Custom divers 10w hid mod

Hi Guys

I have an old custom divers 10w Hid dive light, whilst it works ok theres a couple of issues, 1 is that sometimes it takes a few switches off and on to make it light, could this be an issue with the batteries getting old and not holding enough voltage? the other one is the hid bulb will I guess eventually blow and I would like to convert it to LED if and when this happens, does anyone have any experience of doing this?

Cheers

Is that you Davydiver? From RBW?

I have done several 10w HID to LED conversion.

I tend to stick with 10w LED's like the Cree XML and use an aspheric lens.
This gives great results and keeps the same burn time.

No I'm priestlay on RBW davydiver must have been taken, but im davydiver on YD, CCRx and the diveforum, thanks for the info, is it an easy mod? i'm not really up on fiddly electronics.

Do you have a link to your particular light head?
Is it the fixed focus type?

It usually involves using a lathe to make up a heat sink for the LED and driver plus a part to support the lens.

Its fixed focus, this is similar to mine, just the switch is further forward on mine.

Should be a pretty simple job swapping the HID out for LED.

could a drop in module be used such as this one [h=1]UltraFire CREE XM-L T6 700lm 5-Mode White LED Flashlight Drop-in Module[/h]

Yes and no.
It will not put out 1000 lumen + which the LED is capable of, You will still need to make up a heat sink for it to get the heat from the drop in to the wall of the light head and the reflector is smaller than the torch body ID (35mm). The bigger the reflector the better. Plus 5 modes will drive you bonkers.

It would still be an improvement over the HID but not as much as of an improvement than using a more powerful driver, appropriate heatsink and larger reflector of aspheric lens.

This is a 10wHID to XML LED conversion with an aspheric lens.

Wow that's like a light sabre

davydiver said:

Wow that's like a light sabre

Click to expand...

haha, that's what my buddy said after my first dive with a fresnel lens setup (similar to aspheric).

what's the diameter of the HID reflector? or the inside diameter of the housing?
I agree with Packhorse, dropins will probably create more headaches than it will solve.

My guess is that its 35mm.

Well my CD torch has i think finally packed up, it comes on and turns off randomly, the battery is fine so I guess its either the bulb or ballast, anyhoo, would the following be a suitable diy mod. If so what driver would I need? also what about heat sink would it be sufficient to use the body of the torch as heat sink?

The body of the torch would be a fantastic heat sink ( assuming it aluminium)..... but you do need to get the heat from the LED's to the body. In most cases this is done by machining up a fat disc of aluminium that the LED,s get mounted to on one side and it can slip into the light head. The tolerances must be very close for it to work though. We are talking about less than 0.1mm's. So the chances of finding something off the shelf to work is pretty slim.

There are plenty of drivers you can use. I have had OK success with this one. But have more recently been using a different one from DX that I cant seem to find at the moment. Its a 3 amp driver and cost about $5. Either of these should be fine if you wire the 3 LED's in series.
TaskLED has a wide range of drivers too and the are of better quality, but the do cost a lot more.

The above optics should work OK as long as you are not after a spot beam. They simply are not large enough. Also consider that if you do run them at 3 amp ( and why wouldnt you!) then your battery pack will last less than 1/3 the time it used to with the 10w HID.