New diving video/spot light design.

Hi . My friend .

This is Minos .and I am going to develop a new diving video/spot dive lights.I want to share some of our thoughts here . And wish some one can give us advise .

Here below is my rough idea . I wish I can get some react from you and build a good dive light for more users.
Head
For the head,I wish I can be a night dive spot light ,But mainly this one can be as a video lights.
Body
The body coming with a ball mount, To easy attach

For the switch.
Previously . I want to use magnetic switch . But It seems magnetic switch easy to die when the sand slip in.
So . We want us the Button with power indicator.


Thanks very much for your advise . I am appreciated all divers here can talk about what's the idealized dive video light.
Minos

Sounds like a good all round light.

How do the low power modes work? Are they PWM and if so does this cause any issue with "strobing" when shooting video?

I think the shortness of the light is ideal for video work, but a single 32650 may lack the power to deliver decent burn times and constant brightness. 3 18650's side by side would provide plenty of grunt. Especially when using the Panasonic 3400mah cells. It would make the light a bit fatter but I dont think that is much of a concern.. Perhaps 4 x 18650's??

The Ball mount is great as is the power level indicator.

I agree the single cell is going to have a hard time running the six LEDs (assuming the spot wouldn't also be on at the same time). If you are planning on running them full out, that's about 15A and you'd only get 20 minutes.

Are you going to build your own drivers? Obviously the red LEDs need a separate driver, as the voltage is much less. Linear would work fine, but buck would be more efficient. For the white LEDs, linear regulators work but output drops in the later parts of discharge. Maybe that's okay for the spot and you use boost for running the wide angle ones in a 2S2P setup? Running all buck regulators with 3x18650s in series would give the best efficiency and almost double the runtime using 3x3400 mAH instead of 5800.

As Packhorse said, using PWM with video can be a problem. I don't have a link, but there is a video on CPF showing how various PWM frequencies affect a certain camera. It is possible to run high enough frequency to eliminate problems, at least with some cameras and some shutter speeds. Still, I think filtering the PWM into DC is probably better for a video light you are going to try to sell.

I love the idea of the power indicator in the pushbutton. I assume you are going to be developing your own microprocessor-based control for the modes and the power indicator?

Pushbuttons and dive lights have had an unhappy marriage. If you put a boot on it to keep out the sand, the pressure presses the button. If you don't, sand gets in. How do you plan to overcome that problem?

I implemented a magnet ring that doesn't get jammed with sand, even diving in Cape Cod, where sand gets into everything. It is two half circles, held onto the light using an o-ring as an elastic band. If sand gets in, just pull one half away from the light and shake it, the sand falls out. The ring has deep scallops cut into it, so it can be operated and cleaned underwater even wearing heavy gloves.

By the way, if you do end up going with magnets, don't use Neodymium. It corrodes in salt water, even if nickel plated. When it corrodes, it expands, so you can't get it out of the hole it's in. And it's ceramic, so you can't drill it out. And it's hard enough you can't dig it out with steel tools. And it's packed in a hole, so you can't break it up. Go ahead, ask me how I know.

I use samarium cobalt magnets now. More expensive, harder to find, and less strong, but they don't corrode.

Packhorse said:

Sounds like a good all round light.

How do the low power modes work? Are they PWM and if so does this cause any issue with "strobing" when shooting video?

I think the shortness of the light is ideal for video work, but a single 32650 may lack the power to deliver decent burn times and constant brightness. 3 18650's side by side would provide plenty of grunt. Especially when using the Panasonic 3400mah cells. It would make the light a bit fatter but I dont think that is much of a concern.. Perhaps 4 x 18650's??

The Ball mount is great as is the power level indicator.

Click to expand...

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Thanks for your sharing.
Yes .We will use the PWM for the modes work.For the "Strobing"problem . I think we can solve it.

Yes . The battery is the problem . So we are not using constant current in which we can make the burn time last 70 minutes. But you know the lighting will less bright when time pass in the same mode.

This is the final feature

The sample model done

Minos2014 said:

The sample model done

Click to expand...

Here you can see the market price for this model/Hi-max V11

Thanks