Diving light tests

[MikeRD03]

Hi out there,

Just a short hint to everybody seeking for detailed information about diving lamps. In a private project I´m testing all kind of diving lamps on my homepage tauchfunzel.de with detailed information about every torch. All data is measured by myself and not only copied from the manufactures. Besides that you can find a burnig charts for every torch that tells a lot about the electronic quality of an lamp.
The non profit project lives by the help of other divers who likes to send me testing lights and a lot of lamp makers so far who do not spare the comparison.

The page is partly in english - only the detail infos are still in german (take babelfish). If I see interest for translation in the english speaking world the info pages will come later on.

have fun reading!

greets,
Mike

 

[puppet27]

mate your lights are insane, i recon the manufactures would be to intimidated to send you their lights!
you wouldn't by any chance be able to do them in kit form by any chance or an extra youd like to unload?

 

[Blazinator]

Hey Mike,

Tell me what the Lumens are for the LED thats at the top of the light test page:

Selbstbau OSTAR Tauchlampe - 4 x OSTAR 15W LED

It looks like its the brightest. It appears to say 3000 to 4000 Lumens? I never knew LED could get that bright! What does that light cost?

I have (what I think) is the brightest dive light underwater at less than 400 bucks beating all models up to $1500.00.

It's the 24 watt Darkbuster HID, that outputs 1750 Lumens and is brighter than Dive Rite's 21 watt HID @ about one quarter of the cost ($390.00 from Scubatoys.com)

Check it out BSTW--BRIGHTSTAR.COM.TW and let me know what you think.

 

[marchand]

You may very well have a very bright light, but it lacks some very important features and it still is not a canister light. I have a 21W LED that may not be as bright, but I get hands free operation and more than twice the burn time. Mine is also made of more robust materials than the brightstar light. My light can take a beating, can yours? Just like everything else in life, you get what you paid for.

 

[Blazinator]

You may very well have a very bright light, but it lacks some very important features and it still is not a canister light. I have a 21W LED that may not be as bright, but I get hands free operation and more than twice the burn time. Mine is also made of more robust materials than the brightstar light. My light can take a beating, can yours? Just like everything else in life, you get what you paid for.

I made a hands free goodman handle for it in about an hour, so its just about as good as a canister.

Pretty durable so far.

 

[marchand]

not even close. the point of a canister light is to not only free up the hand, but move the battery to a place where it doesn't get in the way. If I tried to use your light I would feel like there was a sea anchor on the back of my hand, and it would severely limit use of that hand for use of removing/recovering stage/deco bottles, and in general make everything more difficult.

 

[MikeRD03]

Hi Blazinator,

"Selbstbau OSTAR Tauchlampe" mean DIY OSTAR Dving light and yes, you are pretty close - it may have around 3500 Lumen Lightoutput. It´s a quad Ostar LED diving light with goodman plus 20Ah tank and consumes about 60W energy. It´s the brightest LED light I´m aware of and it can only be build by yourself. The how-to is on my homepage at tauchfunzel.de.

I know the darkbuster HID and it´s pretty bright, but I personal don´t like HID light cause of their big disadvantages and cost over time. That was the reason to try to build a LED based light that can compete with HID regarding lightoutput but without the disadvantages. And as you can see it is possible even with todays LED technology.

greets,
MikeRD03

 

[Blazinator]

not even close. the point of a canister light is to not only free up the hand, but move the battery to a place where it doesn't get in the way. If I tried to use your light I would feel like there was a sea anchor on the back of my hand, and it would severely limit use of that hand for use of removing/recovering stage/deco bottles, and in general make everything more difficult.

You make great points which are not to be glossed over, especially for the serious technical diver.

I supposed my verbage shouldn't have included "beating all models up to $1500.00." because features are more important to some than Lumens.

My point is that the price is so nice for the output, that you are not paying the cost of a drysuit for equivalant output, and its lack of features like hands free can be DIY'd if you are willing. BTW - it doesn't feel quite like an anchor - it goes near neutral UW - but I truly see your point.

Bottom line - its the right light for a rec diver doing some near tech wreck dives in low vis (Lake Erie is my dive playground, 5 - 20 ft vis). Plenty good enough for me.

Thanks a ton Mike for the info on your DIY OSTAR light. I may not be able to read it, but the beam spread is insane.

 

[jamestiny]

Hi,Mike ,I could find anything that you provided the site ,what's wrong?