Project specific question....1x18650 light, bright, wide beam???

Hello all,

I'm a full newbie and looking for a recommendation.

Over the past month I have been building an underwater camera sled. It has an aluminum frame and will house 3 recording cameras and 1 live feed camera as well as 8 LED lights. After looking at the price of dive lights are I decided to get regular LED flashlights and build PVC housing for them. Not knowing a thing about lights, I purchased some cheapo lights that look like they fit my criteria, as well as the 18650 batteries and charger. So I got ripped off, only 1 of the 8 lights work. Now I'll looking to the pros (you guys) for recommendations.

Criteria:
1x 18650 battery (or possibly 2x 18650), since I already purchased the batteries for the other lights
bight!
only need one mode, bight!
wider beam
cost effective (up to $50, but $30 is preferred), I do need 8 of them
narrow diameter (under 1.75", but 1.25" is preferred)
compact
simple it better

Any advice is much appreciated!

Nick

Only 1 of the 8 lights work? Damn man ouch!! What brand 18650 did you get? How deep under water are you trying to go? Fenix SD10 is an outstanding dive light and Armytek's are rated waterproof to 50 meters but are expensive. That being said it sounds like you got XXXFire brand lights. One SD10 or one premium Armytek would outperform the 8 cheapo lights easily most likely. Beam quality out of the SD10 and say an Armytek Predator Pro is outstanding. Need more specifics OP. Why 8 lights specifically? I know lights but dont know diving. For now 2 Fenix SD10's, one on each side of the sled would easily do the work of 10 of the cheap lights you got. SD10 is expensive though as are high quality 18650's but the durability and reliability on top of being able to charge 1000 times over before capacity starts too degrade gives tremendous value in the end. Also what brand/model charger did you get? SD10 and Armytek are very bright but blow your budget. PVC housing? How would you seal the lights in them? In the end it comes down to how deep do you intend to go? SD10 is rated to 100meters. Check out the link below.

http://www.fenix-store.com/fenix-sd10-led-dive-flashlight/

CelticCross74 said:

Only 1 of the 8 lights work? Damn man ouch!! What brand 18650 did you get? How deep under water are you trying to go? Fenix SD10 is an outstanding dive light and Armytek's are rated waterproof to 50 meters but are expensive. That being said it sounds like you got XXXFire brand lights. One SD10 or one premium Armytek would outperform the 8 cheapo lights easily most likely. Beam quality out of the SD10 and say an Armytek Predator Pro is outstanding. Need more specifics OP. Why 8 lights specifically? I know lights but dont know diving. For now 2 Fenix SD10's, one on each side of the sled would easily do the work of 10 of the cheap lights you got. SD10 is expensive though as are high quality 18650's but the durability and reliability on top of being able to charge 1000 times over before capacity starts too degrade gives tremendous value in the end. Also what brand/model charger did you get? SD10 and Armytek are very bright but blow your budget. PVC housing? How would you seal the lights in them? In the end it comes down to how deep do you intend to go? SD10 is rated to 100meters. Check out the link below.

http://www.fenix-store.com/fenix-sd10-led-dive-flashlight/

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The lights I got where Sky Wolf Eye 3000 lumen. Bad decision, I know! They where the right size and sharp AND I know nothing about flashlights.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/401012099084?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

We need multiple light sources and help get a better light distributions. Also since there are multiple cameras in difference directions the lights will need to be pointed in different directions as well. Each camera needs a minimum of 2 lights. I could probably get away with 6 lights but I'm shooting for 8 lights total.

If I go above $100ea I would be better off building all the lights from scratch and using a centralize 12v battery pack. I know a guy that did it that way and it take 8 hours per light to build. It works great! but that route is very time consuming and the battery packs are over $300 each and I'd would need 2.

The PVC/acrylic housing uses standard Sch. 40 PVC pipe and standard fittings with a custom made acrylic lens. Threaded fittings, some pipe grease and a prayer is used to seal the housing. The same guy that made his own lights and battery pack has tried this route as well and it worked ok.

I'm going down to 200'. The other guy I mentioned has made it down to 1400'! I have NO intention on going down 1400'.

The batteries I have are Samsung INR18650-25R R5 2500mAh and the charge is a Nitecore Digicharger D4. From my research, I believe those are both good choices?

The size and style of light I'm looking for is something like the Convoy S2 or the BLF A6.

oh man! Checked out your link. At best that is an 800 lumen light. Your Samsung cells are indeed quality but short on capacity. Convoys are good lights at an amazing price the S2 is a good choice. I would suggest at least 3400mah cells from brands like Orbtronic and Keeppower. 3500mah is available so is a 3600mah 18650 from Olight. The Olight cells are expensive though. These cells would give you roughly 30 percent more run time which is a lot. D4 is just fine. As for the S2 it is quality but it also gets hot quick and drops in output after about 5 minutes on its highest setting. A complex situation you have there.

