Waterproof lights

welcome!

if you are looking for bright, a led may not be what you want. while luxeons are bright, they can't compare to many incandescants. even the 60 led light will not put out as much as a good incandescant.

if you want it as a backup light, then that would be a good idea, as they are very reliable.

the problem with modding dive lights, is that luxeons generally need to be in a metal body, and not many metal bodies are waterproof.

if you want a good small led light to read your guages or whatever, and to use above water too, i strongly recommend the arc aaa. it is only rated to 50 feet, but they have been lower than 300, and scientific calculations say they can go even deeper than 2000! even if you do get water in the battery pack, it will still run. a member hear (aragorn) even chaged his battery 9 feet under. but i don't suggest you do that unless you open it back up before you go back to the top to relieve the pressure.

Don't know anything about diving lights...but what about a SureFire 6PN? Does any one know?

Oh, welcome to CPF!!

thanx....I was thinking about the trek expedition 1900 special edition, which is a 19 LED light in an aluminum case rated to 1000 ft. Would it be possible to replace the small LEDS with an array of the luxeons to boost the brightness?

hmmm, that light could be a canidate...

basically, it would require a heatsink built into the body and you could probably fit 3 1watters on direct drive...if your brave enough to have a $200 light taken apart and modded, i think it could be done.

I don't have Expedition 1900 so I couldn't commend on that. I do have a 26-LED light that runs 4W. While it lights up big area, it's far from 1000 feet.

Alan

deke, oops... I guess you meant the light rated 1000ft *underwater*. Sorry for the confusion.

Alan

thanks rothrandir

I have no prob with the cost, the only issue is the brightness...any idea how that would compare to a bright incandescent? Are the 5w too big to fit into a 1.9" diam case? I am just stoked to get the brightest possible light in the coolest possible case (ok, so I'm a big kid)

Deke

btw, is "roth" a sub for "mith"

yes, roth is a sub for mith, or rather rot is a sub for mit...you see, i used to play an online game called arc (no not a flashlight game ), and my name was rot...then i joined a tolkien forum, and changed my name to rotthrandir. after thinking about it, the name kind of sucks, but that is what i am known as so...

5watters will fit (they are the same size), but 4.5v isn't enough unless you add a step-up converter, and if you do that, it will require more work and less batt life...furthurmore, i don't know what converter it would take. i make all kinds of 1w dd lights on 3d's so i know that works well.

5W are the same size. But you will need a lot of juice to power them either lots of cells in series or a DC-DC converter to up the voltage. Plus 5W'ers need lots of heat sinking even more so than 1W'ers naturally.

sorry for stupidity, "dd" lights, "3d's"...remember, total LED newbie...enthusiastic, but ignorant. Can we use lithium photo batteries or watch batteries?

sorry, dd is direct drive, which means running straight off the batteries with no electronics or resistors.

3d is 3 d-cell batteries.

lithium batteries work, but don't supply enough voltage to run the led at specs, 2 lithiums are too much, but if you have a very high vf luxeon with good heatsinking, it is possible. (1w luxeons are happiest with around 3.42v and 350ma) although they can take much more. another way to use them would be a step up dc/dc boost converter like the madmax or badboy boards from dat2zip or a micropuck.

some watch batteries will run the ls, but they have very low capacity, so the runtime is bad.

thanks alot
are you interested in taking on this modification. if so, let me know, and we'll work out the details offline.

ciao
deke

deke, as much as i'd love to...i wouldn't dare modding a $200 light, especially someone elses.

brinkmanns and *ags and other under $30 lights are ok, but i think someone with a little more bravery and (and money in case they mess up) would probably be better for the job.

thanks for your vote of confidence though, if you are ever interested in a 3d *ag mod let me know.

deke-

I'm not a Modder. I occasionally buy mods. I do read this section a lot and understand a little. Mods are one of my favorite things to read about.

I think eventually the light you are looking for is going to happen. I think this because there are enough guys like you out there that can imagine the beautiful object and color rendetion that could be seen using a very powerful LED light while scuba diving in clear water. If anyone can do it, it will be these guys. They consistently surprise members and each other with what can be done.

One key thing I picked up in your post was that expense was not a concern and that you would be willing to commission someone to do it. It's my experience that these crazy smart critters don't generally do mods to make money. They do it because they have a passion for this type of thing. I think the trick will be if one of these talents becomes interested in your idea.

*edit in consideration of Rothrandar's post that I read before posting this* (And doesn't mind working with a two or three hundred dollar donor light) *end edit*

I would rather have a light built from the ground up like Electrolumems does. If you want a modded light it would seem that your selection for a donor light is a good one. A caveat is the plastic lens. The modders can tell you if heatsinking can overcome this. Of course, for your purposes your light would be naturally water cooled.


