Have had a few questions by PM's and by other means which I thought I may as well answer here .
the globe used in this ist light is it not the same globe that can be placed in a uk sl4 for $20 or so from deal extreme?
No its not. Well yes it uses the same LED but the driver is different as is the heat sink. Nothing wrong with that DX drop in, except its not well suited to a single Li Ion cell. I will use the DX drop in if anyone wants to keep the stock 2 x RC123a battery configuration ( which should answer another question) which means you can use non rechargable cells in it if you want.
Does the torch really emit that square spot in the beam? I guess you'd get used to it over time.
Yes it does and no you dont get used to it. You simply do not notice it. Sure its still square under water but how often do you shine your light at a flat plane? You usually are shining it under a rock or thru kelp etc and in these situations the shape of the beam is never circular or square. The beam is square because that is the shape of the LED die and the optic focus this light very well.
6 degrees is about perfect, but it would be interesting to see the actual light in comparison with others on the market... I'm not an expert by any means, but the way I understand it the lumens rating of the globe will be based on the original 100 degree coverage. If the globe is rated at 228 lumens, any optics used to narrow the beam will also reduce the "efficiency", so the actual lumens output will probably be lower. Probably not much if the optics are good, but this whole area is fraught with confusion - lumens still only measures (I think) the output at the source and not the percieved lighting over the area it is projected, which is measured using the unit lux. Which is again different from candela, and none of them actually have any direct relationship to the power (e.g. 3W, 10W) of the torch.
The beam angle is actully closer to 8 degrees, although this isnt just the brightest part of the beam as many other rate theirs but the whole square beam. There is very little spill/flood.This makes it a most excellent light for signalling, penetrating through murky water, looking in cracks and just general dive light needs.
Lumen is IMHO the best way to rate a light as long as you take into beam angle. Most other ratings are rather irrelevant. This includes watts. Watts will tell you nothing about how bright a light is. You cant compare a 10watt LED to a halogen or 10watt HID. You cant even compare it to another 10watt LED unless you are looking at power consumption. A 3watt LED of 2 years ago is about 1/3 as efficient as the latest generation. so 70 lumen instead or 223 with the same power consumption. Many dive lights sold today have last generation LEDs. Why bother?
Glad they have improved, the early ones were quite shocking!! It wasn't anything to dow ith maintainence - to get the thread to actually seal, you had to get a pair of mole grips and grunch it closed....
Im sorry you had issues with your old IST light. Out of the 15 I have modded so far 1 has had badly machined threads. I spotted this when I first got it and returned it to my supplier who replaced it with a good one. But to be honest if you use mole grips to close a thread Im not surprised it leaked. Thats hardly using the right tool for the job is it.
the only reason I think comparing with the Intova or the Aquatec is that these are the torches that people will be buying - some pics of comparison with these might inspire people looking for lights to think about this as an option.
I am more than happy to compare it to a Intova or Aquatec if you want to supply them.
But I can tell you the outcome now.
The newest Intova uses a similar or the same LED. It also uses 2 x rc123 cells. It claims to use a 4.8 watt LED which makes it sound more powerfull than other lights in the same range. But as discussed above watts has nothing to do with light output. Its rated at 130 lumen. Latest Cree LEDs will produce about 130 lumen at about 2 watt. at 4.8 watt they probably produce close to 300 lumen. So the Intova either uses an older less efficent LED, lies about the specs, has inefficient driver electronics and takes this into account in the 4.8watt rating, has low efficiency optics or all the above. It does have a much wider beam angle which means very little penetration. Should be good as a camera focus light.
The Aquatec. I think they do a 3 watt version but uses the old luxen LEDS. eg not very efficient or bright. I may be wrong.
I have had my hands on a 1 watt Aquatec and this did indeed use a luxeon LED. I modded it by using a Q5 cree and 2 Li Ion AA sized cells. Just as bright and focused as the modded IST's just a much shorther run time due to smaller batteries.
Can you do a P7 or MC E version?
These LEDs are multi die LEDs and as such you will not get one bright square but 4 dimmer ones. I can use a standard reflector. It gives a much wider beam. Run time is reduced significantly. Not really worth it.
Can you run it on primary cells?
No. There is no non rechargeable version of a 18650 cell. You could use a single primary RC123 and a spacer but run time will be reduced to 1 hour.
If you really want to use primarys then I can supply one with out the body bored out and a different driver. It will then be able to take primary or rechargable RC123 or 16340 sized cells of either 3 or 3.7 volt. Run time will be reduced but I can set it up at a lower power level so it will burn for longer. (price will be slightly cheaper too!) Please pre order this version.
Can you do multi mode versions?
Yes I can.
If you want muliple brightness levels, strobe, SOS these can all be avaliable. I like them simple on off myself.
You will have to pre order them as multi mode though.
Do you find it at all fiddly to carry and do stuff with at the same time? I'm thinking reels, but I guess a cray noose might be more likely. The IST probably isn't too bad, size wise it's probably just over an inch in diameter? Some of the alternatives seem too small.
Maybe I'm just too un-co to deal with small lights
Or maybe I'm just weird, as I've also gone off lights that are too bright as well....
I find it a really good size. It clips of nicely to my chest D ring and is held secure by a piece of inner tube.
Sounds like you could do with a multi mode version. Then have it as bright as you want!! Its about 25-30mm OD
Couldnt possibly comment on the weird! lol
You could make up a goodman handle for it if you wanted. Much like the Raider 3 uses. Actully the raider 3 is probably the closest other light out there. Same LED, battery. Both use aspheric lenses. One is $220us the other is $115 or less.
