Mod Princeton Tec Shockwave or Miniwave with red/red-orange LEDs

Hi there,

I'm quite new to this stuff, so I apologize in advance if I ask something obvious or apparent (I did try to search and read up first).

I'm getting into underwater photography, and do a lot of night diving. I was looking at the Sola 600 focus/video light, which has 4 red (red-orange?) LEDs at 225 lumens. The red color doesn't scare away the night creatures. But I can't bring myself to drop $600 on that light.

I had an idea where I might take a Princeton Tec Miniwave (4C light, 3 LEDs) or a Shockwave (8C light, 3 LEDs) and replace the white LEDs with red or red-orange ones. Ideally, it will be straightforward; i.e., not more than removing the old LEDs, and soldering in the new ones (maybe needs thermal grease under it).

However, I don't know what LED to use that will fit the bill, and be very bright yet be acceptable in terms of runtime and heat generation. I don't want the light to overheat and die, and I would like to retain the stock runtime of about 10-20 hours depending on the lo-hi mode used.

If you guys have recommendations on which LEDs to use and what kind of performance I might see from them, and where to buy them, let me know!

Thanks in advance!

So I did some looking around, and I think I want to go with pure red LEDs so the underwater critters are less sensitive to it. I found these LEDs; think they are a good fit?

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...=sGAEpiMZZMsgllGlynFdfgQfot8xfP4eba29RzraIoI=

Any idea what kind of results in terms of brightness and battery life I might get if I simply soldered these into place in a Princeton Tec Miniwave light?

Thanks!

All I know about dive lights is they are sealed well and thats really bad for LEDs. It makes it hard to get heat out of the light. Princeton Tec says it has heatsinks in the light so that may be enough. The older Version used LuxeonIII LEDs and the New version (337lm) uses Maxbright LEDs which are probably Seoul Semiconductor (SSC) LEDs. So the ones you found on Mouser should work fine. The Shockwave(and probably the miniwave) has no regulation just a resistor for low mode and direct drive for high thats not good as the low forward voltage of the RED LED is 2.3v
So lets say you have 4 batteries at 1.5v
4 C cells in series is 6v and between 3 LEDs in series that works out to 2v each, which will light up the RED leds but not the whites LEDs (3.5v) in there stock so its not wired that way.
I'm not sure of the battery arrangement and how the LEDs are wired to the battery pack but if the LEDs get 3v each you'll burn up any red LED you put in there. A resistor in line with each led will drop the voltage but also add to the heat.

nein166 said:

All I know about dive lights is they are sealed well and thats really bad for LEDs. It makes it hard to get heat out of the light. Princeton Tec says it has heatsinks in the light so that may be enough. The older Version used LuxeonIII LEDs and the New version (337lm) uses Maxbright LEDs which are probably Seoul Semiconductor (SSC) LEDs. So the ones you found on Mouser should work fine. The Shockwave(and probably the miniwave) has no regulation just a resistor for low mode and direct drive for high thats not good as the low forward voltage of the RED LED is 2.3v
So lets say you have 4 batteries at 1.5v
4 C cells in series is 6v and between 3 LEDs in series that works out to 2v each, which will light up the RED leds but not the whites LEDs (3.5v) in there stock so its not wired that way.
I'm not sure of the battery arrangement and how the LEDs are wired to the battery pack but if the LEDs get 3v each you'll burn up any red LED you put in there. A resistor in line with each led will drop the voltage but also add to the heat.

Click to expand...

hmmm good point. so in general, is it usually not a straightforward task to swap out LEDs with different colored ones, due to different forward voltages of the different colored LEDs? that's one thing i'd love to be able to figure out; to find out how to measure the current and voltage that the LEDs are being fed.

You might simply glue a photo lens step-up filter ring to the outside of the light and buy a Red photo filter from keh.com or similar used photo store. Ring and filter could probaly be had for under $30. PLus you could also get different colored filters at any point.

Dannnn said:

You might simply glue a photo lens step-up filter ring to the outside of the light and buy a Red photo filter from keh.com or similar used photo store. Ring and filter could probaly be had for under $30. PLus you could also get different colored filters at any point.

Click to expand...

true, but there are many who claim that red filters don't cut down on light of different wavelengths enough, letting some others through a bit, so the critters are more sensitive to white light+red filter vs straight up red LEDs. worst case, i found a similar product called the i-Torch Pro Video that's around half the price of the Sola 600 Photo, if i end up being unable to mod a light to work.