Chinese Dive Lights: Where do they all go?

[gcbryan]

I don't know if any of you have done a search on Alibaba which is a serach engine for Chinese suppliers/manufacturers meant to help them line up wholesalers in the West I would guess.

You can find the "ugly light" there. Actually most of them would fit that description but I'm wondering for so many products where do they go?

I rarely see any of these various models online, in dive stores or where ever.

Most if not all of the models seem to have had no real feedback from a diver as they all have various inadequacies.

I know on other forums people have tried to contact some of those manufacturers to offer feedback but there seems to be no interest on the manufacturers part. On the other hand I can't see how they could or are selling them.

It's strange. I don't think most of them are for just the Chinese market either.

Anyone have any explanations for those lights? Many manufacturers offer them, no one seems to take them, and yet the manufacturers seem to have no interest in common sense improvements either.

With the non-diving DX lights they seem to try to closely copy better lights. With dive lights I don't know where they come up with their concepts.

It wouldn't be any harder for them to manufacture good dive lights but they seem to just take some tactical police type of light and add a magnetic switch and thicker but not thick enough glass and call it a dive light.

 

[lucca brassi]

Chinese Dive Lights: Where do they all go?

some of them go to Irish or Germany where rename them and add some higher price :sick2:

[eBay links deleted - DM51]

UVP: 399,-- € (recomended price !!!)

 

[gcbryan]

That's funny! Your first listing looks like the Ultrafire W200 except now it's got 5 modes (including two "panic modes") and it's about twice as much as on DX.

I was able to check the others out before they were "edited" out by a moderator. They were what we called the "ugly light" on here. That is an amazing range of prices for the same thing!

Those are still the lights that I have and that are available in the usual places. There are others listed on Alibaba that I've never seen anywhere. They aren't for sale directly on Alibaba so unless someone wants to contact the manufacturer and place an order for 1,000 units I wonder who they are selling to (if anyone)?

There is a lot of potential there.

 

[Klem]

Hopefully North Korea.

 

[Yavox]

I am not interested in Chinese diving lights and I don't even try to think when they go. As long as my life depends on the light working correctly, I am not interested in this kind of cheap stuff. Most Chinese diving lights I have seen have IMHO major design flaws that may result in various kinds of underwater trouble.

BTW, does anybody know if is it possible that the battery and the light would explode underwater if a cheap light leaks and the water gets inside and shorts the circuit?

 

[DM51]

Hopefully North Korea.

LOL!

I am not interested in Chinese diving lights and I don't even try to think when they go. does anybody know if is it possible that the battery and the light would explode underwater if a cheap light leaks and the water gets inside and shorts the circuit?

Photo taken last week of a N Korean warship that had just dropped off some frogmen:

LOL

Actually, there would not be an explosion at all. The only thing you would be likely to notice if it flooded would be that it stopped working.

 

[stallion2]

try looking at this site, its an offshoot of alibaba.com but is geared more towards endusers:

http://www.aliexpress.com/

i did purchase one of the "diving light" from DX last fall. its an impressive light...i would say the build quality is no worse off than Thrunite's Catapult. mine is the P7 version and while i never intended to use it for diving i'm sure it would work fine. its not what i would call an ideal dive light...the beam is far too wide angle for something i would want to take underwater. the crenulations should tell you right off the bat that this was never designed w/ diving in mind...and if it was then the people who designed it aren't divers themselves. i know Tactical HID is importing this light rebadged as their own. i've seen a couple reviews on diving forums that were generally complimentary. i'm not sure who makes it but i think it may be MagicShine.

 

[gcbryan]

Stallion2, yes, a lot of us have that light. We refer to it on here as "the ugly light". It works well as a dive light and it is made by Magicshine. It's sold by HID Tactical and Novae in the S. Calif area as well.

It's what Lucca linked to on European *bay sites as well at prices from 50 euros to 250 euros!

I'd like to see lights like that improved but they never are. As you said the bezel and sharp external heat fins are not needed in a dive light.

Regarding cheap lights exploding when flooded...why would an expensive light be any different if it flooded?

The answer is they don't explode and you might be surprised to find that in most cases they do keep working! What goes is the ability to change modes.

Most of those will flood and have if the contact spring is not shortened including yours Stallion2. Cut one link out of the spring sometime and that seems to totally fix the problem which was the spring not allowing the lens o-ring to fully compress due to the spring bottoming out.

That's the thing, these lights are well made as far as machining and most other areas of construction. They just need to be designed by a diver and then tested.

The difference between the P7 you mentioned at $95 and a Barbolight at $700 isn't $605 in terms of functionality. The P7 could be tweaked a bit by the designer and produced at no greater cost. They just don't consider the dive market to be big enough to worry about I don't think.

Most of the dive lights are sold as being for divers, police, hunters, etc.

