REVIEW: CREE MC-E Diving Light

[sparky1870]

I'm new to scuba board, but I just purchased one of these lights from DX thanks to the reviews I have read here.

Initial Reactions:
Very well built
Very Bright
Burn time on first charge in a sink of cold water about 2 hours.

Mine is the MC-E version but mine came with an adjustable sleeved lanyard already attached via a small key ring. Also mine differs slightly from the pictures I've seen posted here, in that my front bezel is scalloped.

I probably wont get to dive it until my advanced open water class in September.

 

[Adgie]

I've been on about 6 deep dives (>120fsw) and 4-5 shallower with this light. No flooding and no loosening of the light head. So far so good.

I found a small stainless ring at a fishing supply store that I managed to fit through the small eyelet to which I attached a double ended spring clip.

I'm still looking for a good wrist-mount for this light.

-Adrian

Ordered my light this week from tacticalhid.com. Delivery to San Diego was only 2 days. The fancy magnetic box was pretty beaten up when I opened the packing but everything otherwise looked to be in good, new order.

Had a short soak at 130fsw today here's my initial review:

1. On the surface, the light is deceivingly average. The outer beam spreads out pretty wide and it doesn't seem so spectacular. In a dark garage, it was noticeably brighter than my PCa.

Under water, this sucker was pretty bright. Low setting was comparable to my buddy's Princentontec, High beam was fairly comparable to my other buddy's Light Canon. The LC was a whiter light - but very comparable outputs levels and penetration of the cold, low viz water in SoCal.

2. Did NOT flood. I didn't do the spring mod because I wanted to test this out of the box. Will be doing a few more deep dives so we will see how it holds up. If it floods (or I see it loosening up), I'll clean it up and then do the spring mod.

3. No problems rotating the dimmer at depth or coming up. No noticeable loosening of the light head at depth as I have seen reported.

4. I was holding the light torch style so the form factor of the head wasn't an issue. This light really needs to have a nice goodman handle accessory. Its a shame to stick this nice aluminum stick in a neoprene glove. It loses some of its hard-core-ness.

5. The very small eye-hole allows for a small key ring to be attached, however I could not get both loops of the ring through and this caused the ring to open up during the dive - a potential loss. Also the key ring scratched up the black paint on the light pretty easily. I think I will replace this with a few loops of good cave line and attach the ring to the line.

Overall, this light is a no-brainer for a recreational backup light and is very compelling as a primary (pending burn-time test ). For its price/size ratio, I don't think I will every purchase a light canon or any other heavy pistol grip light.


-Adrian

 

[Matt S.]

Anyone find a Goodman handle or mounting sock yet?

I have a trip coming up and with luggage space at a premium I am interested in one of these lights instead of taking my can light.

The spring/flooding issue has me a little worried though!

 

[Adgie]

DIY Goodman-style Handle

I have been working on a couple of approaches for a simple DIY goodman handle and came up with a simple solution. I'll post some pictures tonight. There are a few options:

1. Oxychek Raider - a neoprene glove with a sock for the light (~$30 and awkward to slip on/off)
2. Buy aftermarket goodman handle and bungee to the light (expensive)
3. DIY. My goal was to do this for cheap. I have a friend with a mill and looked at some fancy aluminum approaches, all good but this effort was aimed at doing it for <$5 parts at the Home Depot and about 30 minutes of effort.

The Mount:
A 2" length of 1.25" DIA pvc pipe fits perfectly around the light. This is the white pipe that you find at the Depot. It may come in black too. That would look sexier. I cut away a .75" wide gap along the length of the pvc so the light could slip in along its flat surfaces. Rotating the light would then lock it in place even better. I then cut away about 1/8in of the surface on the opposite side so that it had a flat surface to mount to the handle-being careful not to cut through or to leave the wall of this surface too thin.

The Handle:
I took a 12" strip of 1/4in plastic and used a blowtorch to bend it into a goodman style handle by bending it around a 2x4 and then clamping it until it cooled. Having the plastic meet but not seal at the adjoining ends allows for some flexibility in hand sizes. I put the adjoining seam where the palm area will sit in the handle.

