DIY Dive/Video Light
Here`s a photo of my prototype dive light, the final version is going to use a high power white LED (equivilant to 10W Halogen bulb). Its has 3 power settings, I may modify it in the future to have two heads, but will try it with one first. Battery life on full power should be 2 hrs, on low setting should be 6 hrs.
Here's a picture of my DIY light. It's a 10 Watt HID built from PVC pipe and a custom made Delrin light head.
Looks great! Is it cost effective to build your own, or just an exercise to see if you could?
Seasnake,
Material sost wise, adding it all up is probably someing like US$60. Which I ocnsider to be pretty cheap.
For a 50 watt Halogen light $60 might be close but for the 10 Watt HID the light head, bulb and ballast cost $200 alone. When I first started building the lights I was building the Halogen type and it was cost effective but after I started building the HID lights with the custom built light heads and bulbs ballasts and battery it kind of evens out.
Looks good. What is the wattage of the LED? what deg spread is it?
I really like the idea of LEDs but they seem a bit to spead out in coverage for my liking. I am currently using a 35watt 10deg spot lamp with a 5ah 14.4 nicad battery. Had it down to 48meters with out incident but then also had it down to 43m and the plastic lens went concave and smashed the bulb. Didnt leak though. Need a thicker lens.
http://www.caralarms.co.nz/Dive%20light.htm
Its finally finished and working, made a design change part way through. So now it uses a ULTRA bright LED instead of a halogen bulb. See the picture,also more details about it on my blog:
http://www.dolphinscuba.com.sg/blogs_wp/
I remember reading some discussions somewhere about DIY lights and the problem of gas buildup in the battery case, and installing a oneway valve to allow them to release. Is that really an issue to be concerned with? Did you install one? It was probably more to do with in the event of a leak?? Maybe??
I don`t believe it is an issue, as the commerical units you can buy don`t have them (or at least the ones i`ve seen!). Another way to look at it, does you normal underwater torch have a pressure release value?
When I charge it, I remove the bottom cover to get access to the connector; if any gasses where generated I`d assume its during charging and they can escape then!
I don't think the valve is necessary. I did notice that most dive lights have a small catalyst in them though. They are small pelets that cause a chemical reaction to take place. I am not sure exactly what happens, but I am sure it is important as all my dive lights have them. They also came with a warning sticker stating if the pelets were ever damaged to replace them promptly. I am sure you can just use some replacements from another light and plop them in your setup.
Nice job by the way! Can you post some additional photos. It is hard to see much in the one photo you have. Some inside views and some explanation on how you did it would be great.
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