LED dive light

Hobgoblin

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
2
Hi all,

New to the forum and also new to all things light related. I have a question that will probably sound a bit weird but anyway here goes: I'm an irregular cave diver - meaning I cave dive when I can, and not when I want to. At the moment one can buy some really good cave lights out there but I have always found them to be expensive and fragile. Surely with all the recent exciting developments in the field of LEDs and the better rechargeable batteries one can get nowadays it is possible to knock together a decent light for a more realistic price? As an example, Dive-Rite does a very nice cave light for almost $1000. The problem for me is when these lights fail underwater (as they sometimes do due to whatever reason) you then have to exit a cave system with an inferior backup light. Unless that is, you happen to be able to afford $3000 to pay for 3 lights of the same quality and burn time duration. Not to mention lugging three of these beasts around all the time. As a rough guideline I am looking for a light that can give the same sort of performance as a 20Watt HID, with a 120 mins to 180 mins burn time duration, small enough so I can carry three and cheap enough so the average poor cave diver can afford three.:broke: I am willing to knock three together myself but once people start talking technicalities I'm afraid I'm lost.

Basically, is there a way that I can relate say, a value of 140 lumens or some such figure into more understandable terms? For instance, if I took 10 LEDs, each producing 140 lumens and connect them into one lamphead do I then get 1400 lumens or do I still get only 140 lumens? (Told you, technically I'm an idiot:shrug:) Also, batterywise, let's say for instance I took a number of rechargeable batteries and connected them up how do I know if I am providing enough battery power to power 10 LEDs for the required time? Making a water tight vessel I think is okay as I can look at what Hartenberger or Kowalski does with their lamps and do something similar. I would appreciate it greatly if someone can point me in the right direction and in the meantime will keep my big mouth shut and just lurk on the forum. Maybe all this technical stuff will start making sense
 

monkeyboy

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
2,327
Location
UK
Welcome to CPF

Barbolight make a series of dive rated multi-LED and single LED lights. e.g. U-15 uses 4 x LEDs (4 LEDs = 4 x lumens). Look out for the new version that uses Edison LEDs which is twice as bright as the old version that uses Luxeon III. New version probably puts out around 700 lumens.

For a head torch, look at the Stenlight S7 (still uses Luxeon III though).
 
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DM51

Flashaholic
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
13,338
Location
Borg cube #51
Have a look at the Solus range here: http://ssp.ie/products.htm

I did a review of the SH-500 (click on the link in my sigline below to read it) which is pretty small and handy, 6 LEDs, 500 lumens, and unbreakable super-tough.

I do a lot of cave-diving too, and this is perfect for it - a really good wide flood beam, very bright. Before I got it I was using a UK Light Cannon HID, but that is much bigger and in a cave it could get a bit clumsy. The SH-500 is just as bright as the Light Cannon and half the size.

Solus are also bringing out a single LED ~100-lumen backup light soon, and their stuff is so tough and reliable I would be confident diving with just these two rather than my usual 3 lights.

Welcome to CPF - very good to have another diver here!
 

ACMarina

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 10, 2004
Messages
3,119
Location
Brookston, IN
I haven't seen a Solus yet, but it's gonna have to be pretty tough to hang with Barbolight..
 

blahblahblah

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 16, 2003
Messages
496
Location
California
+1 more for Barbolight. I do not do tec/cave diving, but I love my recreational swim-throughs. The Barbolight U-15 is my primary light for day and night diving. Javier/Barbarin/Barbolight has an upgraded version (coming soon?) w/ even brighter/newer generation of LEDs.

So... ACMarina, are you up for another GB??? :poke:
 

JanCPF

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 17, 2003
Messages
846
Location
Denmark
+1 more for Barbolight. I do a lot of wreck diving (including some penetration) in the quite unclear water (about 10 feet viz) we got up here, and I have been very happy with my U-15 so far. Before the Barbolight I used a Green Force 10 W HID, but found the Barbolight equally bright,:eek:oo: and probably much more rugged and in a much smaller package too. :thumbsup:

Jan
 
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