DiveDay
Contributor
I've had a Halcyon Focus 2.0 light for a couple of years and I decided to put an E/O cord on it so I can mix and match battery packs and light heads.
Halcyon dealers seems to sell a conversion kit for $400+ so I decided to just do it myself. I couldn't find any information online about servicing this light so I am posting my findings here, hopefully they'll be helpful to others.
I chose German-made Thor E/O cables since they are supposedly the best ones available for durability and actually cheaper than American equivalents even after the hassle of importing them into Canada from Europe. I ordered mine from a dive shop in the Netherlands. There are also some thinner WAM cords available that are coaxial which is an interesting idea, but I opted to stick with Thor as they are similar to the stock cord. The cords are more flexible than the stock ones which had some extra conductors inside that were unused.
You'll need at least one thin 22mm open wrench to remove the existing cable glands. The glands are made of two parts, one seals agains the light body and has an o-ring built in. The other has a conical section that squeezes a rubber seal against the cable making it water tight as you tighten it down.
Halcyon seems to apply some sort of additional black sealant to the glands, it feels a lot like Flex Seal I've used around the house. My Light Monkey batteries and light do not have this, so I'm pretty sure it's not for the additional water proofing but rather as a warranty tamper indicator. My warranty is long gone so no harm done. In theory the glands should be reusable but I threw them out since the threads were contaminated with this sealant. You'll need replacements with M16x1.5 threads. I ordered some Agro Progress nickel-plated glands with my new cords since they look snazzy.
Once the gland is removed, you can easily back out the two screws with an appropriate hex key:
The cable is soldered to this simple circuit board, you'll have to carefully de-solder it and re-solder the new cord.
The design is interesting, there is an additional seal/bulkhead. If the gland fails the light still won't be flooded because the PCB and its aluminum holder are sealed with additional o-rings. One thing I don't understand is why there is a plug for a second pair of contacts, obviously not installed. Maybe they used some off the shelf components here. There is some silicone grease or similar around the additional o-rings which I wiped and replaced.
The final result:
After a simple bucket test I took it out for a dive and all worked as intended. I can now use the Focus lighthead with my Light Monkey battery packs, and I can easily upgrade to a bigger battery pack if the need arises in the future.
Halcyon dealers seems to sell a conversion kit for $400+ so I decided to just do it myself. I couldn't find any information online about servicing this light so I am posting my findings here, hopefully they'll be helpful to others.
I chose German-made Thor E/O cables since they are supposedly the best ones available for durability and actually cheaper than American equivalents even after the hassle of importing them into Canada from Europe. I ordered mine from a dive shop in the Netherlands. There are also some thinner WAM cords available that are coaxial which is an interesting idea, but I opted to stick with Thor as they are similar to the stock cord. The cords are more flexible than the stock ones which had some extra conductors inside that were unused.
You'll need at least one thin 22mm open wrench to remove the existing cable glands. The glands are made of two parts, one seals agains the light body and has an o-ring built in. The other has a conical section that squeezes a rubber seal against the cable making it water tight as you tighten it down.
Halcyon seems to apply some sort of additional black sealant to the glands, it feels a lot like Flex Seal I've used around the house. My Light Monkey batteries and light do not have this, so I'm pretty sure it's not for the additional water proofing but rather as a warranty tamper indicator. My warranty is long gone so no harm done. In theory the glands should be reusable but I threw them out since the threads were contaminated with this sealant. You'll need replacements with M16x1.5 threads. I ordered some Agro Progress nickel-plated glands with my new cords since they look snazzy.
Once the gland is removed, you can easily back out the two screws with an appropriate hex key:
The cable is soldered to this simple circuit board, you'll have to carefully de-solder it and re-solder the new cord.
The design is interesting, there is an additional seal/bulkhead. If the gland fails the light still won't be flooded because the PCB and its aluminum holder are sealed with additional o-rings. One thing I don't understand is why there is a plug for a second pair of contacts, obviously not installed. Maybe they used some off the shelf components here. There is some silicone grease or similar around the additional o-rings which I wiped and replaced.
The final result:
After a simple bucket test I took it out for a dive and all worked as intended. I can now use the Focus lighthead with my Light Monkey battery packs, and I can easily upgrade to a bigger battery pack if the need arises in the future.