Assembly:
I used a very small screw to connect the pvc to the handle. It turns out that the light has a small grooved channel ring just below the magnetic ring. So this is the perfect channel for a small screw head to be exposed and the light to still fit flush against the pvc. I drilled through the center of the pvc and through the handle. I assembled the screw with a lock washer and nut on the handle side, then used a metal file to file down any extra screw that extended beyond the nut. This keeps the glove side smooth so it doesn't catch/tear your dive glove.

I also use a small key ring on the light itself. I found a very small one at the fish tackle store. I attach a brass spring clip to this and attach to my BC on surface swims or setting up on the boat.

I really love this light. It fills a gap that is just not being met by the dive industry ($100 hi-power led). Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with my time/effort working on this handle.

Adrian

Anyone find a Goodman handle or mounting sock yet?

I have a trip coming up and with luggage space at a premium I am interested in one of these lights instead of taking my can light.

The spring/flooding issue has me a little worried though!

View attachment 82186

View attachment 82187

 

[Matt S.]

Thanks Adrian, I'm looking forward to the photos!

 

[gcbryan]

Here's another approach that I posted a while back. I've improved it since those pictures were taken and now use for with the light that we are talking about in this post.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/do-yourself-diy/313180-hands-free-light-mount.html

There are several fairly easy ways to mount this light.

 

[nwflyboy]

Does anyone know if the units sold by Tactical HID and DealExtreme are the exact same lights?

I know nothing about either seller other than what I've read here.

DX seems to be a well established but, well...how to put it...cheap-o anything-goes sort of place (Asian capitalism at its most unrestrained and freewheeling best - reminds me of shopping in a tech mall in Bangkok - incredible variety of stuff available, of wildly varying quality and in some cases questionable legality). I'm sure DX is completely legit, but it appears that if your dive light fails, they may take a while to address the issues (manufacturers across the world, maybe customer service is not their top priority...or am I being prejudicial just because I see I can buy a solar powered, vegan spider there? ).

Tactical HID looks to be a small, relatively new reseller, with a more narrow focus, and fewer products/customers/suppliers to manage. It appears you can get your light fast from them (I'm US west coast, so not too far). Also, I see that the Tactical HID web page has been updated as recently as Sept. 8. Does that mean they have an updated model? I guess I'm hoping that the manufacturer will at some point put in a shorter spring to fix the flooding problems - would be nice if either seller could respond to that.

Has anyone tried contacting either DX or THID and asked them about the spring problem?

I'm shopping for two lights (for me and the mrs). These will be our primary lights, for warm water/tropical/recreational diving - no tech, no caves, no cold water. With all the junk I'm already hauling across the world on planes of all sizes, getting something that is compact and reasonably light is absolutely critical - no way am I going to drag a huge cannister light around, even a standard size pistol-grip light is really too big for this application. I had just about resigned myself to getting some cheesy little light that would be compact but that I'm sure would have very disappointing output. But then I saw these MCE lights that seem like the perfect sweet spot for my needs - if they work. Having to go the DIY route and disassembling a brand new $100 bit of gear and cutting a spring does put me off the idea somewhat. Is the spring surgery easy, and does it seem to yield a highly reliable fix?

Finally - about the recharger. The DX photos show a small brick-like recharger (pretty standard size) with a standard, US flat-style plug. According to the THID website, they inlcude "Battery Charger (EURO plug)". Hmmm.

Thanks to anyone who can shed any additional light on the subject.

 

[cram]

According to the THID website, they inlcude "Battery Charger (EURO plug)". Hmmm.

I think you can get either if you request it. A group of us have ordered a bunch of these lights and they've been North American plugs.

 

[DaleC]

Two Crees as video lights:

A video using them. The beams are too bright and need a diffuser but I like em so far: YouTube - coldwatervintage's Channel

 

[sparky1870]

I just thought I would let you all know how mine is holding up.

It's now been on seven dives from 60-90ft each and no problems at all.

It was brighter than the UK C4

It was about the same as a C8, I say this because while the spot on the CREE was still brighter the C8 put out a larger bright area.

The Aqua Sun is the brightest that we dived with, and it beets the CREE. then again it's $300

Hope it helps.
Good Diving