I should add that many would be surprised to learn that even if the light leaks in salt water in most cases it is completely fixable with just cleaning it up. These higher current circuits are robust enough (unlike cellphone circuits) to handle this kind of abuse.

I should add that your life should never be dependent on a dive light in the first place whether it's a Chinese one or a Polish one.

I dive at night all the time. I have two lights and if they both were to fail I'm still getting out of the water OK. Just don't quit breathing if your light goes out.

 

[stallion2]

i've not encountered much discussion on this light. you're telling me that some have had trouble w/ this specific light leaking? like i said, i have no real desire to use this light in that environment, i prefer a VERY sharp beam...the only 'flood' lights i use are mounted to my Nikon assembly...but see no reason why mine would be vulnerable. regardless, any flashlight i take down is either from UK's sunlight line or some of my (not for diving app.) LED lights...but only after reinforcing the switch, lense and all seams w/ thicker washers...and a little electrical tape as a first line of defense.

the only significant piece of information i've come across in terms of this light's water resistance is from a scuba thread. a couple guys dropped it to 9atm in a pressure tank and it never flooded. they did manage to crack the lense near the edge but they thought it was because they ramped up the pressure too fast.

light failure underwater is kinda exciting (a false statement if i was diving the cenotes). i actually like getting into the water before anyone else on a night dive. i shine the GITD display on the depth gauge for a couple seconds and then turn off and down i go. not the brightest idea in the world but it certainly gives me a sense of my own mortality

 

[gcbryan]

Stallion2, yeah it's that specific light. There are two versions (MC-E and P7). I have the MC-E as it has a little tighter beam (more like my Light Cannon HID). Actually, I've since sold the Light Cannon.

There are some threads on SB but there are more on a British site where a lot of people bought both versions of this light.

Once you fix the spring it's fine for the most part.

I dive a lot here in the PNW at night and I like to turn the light off as well. We have a lot of bio-luminescence but due to more limited viz (as compared to the tropics) I usually only leave it off toward the end of a dive when it gets shallow and we've already done our safety stops.

When you turn the light off here it is pitch black but you can still tell where your dive buddy is by movement and the bio-luminescence. Navigating is by the glowing marks on my compass.

Regarding the light, the problem with testing it in a pressure pot is that it's just a static test. Movement of the light through the water at depth (let's say 100 fsw or so) pressing on the front lens and this takes the pressure off the retaining ring if the o-ring isn't doing it's job.

The ring loosens quite a bit and when the pressure is reduced toward the end of the dive and the retaining ring is now loose allows for water to flood in when the light is moving around now that higher pressure isn't keeping the lens completely in place.

If there is no movement, water pressure itself will more or less keep the lens in place.

Anyway, I could probably find at least 30 or 40 cases where these lights flooded and it's all because of the spring being too long. We've kept some of those threads updated just to help owners of those lights.

 

[Packhorse]

I have seen the ugly light at a few dive shops in NZ.
From what I gather it has been supplied to them from a NZ source.

I informed one that they could buy it from DX for $81us ( or what ever it is) and they said they buy it cheaper. I didnt believe them though. As it was they were selling it for about 250% of the DX price

 

[gcbryan]

I have seen the ugly light at a few dive shops in NZ.
From what I gather it has been supplied to them from a NZ source.

I informed one that they could buy it from DX for $81us ( or what ever it is) and they said they buy it cheaper. I didnt believe them though. As it was they were selling it for about 250% of the DX price

They might be able to get a slight volume discount. BYW, the MC-E version is $95 and the P7 is a bit cheaper.

There are a lot of other dive lights on Alibaba but the W200 and the various versions of the ugly light are the only ones I actually see around though.

 

[lucca brassi]

Reading german eBay , I have noticed Tilly-Tec buying that ugly lamp from DX China and made some corrections and sell it with higher price : (original text -use Google translate)

ART DER LAMPE :​

Fremdfabrikat TillyTec modifiziert
Sie bieten auf eine neuwertige Lampe, neu und ungebraucht.​

Die Lampe ist nicht im Standardprogramm von TillyTec enthalten.
Es ist ein eingekauftes Fremdprodukt, was durch TillyTec verbessert wurde.
Wir weisen in diesem Zusammenhang darauf hin, dass Kunden, die mit der Lampe nicht zufrieden sind und von ihrem Widerrufsrecht Gebrauch machen, die Möglichkeit erhalten, auf eine TILLYTEC Originallampe "upzugraden". Sie können in diesem Falle eine originale TillyTec Lampe gegen Zuzahlung des Differenzpreises erhalten. Der bereits bezahlte Preis wird voll angerechnet.Vorraussetzung dafür ist natürlich, dass ein bestimmter Mindestpreis eingehalten wird. Selbstverständlich wird natürlich im Rahmen des Widerrufsrechtes der Kaufpreis zurück erstattet.