Liking to try different things leads me on these quests, I’m moving up on 52 years as a diver and let me tell you young wiper snappers that you do not know how lucky you are in todays wealth of good options for dive gear available to you today, things like regulators have made incremental improvements in the last 50 years and have become cheaper when comparing a $ in 1971 to a # in 2022/23, lights are one of the areas that have had monumental improvements from power supply to available light. I had, before tossing it in the trash last year an 8 D cell dive light, now days for a fraction of the $ that beast cost you can buy a LED tiny light with a common rechargeable battery that will put out massively more light, whiter light and brighter light that was unheard of in those days.
this leads to todays trial light, usually I just buy stuff to try,in this case Orcs reimbursed my purchase of the D550 but this won’t influence my opinion, I’m cheap but not that cheap.
right now is undergoing in sink testing for burn time, usually I do this in my pool but it’s to F’n cold outside for that
I did some output testing yesterday, using one of the two supplied batteries, no charging first, I compared it to some other reasonable priced lights using my pump house as a target, it’s about 75 yards out from the house, here it is
this is a nite scuba S 20
this an xtar 1600
for a 1000 lumen rated light it’s very bright and looks to outperform those two higher rated lights.
the D550 comes with a tail mounted switch, I have some extensive experience with this switch type in a DGX wide beam light I’ve had a long time, I used that as a video light and general dive light diving Truk a few years ago, took it to 183 feet with no issues, this is my favorite switch position since it’s nearly impossible to accidentally turn it on.
in the sink with the DGX, it looks to be the same base light assembly but with a different beam pattern
on high for an hour
after an hour I set it to low for the next hour
for the third hour back to high
50 minutes later done
it turned itself mostly off at 3v, tossed both batteries on the charger and today since the dive plan fell through, I do a full charge down test
0500, on high, second battery
so far a very promising very compact light.
will follow up with on high run time and hopefully in the next few days so ocean testing.
this leads to todays trial light, usually I just buy stuff to try,in this case Orcs reimbursed my purchase of the D550 but this won’t influence my opinion, I’m cheap but not that cheap.
right now is undergoing in sink testing for burn time, usually I do this in my pool but it’s to F’n cold outside for that
I did some output testing yesterday, using one of the two supplied batteries, no charging first, I compared it to some other reasonable priced lights using my pump house as a target, it’s about 75 yards out from the house, here it is
this is a nite scuba S 20
this an xtar 1600
for a 1000 lumen rated light it’s very bright and looks to outperform those two higher rated lights.
the D550 comes with a tail mounted switch, I have some extensive experience with this switch type in a DGX wide beam light I’ve had a long time, I used that as a video light and general dive light diving Truk a few years ago, took it to 183 feet with no issues, this is my favorite switch position since it’s nearly impossible to accidentally turn it on.
in the sink with the DGX, it looks to be the same base light assembly but with a different beam pattern
on high for an hour
after an hour I set it to low for the next hour
for the third hour back to high
50 minutes later done
it turned itself mostly off at 3v, tossed both batteries on the charger and today since the dive plan fell through, I do a full charge down test
0500, on high, second battery
so far a very promising very compact light.
will follow up with on high run time and hopefully in the next few days so ocean testing.