I would think you want your light to eqaul or surpass this light:


It may be that 6 LSs could accomplish that.

I would humbley suggest that the Excursion would be a better donor.


It is anodized and runs on 3D batteries. It could be that 4C batteries in a tube would fit in this light and give it more power.

It could also be that the bezel would hold 3 5W LEDs and also hold 3 NXO5 optics. This configuration would be very bright and the optics would give it more throw. I think I've seen this done before.

As far as the regulation goes I would have to refer you to the modders.

I like your idea. Hope this helped.

thanks alot ice,

it wasn't my intention to imply that money was an object to people to whom this is clearly a passion, only to say that I would happily bear the cost of such a venture if it would pique someone's fancy. I a glad of your suggestions of donor lights, actually, my initial idea was to use one of the ring arrays for the LS

http://www.lumileds.com/luxeon/products/products_index.html then click on ring

(first thought was two concentric rings--lumileds does make such a device but I would have no idea how to put it together)which would be as many as 18 or more Luxeons together. I imagine this would be pretty darn bright. Anyway, hope I didn't offend anyone, and really, I don't mind spotting someone the case to play around with...I figure that a 150-200 bet on a case plus parts, I could wind up with a great light that could make a big difference in the water

thanks

deke

deke -

I'm sure no one took it that way. I was probably just reminding myself. I respect CPF members greatly; I'm a little extra careful what I say in this "Homemade" forum and the "Electronics" forum as I am awed with the knowledge and skills I see. I want them all to quit there jobs, form a corporation and just build lights.

I want to triple qualify I'm just a reader and a consumer. The ring sounds pretty good. There is a very knowledgable member and manufacture, Inretech, that builds drop-in mods for M*g-Lites, one of which can be seen (and I sure hope I get this right) on Quickbeam's review site. http://thelightsite.cruxial.com/reviews/inretech_super6.htm

I don't speak for Rothrandir but I think he was concerned about the expense of the case because the warrantee would be immediatley voided if it were modified. It would probably be best to find a much less expensive case to work with. Maybe another modder will give you a suggestion. It could be that they determine that Aluminum is not necessary and polycarbonate is fine considering the cool envirnoment you intend to use your light in. What I'm fumbling around to say is that the effort should be put into the guts not the case. If Excursion cases where available that would be good.

Again, I jumped in here, way out of my league, because I like your idea and I'm sure others do as well. I can see it.

I would also like to echo kev1-1 and Rothrandir in saying welcome to CPF.

Let me start by saying that I am a total LED "newbie", but I am really impressed by the ingenuity and technical savvy of you "flashaholics!" I was planning to purchase a dive light for scuba (rated to 150 ft +/-), probably the UK Light Cannon 100, when the idea of an LED light became appealing. I was going to buy the 60 LED array from Tektite, when I came across the luxeon star on the web. I have not had any success in finding anyone who has modified a truly waterproof incandescent light to a 1w or 5w luxeon array, but I imagine such a light would be kick-butt underwater. I confess to lack the technical skill to construct such a light, but if anyone is interested, would be happy to "commission" such a product (some of these lights really are works of art ). Thanks, and hope this isn't too off topic.

From what I see, it would be a matter of building a dropin module for the Expedition 1900 Aluminum. The flashlight would be turned on by the usual method: screwing down the bezel. If it is going to be used as a Dive light, then the water would help cool the light.

I don't have the technical knowledge, skills, nor tools. I am looking at the overall concept. You should be able to get an extra bezel, just in case one starts to melt during the modding work. Once the heatsinking issue is solved, then there should be no problems.

I have had a couple of CC Extremes, and they are in all essentials, the same thing. Just diferent body material and light module.

actually, how about a completely custom light using the bezel from the expedition.

if you could contact ccrane about purchasing the bezel seperately, maybe you could contact on of the cnc'ers here on cpf about a custom light.

yes icebreak, that is pretty accurate, of course it depends on the individual luxeon and how hard it is being driven.

if you look at the expedition, to will see that the only place for water to get in is at the bezel, which is protected by two o-rings. if you could purchase the bezel seperately, it would be possible to have a custom body made quite easily...my suggestion would be to have it use 3x123 batteries and make the head bigger on top. if this design was used, the clear bezel from the expedition could be used, and you could drive several 5watters in paralell.

it appears that the switching mechanism of the light is that when you rotate the bezel, it pushes either the area where the lights are connected down, or pushes a special lead down to complete the curcuit.

1w white have a typical lumen rating of 18, 5watters have a typical lumen rating of 120.