Kraken NR1000

[Rosborne]

I just bought one as a backup light for cave diving. Seems okay so far--800 lumen and a burn time of nearly 2 hours. Anyone else out there used one and have some thoughts?

Thanks
R.

 

[tbone1004]

don't kid yourself with the claim of that amount of lumen for that long. Not bashing the light, but I'm 99% confident the burn curve looks like this. Most all of the cheap backup lights do this. They're all basically the same but I hope to hell you didn't pay $140 for it. Much better lights out there for that kind of money or comparable lights for a lot less...
We Test Lights | AL1100NP Test and Review

 

[BoltSnap]

don't kid yourself with the claim of that amount of lumen for that long. Not bashing the light, but I'm 99% confident the burn curve looks like this. Most all of the cheap backup lights do this. They're all basically the same but I hope to hell you didn't pay $140 for it. Much better lights out there for that kind of money or comparable lights for a lot less...
We Test Lights | AL1100NP Test and Review

Are you inferring that Big Blue lights are "cheap" and don't live up to their claimed specifications here?

 

[tbone1004]

Are you inferring that Big Blue lights are "cheap" and don't live up to their claimed specifications here?

Inferring from the test that proves it, but it is a known fact and function of the LED boards they are using. As the battery voltage goes down, the performance goes down. You can engineer around this with custom driver boards, which most of the primary lights have, and some of the backup lights have, but BB isn't one of them. It's frankly false advertising in my opinion where they are claiming it outputs 800 lumens for close to 2 hours. Instead, it starts at 800 lumens, and it will burn for 2 hours but not at 800 lumen. The curve is supposed to look like the ones on this page btw. They start at a pretty high level and stabilize after 5 or so minutes and stay the same until the end.
We Test Lights | 12 Watt LED Test and Review
We Test Lights | Sola Dive 1200 S/F Test and Review

They checked 6 different big blue lights, all had the same dropoff curve
We Test Lights | Bigblue Tests and Teviews

This is just a way to manage expectations. You don't get what you think you get with BB. This was a big discussion on CDF a few weeks ago with video lights and some well known UW photographers set their cameras up on manual and took pictures over the course of the burn time of their BB lights and noted that they did in fact taper off. Ate the words right out of their mouth because earlier that day they swore they didn't taper off. On a backup light, probably not that critical, but I'd be pissed if it was my primary and I was an hour deep into the cave dive and I'm getting less than half of the lumen output that I was told I was supposed to be getting

 

[Rosborne]

tbone1004, are you saying that the Kraken NR1000 is made by bigblue? I wasn't sure. What's your top pick for a backup light?

 

[Rosborne]

By the way tbone1004, I love your site.

 

[tbone1004]

not my site, just a site that Light and Motion guys started since they have the testing equipment.

not saying BB makes that light, but most all of the backup lights use the same stock parts for boards and what not so they usually perform about the same.

my current favorite is this one
1-R105T Handheld Light – ANO Online Shop

 

[fdpdrum345]

Thank you guys so much. I was actually looking at some Big Blue lights. That said, I was reviewing the tests quickly, and it looks like they are running them at the max lumens. For my purposes, I care more about the battery length, and the lower lumen settings so I wouldn't have to recharge so much. Any data there? The reason I like the big blues from first glance is the burn time. Overall, from what I have read, it seems as though you need over 800 lumes for a solid video, and I was thinking of getting 2x lights to make sure I was covered with my wide lens gopro. I am looking at the Bigblue VL3500P vs
i-Torch Video Pro6+ 2800 but looking to stay right around $700 or so just for lights. Thoughts guys? You seem to know a little more than me. Just an amateur BTW and dive for fun warm water.

 

[tbone1004]

I use a pair of these on my helmet
Cave Adventurers - Explorer back-up lights - Marianna, Florida USA - Never Undersold!
Price seems to have gone up quite a bit but a pair of them are fairly inexpensive and you'll want a pair for video to help remove shadows.
These have 3 brightness settings with the push button and will give you a rough battery indicator in the color LED. These are very similar to the HOG Morph 1000 lights for reference.

For 2 of them it is still quite reasonable and they work very well. For around $200, it's hard to argue. I would start there and see if you really need more for your diving.

 

[fdpdrum345]

Thanks for the note tbone. I'll take a look.