Dive Rite light failure- what gives???

[bertschb]

My buddy and I just bought new Dive Rite lights - model LT6250MR11. Both of the lights were fully charged before use. Both of us dove two dives in the same day. The first dive was 65 minutes and the lights worked fine. We turned the lights off after the first dive and dove again 90 minutes later. After turning the lights on for the second dive the lights only burned for about 3 or 4 minutes then died. This happened to BOTH of us! We tried to turn the lights back on several times but all we could get was a one minute burn once or twice. We always waited a couple minutes after trying to turn the light on before we attempted it again.

What in the world is going on? Sheesh, we thought we were upgrading our lights.

 

[JeffG]

bertschb once bubbled...
My buddy and I just bought new Dive Rite lights - model LT6250MR11. Both of the lights were fully charged before use. Both of us dove two dives in the same day. The first dive was 65 minutes and the lights worked fine. We turned the lights off after the first dive and dove again 90 minutes later. After turning the lights on for the second dive the lights only burned for about 3 or 4 minutes then died. This happened to BOTH of us! We tried to turn the lights back on several times but all we could get was a one minute burn once or twice. We always waited a couple minutes after trying to turn the light on before we attempted it again.

What in the world is going on? Sheesh, we thought we were upgrading our lights.

Its either a bad battery pack, or a bad charger.

My Terkel 10W HID had the same behavior and it was a bad charger. (They replaced it free of charge)

 

[bertschb]

Thanks for the reply.

I got an email back from DiveRite and they said to send it back for repair. Oh well, I got one dive out of it

 

[bertschb]

Thought I'd post a follow up to this thread. I decided to test my light myself before sending it back. After a great deal of testing at home with every scenario I could think of my guess is neither of our lights were fully charged. I know for a fact that I charged mine until the green light was not flashing. But, that first charge seemed really fast (just a few minutes). At the time I thought the light must have been fully charged at the factory and my first charge just topped it off but now I'm not so sure. I can't explain what happened. I just know it's working great now. I've used it on 4 or 5 dives since the "failure" and it's worked perfectly. It also never failed during all the testing I did with it at home.

On a different note, I did modify the protective shield around the switch by cutting out a large opening on one side so I can turn the light on with my dry gloves on. Prior to that there was no way to turn the light on or off with gloves on. A really poor design from my perspective. Whoever designed that protective cover could not possibly have tried using it with gloves on. No way!

Having said all of this, this light is wonderful. It's very, very nice. The buddy's I've dove with who have "regular" lights are very jealous - and I'm very thankful.

 

[CD_in_Chitown]

I would be surprised if it came fully charged, I was told when I picked mine up that the battery should sustain a short dive (as I was headed out when discovered it arrived). Doesn't HID just make the dark so much more fun!

 

[d33ps1x]

bertschb once bubbled...

On a different note, I did modify the protective shield around the switch by cutting out a large opening on one side so I can turn the light on with my dry gloves on. Prior to that there was no way to turn the light on or off with gloves on. A really poor design from my perspective. Whoever designed that protective cover could not possibly have tried using it with gloves on. No way!

I've noticed that a lot of equipment is like this. As if streamlining and good looks are more important than performance in all environments.

Glad to hear it's working.

 

[viljate]

On a different note, I did modify the protective shield around the switch by cutting out a large opening on one side so I can turn the light on with my dry gloves on. Prior to that there was no way to turn the light on or off with gloves on. A really poor design from my perspective. Whoever designed that protective cover could not possibly have tried using it with gloves on. No way!

Having said all of this, this light is wonderful. It's very, very nice. The buddy's I've dove with who have "regular" lights are very jealous - and I'm very thankful.

I put a silicon tube over the switch. Just a little longer than switch and no problems anymore. I think switchguard is acceptable, as we don't want accidentally switch-on the thing because it's HID (cooling time etc.)

 

[oxyhacker]

NiMHs take a few discharge-recharge cycles before they reach their full capacity. This is normally just a few but some batteries can take more than others.

BTW my experience is when NiMHs don't perform well it is more often the charger than the cells.