Like I said, no clue about flashlights. You give me wood, steel and concrete and I can build you anything BUT I know nothing about electronics and electrical systems. After a week of research and self educating I now understand there is no way that light can put out 3000 lumens. I just looked like an exciting number so I bought um.

I'll look into the 18650s with higher capacity. Thank you!

Optimally I would get some thing like a Brinyte DIV10W but a pair of those would run me $600. I'm already over budget on this build. Just need to get some thing that will work for a couple years. Then I can upgrade.

CelticCross74 said:

As for the S2 it is quality but it also gets hot quick and drops in output after about 5 minutes on its highest setting.

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Our water temps are typically 50-65F. I understand that air is an insulator and being in a PVC pipe will insulate the light for the surrounding water but I'm thinking the water temp would cool the light enough to prevent over heating?

Check out the Fenix UC30

ElTib said:

Our water temps are typically 50-65F. I understand that air is an insulator and being in a PVC pipe will insulate the light for the surrounding water but I'm thinking the water temp would cool the light enough to prevent over heating?

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Doubtful. Based on your description, I think you're going to run into problems with the light overheating. You're going to have a small amount of air in a very confined space with no circulation and no contact with the outside water. Even with the water surrounding the tube, the light will probably get hot faster than if it were being used in normal outdoor conditions. While small 1x18650 lights are capable of outputting ~1000 lumens, they lack the mass in order to keep them cool for more than a few minutes at a time (like, 5 minutes at the highest setting), and that's with proper ventilation. Either:

a) you'll burn out the LED
b) if you get a light with time stepdown, it'll switch to a lower brightness after about 5 minutes, if it survives
c) if you spend enough to get lights with thermal regulation (which is doubtful given your budget), the light will step down long before you've gotten your use out of it.

how do you turn lights on and off once they are sealed in, or do you put them in pipe while its on and then seal it? Also agree it would probably overheat after air runs out, might be better off with a dive light designed for this task

Brinytes vary greatly in price nowdays. The older Brinytes were indeed expensive. I checked out Brinyte and found a dive light that is $45 and is 200 meter depth rated check the link below. As for the Convoy S2 you do not have to have them set on full blast all the time the next output level down from its highest will run much longer and wont get as hot. You said youre going as deep as 200 meters or feet? An expensive depth to go to and light up. You are kind of stuck with lights such as Brinytes if you want to go that deep. Quite an expensive situation this is. The main drawback to lights like the S2 is with their small reflectors they dont throw very far. I imagine under water at depth the S2's short range would be even less.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...52013797.html?spm=a2700.7724857.29.206.GdIFcz

I would recommend you find someone who can purpose build you the lights so that they will run underwater and benefit from direct contact with the water. Two-hundred feet is not just playing around with a new GoPro. I'm sure I can think of a way to make lamp heads that could work, but testing is another matter.

Xaios said:

Doubtful. Based on your description, I think you're going to run into problems with the light overheating. You're going to have a small amount of air in a very confined space with no circulation and no contact with the outside water. Even with the water surrounding the tube, the light will probably get hot faster than if it were being used in normal outdoor conditions. While small 1x18650 lights are capable of outputting ~1000 lumens, they lack the mass in order to keep them cool for more than a few minutes at a time (like, 5 minutes at the highest setting), and that's with proper ventilation. Either:

a) you'll burn out the LED
b) if you get a light with time stepdown, it'll switch to a lower brightness after about 5 minutes, if it survives
c) if you spend enough to get lights with thermal regulation (which is doubtful given your budget), the light will step down long before you've gotten your use out of it.

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That's what I was afraid of, makes me think I should throw down the bucks and go with a dive light.

Blackbeard said:

how do you turn lights on and off once they are sealed in, or do you put them in pipe while its on and then seal it? Also agree it would probably overheat after air runs out, might be better off with a dive light designed for this task

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Turn on, insert and seal.

CelticCross74 said:

Brinytes vary greatly in price nowdays. The older Brinytes were indeed expensive. I checked out Brinyte and found a dive light that is $45 and is 200 meter depth rated check the link below. As for the Convoy S2 you do not have to have them set on full blast all the time the next output level down from its highest will run much longer and wont get as hot. You said youre going as deep as 200 meters or feet? An expensive depth to go to and light up. You are kind of stuck with lights such as Brinytes if you want to go that deep. Quite an expensive situation this is. The main drawback to lights like the S2 is with their small reflectors they dont throw very far. I imagine under water at depth the S2's short range would be even less.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...52013797.html?spm=a2700.7724857.29.206.GdIFcz

Click to expand...

200' is the target depth. If I go with the Convoy S2, I'm pretty sure it would need to be on high to get the light I need.

lightfooted said:

I would recommend you find someone who can purpose build you the lights so that they will run underwater and benefit from direct contact with the water. Two-hundred feet is not just playing around with a new GoPro. I'm sure I can think of a way to make lamp heads that could work, but testing is another matter.

Click to expand...

Is there people that build lights to spec? If so, can you recommend someone?

The camera aspect is easy. I'm using Water Wolf cameras. Small, compact, simply and yet still good video quality.