What should I do with this old dive light.

[alpg88]

I had this light sitting in a cabinet for over a decade, I got It already broken, it is a simple reed switch that someone crushed, not a big deal, easy fix, however I do to want to just fix it, it is 10D cell inc. bulb, probably around 20w, lame and boring, but the body is cast aluminum, I'd like to make it a lot brighter. No less that 10k lm. but what beam profile should i make? which one is the best? Color? On another forum someone experimented and found that green works best, it makes objects sharper and gives more contrast, but it is just 1 guys opinion.

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

I had this light sitting in a cabinet for over a decade, I got It already broken, it is a simple reed switch that someone crushed, not a big deal, easy fix, however I do to want to just fix it, it is 10D cell inc. bulb, probably around 20w, lame and boring, but the body is cast aluminum, I'd like to make it a lot brighter. No less that 10k lm. but what beam profile should i make? which one is the best? Color? On another forum someone experimented and found that green works best, it makes objects sharper and gives more contrast, but it is just 1 guys opinion.

Well, if you want to keep it a dive light, then I suggest you make it a thrower with a narrow beam profile. My understanding about diving is you need the light beam concentrated to penetrate the murk, and if you went with a floody beam profile, you wouldn't get much range out of it. I'm not a diver, so take this with a grain of salt, but I imagine that to be true.

Color I would go with neutral, high CRI again, that is if you are going to keep it a dive light. Again, I'm not a diver, and I would defer to a diver's recommendations.

Good luck with your project! I am looking forward to seeing the results of your work on it!

 

[F89]

Cool light. That's a nice chunk of aluminium and Perspex.
Tight beam with as little spill as possible works best in my opinion but it depends greatly on the visibility (amount of debris particles in the water). Generally a tight beam is best regardless.
I wouldn't go funky colours, standard white colour temps are fine.
Depending on what you want to do with it, it could be an interesting platform for a floody land-based light with some mule and/or Carclo triple or quad optics etc.

 

[nein166]

I grabbed a smaller version of that light at a garage sale for~$10 years back and kind of forgot about it until now. Mine is BUG-DIVER-400.
I was going to rebuild it as a 5mm showerhead LED big flood light with SLA packs for blackout use but the screw only access deterred me from continuing.

If I were to remake it as a dive light I'd try to find a LEP module for tight search beam and 3 TIR flood LEDs. Maybe a mix of white and cyan. Blue light goes farther than white thru water, would be interesting to see if a mix would give greater depth (and I don't mean that in a vertical measure) perception.

The old caving lights from Scurion being my inspiration

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[F89]

I'm watching Jaws right now and this light looks just like the one in the movie.
I had to dig up this thread just to mention.

 

[F89]

Just did a quick internet search and found mention that the light in the movie is a Darrel Allan Bug-Diver 400.

 

[nein166]

Cool, I own a movie prop

 

[F89]

Yeah I reckon. Now knowing that I'd want to keep it stock. Maybe display it on a shelf or in the bar.
It's the 50th anniversary of the movie. Love Jaws.
On a side note Seiko released a dive watch commemorating the movie.

 

[alpg88]

That is what I decided to do, fix it to oem condition, and leave on the shelf. all I need is a new reed switch, other then that nothing seems to be broken