Home Waterproofing a Flashlight

soloco

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I was sitting on the throne this morning and was hit by sudden inspiration. Would it be possible to waterproof/weather resist a flashlight by sealing it in a plastic bag? At first I thought of a Ziploc bag. Then I thought of that Food Saver I've seen on TV. It must make a pretty tight seal, and the bag is clear so the light will still shine out. I bet a nicely Food Saver sealed MagCharger would make a great dive light! If all the air was sucked out of it, then the pressure would just be pushing on the aluminum. Unfortunately, I don't have a Food Saver. Anyone willing to try this? I'm oh so curious how it will work!
 

jtivat

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The biggest problem with making a light divable is the switch. I would bet the MagCharger switch would self activate in about 20' to 30' of water.
 

soloco

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Wow. Self activation? Is that from the pressure on the button from the water? What if you wanted to leave it on anyway while diving?
 

jtivat

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Yup check out this thread. If you wanted the light on then the only problem I see would be holding on to it and if the lens could handle the presure.
 

theepdinker

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There are ways to waterproof a Mag. The flimsy lens and switch cover are big problems though. Most divers converting mags, shorten the body to eliminate the switch hole, change the lens and run a power cable to a remote battery pack.
Theepdinker
 

theepdinker

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paulr really got right to the point.
Dive lights are tougher,go deeper and are much brighter.
Best of all they are not much more expensive.
Of course you can also use them on land. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif
Theepdinker
 

Sub_Umbra

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Back in the early 70s I was kicking around different jobs in Alaska and I always carried a disposable incan light as a backup. They worked pretty well. They were rectangular and just a little bigger and thicker than a pack of smokes. They had one corner knocked off and that's where the bulb was. They were good for emergencies because they were all battery -- no wasted space.

I had one that I put into a baggie. I folded the excess plastic around it and held it in place with a few pieces of tape. The light could be switched on and off through the bag. I'm sure that it wasn't waterproof but the bag offered some protection. I lugged it around that way for quite a while.

At one point I was working on a three man tug boat in the Gulf of Alaska and without going into a whole lot of detail, one night about 4 types of mechanical failures happened in rapid succession. The situation cascaded to the point where we were in danger of losing the tug AND the tow. The generator was one of the things out and as Murphy would have it, no one could make their flashlight work.

That lame disposable backup flashlight, wrapped up in a baggie, actually saved the day. It was the only light on the boat that could be made to work that night. I'm still kind of amazed by it.
 

BobVA

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[ QUOTE ]
Sub_Umbra said:
... They were rectangular and just a little bigger and thicker than a pack of smokes. They had one corner knocked off and that's where the bulb was.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I rememeber those - plastic with a rotary switch opposite the bulb and available in your choice of lovely pastel colors /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. Wonder what you could do today with lithium primary cells in a package like that...
Looking back on it, the package was pretty clever. Didn't take up much room and the angled bulb position made it easy to set it on the floor and have it shine up on whatever you were working on.

Cheers,
Bob
 

Sub_Umbra

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[ QUOTE ]
BobVA said:

Looking back on it, the package was pretty clever. Didn't take up much room and the angled bulb position made it easy to set it on the floor and have it shine up on whatever you were working on.

Cheers,
Bob

[/ QUOTE ]

As I mentioned, the battery was the exact shape of the case so you could get more juice out of it than you could a similar sized light with conventional cells. The nearly rectangular shape made it easy to 'fit' a baggie to it. If I did it today I would use a heavy duty zip-lock 'freezer bag'.

You are right about the colors. In fact, until the incident I related above I felt kind of dopey even carrying one as a backup in my kit.

Looking back on those lights is pretty weird from todays perspective. How did we ever survive with those lights?
 

Sub_Umbra

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[ QUOTE ]
fivebyfive said:
Are these the same flashlights that sometimes you see strapped to the side of a firefighter's helmet?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know but I doubt it. You used to be able to get them in 7/11s and the like -- I never took them very seriously at the time. I just bought them because I'm the cautious sort and I thought it looked like they would be better than nothing for a spare when push comes to shove. It seems kind of 'low end consumer grade' for firemen, though.
 

Unicorn

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If these are the same ones I'm thinking of, you can get them at place like Fred Myer, Wal-Mart, etc.

I don't know how deep a Magcharger could take before the lens started to crack fro mteh pressure. It's tempured glass, but still. Maybe if you replaced it with a thick lexan lens, but you'd possibly run into the problem of the lens melting. Actually even with the glass lens, you might have that problem. Unless the water was enough to keep it all cool. I have no clue, but the idea interests for no reason, than "just because."
 

jtivat

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[ QUOTE ]
Unicorn said:
If these are the same ones I'm thinking of, you can get them at place like Fred Myer, Wal-Mart, etc.

I don't know how deep a Magcharger could take before the lens started to crack fro mteh pressure. It's tempured glass, but still. Maybe if you replaced it with a thick lexan lens, but you'd possibly run into the problem of the lens melting. Actually even with the glass lens, you might have that problem. Unless the water was enough to keep it all cool. I have no clue, but the idea interests for no reason, than "just because."

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a good point all my dive lights have Lexan lenses. I think the water would keep even a MC60 cool enough with a Lexan lens. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

theepdinker

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Most dive light DIY'rs are using 5mm Lexan/plexiglass.
Others are using Borofloat/Pyrex.
Theepdinker
 

soloco

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Okay. Maybe making a dive light is impratical. But I think shrink wrapping a light for a rainy night hike would be great, yeah?
 

theepdinker

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Making a dive light isn't all that hard. Sorry if I came off that way. Sometimes answering one question at a time gives a different impression than the whole.

Stuffing a light into a plastic bag for a rainy hike has saved my scouts on several occasions.

Theepdinker
 

bindibadgi

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If you fill up your basin with distilled water, then I recon you could just assemble the light in there, and it would be completely full of the water. Then if you put it in the bag (so no impure water could leak in) you would be free of the pressure problem. No breaking glass or self activating switch.

I'm not sure if anything would rust though if you left it that way too long. But I think it's a nice idea. Pure water doesn't conduct electricity, so nothing would short, but it does conduct heat, so you wouldn't have any overheating problems either.
 
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