard to lie about the model of LED (because you can see it), who knows if they are honest about the bin of a specific LED (i.e. is it really a "T6", or a cheaper "T2" with 70% the efficiency?) That's why it's so great to read first-hand experiences with a light.

 

[jfe01]

This may be my answer to my current "dive cam" set-up. Have the little scubapro nova at 200 lumens and not really making the grade. @ $ 25 guess it is worth the gamble to gain all that extra light.


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[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

This may be my answer to my current "dive cam" set-up. Have the little scubapro nova at 200 lumens and not really making the grade. @ $ 25 guess it is worth the gamble to gain all that extra light.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I just bought another one for my son... and as a spare. Next weekend I plan on doing a 125ffw dive with it. If you had 2 of them on a mount angled just right might be nice for sure better then the 200 lumens.

---------- Post added April 27th, 2015 at 02:59 PM ----------

So far the flash lights have been reliable! They work well and in my opinion are well made.
I've had mine as deep as 97 feet but will soon take them down much deeper! They are rated to 60 meters or 196 feet...

196 feet for me is a drop in the bucket and I'm sure this summer I'll push one of the lights over it's limit to see what happens. If it implodes, I will not cry for $25! But at least we will know.

If you are only a recreation diver and are only doing recreation dives to 140ft and they are ok to 196 feet, then you're in business for less then $26. In my book that's pretty sweet!

More to come soon...

 

[pisoiu]

..... I'll push one of the lights over it's limit to see what happens. If it implodes...
.

I'm not sure if this is a myth or not, but I heard that in some cases, hydraulic shock as a result of a compartment imploding at depth may knock out a diver. Of course it depends of the volume of the compartment, the speed of implosion, its position in relation with diver's body, etc., but at least in theory it makes sense. I would be very carefull carying with me objects that are prone to implode.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

I'm not sure if this is a myth or not, but I heard that in some cases, hydraulic shock as a result of a compartment imploding at depth may knock out a diver. Of course it depends of the volume of the compartment, the speed of implosion, its position in relation with diver's body, etc., but at least in theory it makes sense. I would be very carefull carying with me objects that are prone to implode.

Oh believe me when I do, it will be attached to the end of one of my reels or a piece of line away from me! LOL

 

[dberry]

I would think that shock from an implosion would depend on the size of the the internal cavity that suddenly collapses. A flashlight is mainly filled with solid battery, with relatively little empty space, so I'm not sure there would be much of a "thunderclap". OTOH, the explosion that might result from salt water suddenly being injected into a charged Li ion battery and the sudden release of all that stored energy is another thing entirely. A charged 26650 battery isn't exactly a hand grenade, but my back-of-the-envelope calculations put it in the range of a couple of M-80 firecrackers at least.

[and for the technically inclined, we are not talking about the typical current x voltage x time calculation used to figure out how much electrical energy is available from a slowly discharging battery. This would be the sudden release of all the stored (potential) chemical energy as heat and possibly kinetic energy (i.e. shrapnel). Even without shrapnel, the instantaneous release of just the heat could create a shock wave (by formation and collapse of a steam bubble.)

Actually, this sounds like a really cool experiment, as long as I can watch it on someone else's recovered GoPro footage (RIP). :blessing:

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

Here is the link to the same seller on ebay that still has a few of the mentioned lights: 5000LM Super Bright 3 CREE XM L T6 LED Diving Flashlight Torch Lamp Waterproof | eBay

Please remember... I have nothing to do with the people selling the mentioned dive lights nor do I make any money from this. I am merely a diver who needed to cut some costs, needed a light, could not afford the $600 tag and found one that SO FAR has worked very well for a small fraction of what a comparable light would cost me at me LDS. As of today I have bought 2 and have been able to test one so far up to 97feet. It has worked fine and I am SO FAR very happy with the quality of the light and the high output and obviously the $25 price.

If you buy one and have problems with it keep in mind you have options of returning it and also have the protection from ebay and paypal.

---------- Post added April 27th, 2015 at 09:56 PM ----------

Here is a quick video on the light... Did not come out too good.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdSF6I1tTio&feature=youtu.be
The gopro kept adjusting. I was hopping to show how bright the light is but the video doesn't do it justice...

 

[oldschoolto]

Ok.. The company refunded me $15 buck on the light that has the low current draw when off... I found this as fare.. Just keep the back cap alittle lose and it's off... But, Anyone open the light up and have a idea what maybe wrong... I'd try and fix it... Otherwise, I'll just leave it as is...

Jim...

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

I got the second light in the mail yesterday works great.

 

[spoolin01]

I did some battery draw-down testing, using an 18650 battery. I don't have a definitive answer to whether there is a built-in protective circuit in the flashlight itself, but I think the answer is likely No.

As best I can tell, once the battery voltage drops to 3.5V, the light output is definitely less. By the time it gets to 3.0 volts, it is quite a bit dimmer. At first glance, this strikes me as odd, but in truth I don't know what the typical driver-board engineering of these single Li-Ion battery lights is intended to produce in the way of voltage/current control to the emitters. It would probably be worth taking this discussion over to candlepowerforum to get input from some more knowledgeable folks. I like the apparent potential of these lights for use with U/W video, but if they are not well regulated, I think that usefulness is not nearly so great.

Those measurements were resting voltage - after letting the battery sit either outside the light, or with the light off, for at least 10 minutes. I didn't take immediate readings after shutting off the light, but they would be less.

I don't have a light with similar output characteristics to do a careful comparison. I was using a SL4 LED light, which is less bright overall, but has a more concentrated hotspot, and moving the lights back and forth in relative distance from a wall to try to gauge relative intensities. It's possible the noticeable fall-off in output occurs at even higher voltage. A better test will have to wait until I have a second unit. Maybe someone with two lights can do this test.

So although I didn't take the battery down much less than 3.0V, which should be well within a safe range, I think the risk of draining the battery far too low during actual use is low - you will notice the loss of brightness long before reaching any purported safe voltage limit. If you should leave the light on accidentally or unattended, that is probably a different matter.