21 replies to this topic

[6Gill]

Where do you plug it in during your SI? I just bought a converter for my vehicle for my laptop, but have considered it could be used for my light in a pinch or if I forgot to charge my light the night before - I could charge it on my drive up to the dive site (2.5+ hours of drive time). Has anyone recharged a canister battery from their car? Is there some sort of hazard I should be aware of? I don't want to end up posting about a car fire here in the near future!

I was once told by a dive buddy, it's never good Nicolle when your dive stories start out "It seemed like a good idea at the time..."

The inverter you have will give you a number in watts.Now get your charger....on it some where it should tell you it is a 120 volt system and give an output in amps.I'll use one of mine as an example

Input:120 V
Output:12 V max 0.6 A or might say amps

You now multiply the input volts by the amps from the output so in my case 120x0.6 which equals 72 watts.
So I now know I need an inverter that is rated at 72 watts.I would highly recomand that for this application to use a 150 watt inverter.Take you basic average use and doubble it,the closer an inverter works to its rating the more heat it generates.
Slow charging you battery is always better in the long run.If your diving alot having a second battery and slow charging rather than a high amp output charger will mean a longer life out of your battery

[Dennis]

I guess that since I don't do deep dark holes, a really strong dive light is not necessary for me. I use my Ikelight mini-C on 4 c-cells for about 6 months without adding batteries. Now, to be fair, I don't dive a lot and only dive at night once in a while. Even then, I have not understood why someone wants to look like a 747 coming into MIA.

I have my light turned off for the majority of my night dives. I like to see the bioluminescense, you can't do that with the light on. Besides, there are plenty of you guys out there to keep my batteries fully charged.

[BubbleBoy]

Oops I may have confused what I was saying. I bought a converter that plugs into my car that has a 3-prong outlet for electronics, like my laptop cord. I wouldn't use my laptop charger to charge my light.

OH! ..................never mind (Rosanne Rosanna Danna)

[Brinybay]

You are correct, a good strong light in the PNW waters is a standard piece of gear. I really like my Light Cannon, that is, when it works. I'm told by some it's a battery contact issue, by others that it's because the on/off switch is flakey. Batteries I can change, but I'm not tech savvy enough to put a better switch in it.

[finGrabber]

I have the usual C8 along with a Q40, I think it is...I now have an OMS LED light that I'm going to check out on the SD Turks and Caicos trip;

I had a C4 as well, but it got lost coming back from a dive trip

I really hope I like the OMS because it's so much more compact than the other lights

[Desert_Diver]

Hmmm. Maybe I need to talk to (forgot his name) the gent at Salvo about a Li-Poly upgrade to the NiMH or SLA packs he uses. You can get insanely high charge per mass of batteries with Li-Poly (Lithium-Polymer). The distributors normally only sell 'em if you're gonna be using 'em in an RC car, but that's easy to get around. For $120 you can make a pack around twice the size of a bar of soap that'll drive a Light Cannon for 10 hours. Double it, and it'd burn for 20 hours. That's where I'm headed once I get all my stuff out of storage in Phoenix.

I'm gonna build the charger into the battery pack, with an input range of 9V to 28V DC so I can use either a car or boat to charge it. Getting from 120/240AC to 12V 1A is pretty easy. Ought to be plenty of room for the additional circuitry, 'cos the battery packs won't fill the 8 C cell space. 20 hours is plenty, the way I've used it on 1 to 2 week trips before.

I'll just have to be careful when the light's disassembled, 'cos you can darned near weld with the available amperage on a pack like that.

At the moment I like the Light Cannon better than a canister light 'cos there's less to get all tangled up with. I reserve the right to change my opinion multiple times as I figure out what I'm doing!

[Diverbrian]

I'm using a Dive Rite canister light with one battery that is one failure (and a few car payments) away from turning into a Greenforce. My dive buddy jokes with me how often she has seen it take a tap and fail (and she then watches me curse at it).

Seriously, when it works (which is most of the dive season), I love that light. It has a 3 hr burn time which is more than sufficient for two boat dives and charging it at night. I use the Nickel Metal Hydride Wreck batteries which work well for me. The beam is adjustable so that I can take it down to a near laser beam width or light up a large area in shorter range. I would just like it to be a little less delicate.