Dive flashlight

Illuminating the Abyss.
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bstoural
Posts: 4
Joined: Dec 1st, 2014, 12:42 pm

Dive flashlight

Post by bstoural »

I know everyone here is a master ROV builder and probably scoffs at the idea of using a flashlight, but I'm looking to save some installation time and money. I am not going much deeper than 50', so technically some of the cheap dive lights we use would be ok at those depths. What lumens should I look for, and have any of you used these before?
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KR2_Diving
Posts: 391
Joined: Aug 30th, 2012, 11:43 am
Location: Currently: NW Suburbs of Chicago. Originally: NE Wisconsin

Re: Dive flashlight

Post by KR2_Diving »

Hello Bstoural,
Welcome to the forum! Believe me when I say we are NOT a collection of master ROV builders... we are all just like you, we have a desire to explore, and dream of fancy ROV's with the power to make discoveries in our own back yard that will change the world! We want to be the next James Cameron, or Jacques Cousteau.... The reality is, most of us have milk creates with bilge pump motors zipped tied to them... and speakers that are missing wires... most of us have HUGE "bill of materials" with big bottom lines... on paper... but in reality we have moths flying out of our wallets, and a shoestring budget... in some cases.. we are even USING shoestring!

Improvising is the nature of the game! If you can find a cheap dive light that suites your needs, then BINGO! Roll with it!

There are loads of different "experts" on this forum. Each one has a strength... and each one has a weakness...

As for myself, I like coding and electronics... and the testing / "process of the build" is just as exciting for me as the completing the ROV... that being said... I am by no means an expert, and I am MONTHS from even getting close to the water with even a partially functional ROV...

This forum is a great resource to guide you along the process... there are loads of users at many different stages of the game. We even have a few people that use ROVS on a daily basis as part of their Career...

What you will NOT find on this site is a step by step guide on how to build YOUR ROV. Every ROV is different.

Best of luck with your build! We all look forward to hearing about your project, and watching it all come together!

Happy diving!

:sting:

Ryan
"KR2_Diving"
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Oldsirhippy
Posts: 86
Joined: Oct 1st, 2013, 7:18 am

Re: Dive flashlight

Post by Oldsirhippy »

Hi
Diving flashlights are a good idea. They are ready made, so need no special tools - lathes etc. and may also be lower cost compared to making one's own.
I am making my own lights as I could not figure out how to switch the flash lights on and off and also dim them when the ROV is diving. Some dive flash lights have a slide switch on the side and some have a rotating switch at one end. This means making an external mechanism to switch the lights on/off, which made me edge toward making the light assembly myself as I could then control the whole mechanism.

However, the light could be manually switched on at the beginning of the dive and switched off back at the surface when the dive is finished.

Is light dimming important or necessary?

best wishes and I look forward to reading your solutions.
fryslan76
Posts: 290
Joined: Dec 18th, 2012, 4:52 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: Dive flashlight

Post by fryslan76 »

I happen to do some diving :) and dive lights are in all kind of shapes and sizes. What you want to consider is where you want to use the torch for, that determines the width of the beam you need. And for photo's or video you want to lights with some distance between them pointing in the same spot. Most of them (LED) will run for about two hours straigth or longer on one charge now a days. So there is no real need to switch them on and off under water.
Some links: http://www.scubadiving.com/photos/scuba ... hts-review or http://www.divernet.com/_tag/3000/1/0/25/Torch/ or http://www.flashlightuniversity.com/bes ... ashlights/ which also talks about the led lenser, that is the kind of model you can also get cheap from China and probaly still will do 30meters because you do not need to use the switch under water. I had one of the older models where you had to twist the head under water, that does not work well at 30 meters below.
piercet
Posts: 16
Joined: Sep 16th, 2014, 10:52 pm
Location: Ridgefield, Washington State

Re: Dive flashlight

Post by piercet »

I made a little bracket for the Ikalite PCA flashlight, which seems to be one of the less expensive dive lights out there available in LED. You can download and print one of the brackets for free from here if you like:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:735867

You can also see a picture of the current state of my little ROV build in there. I really need to start a build thread one of these days.
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