18650 dive light?

terjee

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 24, 2016
Messages
729
Location
Bergen, Norway
Hi,

I'm considering buying a pair of dive lights, although it's a topic I know nothing about. Hoping a friendly soul here can point me in the right direction.

What I think I want, in decreasing order of importance:
- Reliable
- Lanyard or similar, being able to fasten the light to a wrist securely enough that we can confidently let go of it under water.
- Possibility to service the light, replace o-rings and so on.
- 18650 fueled (I've pretty much standardized on 18650 at this point)
- High CRI (seems like it would be an advantage?)
- Something brightly colored on the light, making it easier to spot if lost

This is unfamiliar territory to me though, so feel free to disregard high CRI if it doesn't matter much under water, and so on.

Realistically the primary use case here is my daughter and I tossing things into the water and picking them back up. As such, the use case is relatively safe freediving, and safety wise it's far from scuba diving in caves. Still, anything that combines water with darkness calls for a certain degree carefulness I think. Drift too far and your light becomes the primary means by which others can locate you and so on. So I'd much rather pay more of a quality light, than save a few bucks and compromise reliability.

We don't really need to much in terms of either power or runtime, it'll be relatively easy for us to replace batteries and so on.

Secondary/backup lights could be interesting as well though.

Ideally I'd like to stay below $100/light, but I'm flexible, and wouldn't mind too much spending a bit more if the light is worth it. While dive lights are new to me, I guess I'm a borderline flasholholic. ;-)

Any recommendations or wise words?
 

maxspeeds

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
2,177
Location
Oahu, Hawaii
Hi terjee,

I'm not a certified diver, but i do have four of McGizmo's Aqua series lights that were designed for diving. They meet all of your requirements except for the last one as they are 100% titanium. To get it brightly colored, i would apply some reflective brightly colored tape around the body. See this link for more information on the Aqua lights: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/v...quaRam-18650-lights-**-Terra-versions-added**

In my opinion, this is hands down the best 18650 based dive light available. It's body is 100% titanium with a titanium clip and screws for ultimate corrosion resistance and includes a sapphire window for the ultimate in scratch resistance. The window and body are completely o-ring sealed and the o-rings can be replaced. The circuitry is very reliable as I've had mine from 2013 without any failures. A lanyard can be tied to the pocket clip or through the three lanyard holes at the tail end of the light. It is a twisty operation which makes it very reliable and no clicky switch to fail in operation. You can choose various leds, one of them being a High CRI Nichia 219. And, there are two beam options: mule (pure flood) and ram (reflector). I have both beam options with various LEDs and successfully use all under water in the pacific ocean. Let us know if you should have any additional questions.

Cheers,
Joel
 
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