Hi everyone,
My dive light housings have arrived from the CNC shop in the US. If you were looking to turn it into "deep sea monster" what would you put inside ? I've mocked up a MC-E, M-bin and there will be a 7 x xp-e r2 version. I'm considering an Ostar but it's expensive, and I haven't found anywhere that will guarantee I will get a QZ bin. So, what would you do ? The ID is 35.2mm and the internal depth is 60mm, and it's a canister light so has a seperate battery. I'm interested in pure lumens so it can be led, hid, incan, whatever, as long as the beam is fairly narrow - 15 degrees maximum..
7 xpe r2's with 10mm ledil optics should fit nicely. I realise 15 degrees is wide for a dive light but it won't actually be used as my primary light. 15 deg is the absolute max I will consider, the problem being that in MR11 format the more led's you pack in, the smaller the reflectors/optics and the less narrow the beam becomes. I have three setups made up and ready to go into housings for underwater trials.
1. MC-E "M" bin WG with Ledil EVA-D optic
2. MC-E "M" bin WG with a 37mm DX reflector (hand filed down to fit)
3. 4 x XRE R2 WG with a Ledil optic.
The narrowest beam is with the reflector, I'm just not sure whether I could live with the doughnut hole.
These optics are too wide for a primary light but I'm interested in seeing the result nonetheless. I haven't done the sums yet but I'm thinking that perhaps 8 will fit inside my 35mm housing. 1500 lumens from an MR11 would be very nice, but with a beam angle of around 20 degrees not very useful for a primary light but it will be a challenge to get rid of all that heat so as an experiment it's worth having a play. I don't need any of these lights as I already have a 7 x xr-e canister light as my primary.
I also have the housings / canisters to make 4 more lights lights, two of which I have already sold to friends. They will be primary lights for their purchasers, but they will have the chance to test dive the different lights and see which they prefer. They will undoubtedly go for the brightest, narrowest beam because that's the best option for dark, deep wreck dives in bad visibility. That leaves me with 2 lots of parts to play around with. I may turn one of them into a helmet mounted light with a slightly wider beam than I'd normally want in a primary. This year I'll be pushing on towards trimix depths and I like the idea of having a helmet light. Having the extra kits gives me the chance to play around with ideas and see how different options work underwater, just for the fun of it. What would I build if I could ? .... an MR11 format light, dimmable, with around 2000 lumens and focuseable from around 5 degrees to wide flood. But it aint gonna happen any time soon...
Once I get some funds together I intend to have some MR16 housings designed and machined up. Much more options to play with then..
Yeah, I thought about a helmet mount one too. But probably 30mm OD in size.
If you are going to custome make a light head I would suggest going for something slightly bigger than MR16 (52mm).
Id like to build a 7 LED version of my 4x Aspheric. Id need an ID of about 56mm and the mag I use is 48mm. I dont need more light as I think my current set up puts out heaps, but I would like to have maybe 3 reflectors and 4 aspherics and have each individually switchable.
I'd like to get into Trimix too but the cost here is prohibitive. So CCR looks like the way to go.
CCR is 12 to 18 months away for me. I wanted at least to do a year OC trimix diving just for the experience but trimix isn't cheap here either. Spending £50 on a fill for one dive is mad, not to mention the cost of two deco mixes. I just need to find the £5500 for an AP Inspiration..
Next on the list though, is a small lathe. Being able to machine heatsinks to closer tolerances would be useful. I've got lots of ideas to play with there too, including maybe machining my own housing and canister prototypes.
Larger than MR16 looks interesting. I can buy MR16 housings commercially so why make them..
So many ideas...it's a shame that work gets in the way
Biggest bang for the buck in MR11 ??
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