HID Light Cannon or not?!?

[Albion]

Bradford D

Has anybody tried the "Kowaski" dive light?? If you want a BRIGHT dive light, I was on a night dive and another diver (from Europe) had one...

I have a Kowalski Xenon for my video setup its as bright as HID. My girlfriend has banned me from using it on night dives as they are no longer night dives, due to mine having a wide angle reflector for video it lights up the whole reef. Its also bullet proof, not dropped it yet but it gets regular negative entries. The thing i most like about it, is that the charging terminals are external so i just dry it off then hook it up to the charger no risk of fouling an o ring, also it doesnt need a complete discharge between charges. Drawback is it very heavy and pricy. i have seen the regular kowalskis and they also pack a punch and some have a brightness adjustment which can help save the battery. Best of all they look so god damm sexy

 

[vicky]

from LeisurePro. It makes an extraordinary bright light- but only in about 1% of the tries Most of the time it just makes a "trrrrr" sound an no light comes up. When I succeeded to turn it on, it usually turned on for the next 5-10 times. I have seen someone posted the same behaviour in this thread.
I contacted UK customer service and they say it is a bad bulb probably. BUT, they reprimanded me for buying from LP saying they are not authorized dealers and that the warranty is void...

I asked them (UK) if it means that LP are selling lesser-quality UK products or what is the exact reasoning for not giving warranty to UK products that are bought from non-authorized dealers. The reply was: "As for your question regarding Unauthorized dealers, they do not sell lesser quality, they are just getting our product through unauthorized means. Also you are not always sure what
you will be getting when you do not go through a UK Dealer. Yesterday I had a gentleman order a knife through Leisure Pro and they stated to him that it was our new Hydralloy Metal and invoiced him as such, but he ended up getting one of our older, discontinued knives. So the price may be appealing but you give up the service."

What is the "unauthorized means"?? Do they steak it? Buy it in contraband? Don't know.. BTW, the authorized dealer here in Israel sells the Light Cannon at about 450 US$!!! So buying from "unauthorized-dealers" is rather appealing even if one gets a ****ty bulb... (In LP the Light Cannon costs about 165 US$).

Eventually, UK customer service said they would send me a replacement bulb- I'm waiting to see what happens..

Would I heartedly recommend a Light Cannon? No. I am very dissapointed. I don't need a torch that makes a good light- but only sometimes. IMHO not a reliable product.

 

[wetman]

I would think it would be in their best interest to take care of you. They'd look like pricks if they didnt and all it takes these days is a few well placed posts about crappy service or products to wake up several people and disuade them from buying things. I think that whole authorized/unauthorized thing is a joke.

steve

 

[vicky]

and I don't understand why they raised the issue from the beginning. One expects from a manufacturer to make all products with good quality regardless of where they are sold, or by whom.

 

[The Chairman]

Ho wdo you KNOW that a shop is not "authorised"? Anyone can (and will) claim it... it is a bogus concept. The same goes for regulators and such.

 

[wetman]

I think the big thing is - why should it be the consumers problem? I see something at a decent price, i buy it. That product has a name of a company on it and thats all i care about. That company should be the one responsible for eliminating these false back channels if they're so concerned about it. Its no secret to anyone that the leisurepros of the world exist, so the companies themselves should be dealing directly with these guys. I think they exist because they want them to exist - it gets more of they're stuff sold and lets them wash their hands of any involvement saying "theres nothing we can do" and lets them claim things arent covered by warrantee. What a crock. The beauty of the internet though is that its easy to get word out there about the bad product or whatever and its got the original company's name on it. This brings the power back to the consumer. I love it.

steve

 

[vicky]

"Just so you know Leisure Pro is not an Authorized Dealer of
Underwater Kinetics. It is unfortunate that they do not inform their customers of such, so that being said technically your Warranty would be void, because the product needs to be purchased from an Authorized Dealer. I would suggest that in the future when you see a product from them you would like to purchase, call the manufacture first to see if Leisure Pro is authorized, I can tell you that most often they are not. However we are happy that you have chosen our product and I will do what I can to get your Light cannon working."

It seems they will try to help me (and others?) to fix the problem. I just don't like the attitude- they are now doing me a "special favor" if they help me, because I bought a supposedly good product from a supposedly bad dealer (Myself, I LOVE LP and will keep buying from them!) hence I do not deserve any guarantee... Shame on me :wacko:
Now I just need to wait what "I will do what I can to get your Light cannon working" actually means... I'll keep updating for any developments, as I understand others may have similar problems.

 

[Murat]

Anybody has a LC 100 that works properly and purchased from leisurepro??

Why am I asking? Because I just ordered one!!! obviously I did not read all this articles about this light and the bulb problem before I ordered. So I am wondering if anybody ordered from leisure pro and received a decent working LC100????

:banging:

 

[Rev. Blade]

I bought a Light Cannon from LP, and it was not reliable out of the box. Sometimes it worked with Duracell batteries. Sometimes it worked with Energizer batteries. Usually it didn't work. I sent it back to Underwater Kinetics, and they fixed it. They really didn't give me much of a hard time for buying it at LP, but they did imply that I was the one that caused the bulb to be defective....

It's silly for them to fix the gear, and still make their customers mad. When I was in sales/marketing, I would quickly decide if I was going to help someone or not. Generally if you're going to give a customer what they want (a new light or a new bulb), try to make the customer feel good about the transaction. If you're not going to make the customer happy, you could just as well go all the way, and keep the $65. bulb.

I don't see why UK hassles their customers, and then gives them what they want.

In full fairness to them, UK did take care or my light, even though I bought it from an "unauthorized dealer". All I paid was the shipping to them. They replaced the bulb, and paid the return shipping. Turn around time was about 2 weeks. (Including sending it to them via Fed Express.)

 

[agstreet]

Rev. Blade once bubbled...
My light cannon returned from Underwater Kinetic's customer service department. It was repaired, and the light has gone on all 5 of the 5 times I've tried to turn it on.

On the down side, it was returned with a note saying it had a bad bulb.... It's a small thing, but it bugged me. If they mean the bulb had been bad when they shipped it to me, I would have to agree. It would light sometimes, and not light most of the time. The service person didn't say it was my fault, and they didn't ask for any money for replacing the bulb... but no appology for the light failing to work on my dive trip.

I guess it's petty, on my part. One lesson that I *might* have learned, is to buy gear far enough before a trip to test it before going... or not to count on it straight out of the box.

The light is bright, and I ought to be happy, but somehow I still feel let down.

One of the things to remember about HID lights is that the light manufactureres have little quality control over the bulbs themselves, and pretty much everyone get them from Welch/Allyn, for whom this is a trivial market. Apparantly a large batch of marginal bulbs was produced somewhat over a year ago (or maybe a bit longer, I don't have any specific information), and they've been working their way through the distribution channel. These 10W bulbs are used in most HID cannister lights as well as the light cannon.

From personal experience, I've had a LC for about a year and a half, and it has about 50 dives on it. I had absolutely no problems with it, and gave it to my daughter after I bought a cannister light. She's got about 10 dives on it, still with no problems. Neither of us has "babied" the light, although we also try not to drop or otherwise mistreate it. They do eat batteries pretty quickly, so rechargeables are recommended.

Alan