REVIEW: CREE MC-E Diving Light

[broadreach]

Finally got to test my P7 light (ordered from DX). I used it on 3 dives with maximum depths of 12, 20 and 14 meters over two days. These were all daytime dives with visibility of about 10 meters.
I am very happy with the light output, very powerful.

I did not experience any flooding. While underwater, I repeatedly tried tightening and loosening the bezel and it is very tight. It wouldn't budge even at 20 meters. I'll keep an eye on it in case it does become loose in the future.

On a couple of occasions I found that I somehow inadvertently turned the light on by mistake, so I wouldn't leave batteries in it when storing the light or transporting it in my bag. Although the light is so bright that I could see it shining through my bag in broad daylight.

Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase.

 

[Matt S.]

Earlier I reported that one of my pair of lights was dimmer than the other. Novae replaced it for me, no problem, and even included a lanyard.

 

[Matt S.]

Time for another MC-E update.

I ordered a pair of lights. Both ended up needing replacement as they became more dim with use. The next pair of lights, which I just used for a week in Roatan, has the same problem.

Of my new replacement lights, one has become about half as bright to they eye as its twin... and the twin has been losing oomph too albeit more slowly. Here is a beam shot, which I intentionally underexposed to make the differences apparent. (Please note that the differential between the lights should not be taken as gospel in this pic as the batteries are in slightly different states.)


(You can click to make it bigger but the preview size gets the point across.)

You will notice that the emitters are visible in the beam shot, and that the output is irregular... some emitters are working better than others. I'd expect a little variation in anything. But there is a very obvious difference on one of the lights, and it didn't come out of the box this way. Here is a closeup of that light's emitter.



Can anyone post a closeup of their emitters, if they believe their light to be as bright as they day they bought it? I would not be surprised if some amount of color change is natural, but I wonder how much.

The brown coloration on the LED itself seems to correspond to a lack of light output from that area. This emitter isn't completely toasted brown yet, but my other light is, and it's really dim. (At the end of my trip, it also started to cut out in use, but I could re-strike it by fiddling with the switch.)

I used a mix of the stock blue batteries and Ultrafire 3000 mAh batteries in tests and field use. Run time for the lights seems unaffected by the dimming problem, it's the same as when they were new... just with less light output.

Bottom line? Caveat emptor. I have not seen anyone else complain about this and there are a lot of these lights out there. But I got 4 bad ones in a row. The good news: the lights seem to be well constructed physically and I didn't have any problems with leaks.

And the vendor I used has been taking good care of me so far... though when I contact them about needing ANOTHER pair of replacements I don't know what to say. I don't even know if I want another pair of THESE lights, except I have batteries and Goodman handles for them.

 

[beekeeper5]

Can anyone post a closeup of their emitters, if they believe their light to be as bright as they day they bought it? I would not be surprised if some amount of color change is natural, but I wonder how much.

I can post a couple of emitters tonight. But first, how did you manage to get such a closeup of the emitters? I don't think my camera can go that close.

 

[Matt S.]

My scuba camera is the Sea & Sea DX-2G (which is a re-branded Ricoh GX200). One of the benefits of a small sensor camera is that they typically have great macro performance. I think the camera can focus as close as 1 cm.

 

[gcbryan]

I haven't heard of this problem before either. Most of the boards I follow had a lot of reviews of these lights a while back and not so many now so that doesn't necessarily tell us much.

As far as emitter appearance of output it's the same as when I bought it. I have had a non-diving light using a XP-G that burned out shortly after turning it on. First it dimmed significantly, then just a tiny glow and then nothing.

I think there much be a batch of lights with faulty driver boards. It sounds like too much current is being driven through your emitter and it's damaging it.

 

[beekeeper5]

Here is the Cree MC-E emitter that I've dove a couple of times. The light color is blueish. I also bought another Photic 900 but the light color is a greenish color. Both emitters look the same.

How many times did you have to dive before it started to dim? Also, what type of batteries were you using? I used the batteries that came with it.

 

[Matt S.]

I was using mostly Ultrafire 3000 mAh batteries. However, the first light that crapped out on me was run on the blue stock batteries for the first few charges... that was long enough to see the problem starting.

I checked battery voltages and the Ultrafires weren't over-driving the lights or anything like that. The cells seem to be fairly well-regarded from what I have read.

When I got my first pair of lights, the 'bad' one started to dim after maybe 2 full charges had been run through it. The 'good' one lasted longer, maybe 6 before its problem became apparent to the eye. Those weren't dives, just in a sink full of water for heat dissipation.

In the second pair it seemed to take again about 6 charges before the issue was obvious, but I was on vacation and didn't take careful notes. And one of them is definitely worse off than the other.

 

[Chiung]

My light is about a year old now and doesn't exhibit the symptoms described. The emitter looks pristine. I'm using a rotation of the original blue 2200 mAh batteries and grey 2400 mAh Trustfires.

 

[cjfox]

I just got some of these lights, and I opened one up to check the spring issue, but they seem different than what has been described. There was no locktite stuff on the bezel threads, and the reflector seems stuck in the rest of the light. The lens comes out OK.
There are notches on the reflector (do they line something up?) I would like to get the reflector out to check the spring, although if the assmbly won't move, could it mean the spring issue is no longer an issue?
Any one notice there is an arrow inside the top of the battery compartment pointing to the the standby position ( may explain the lining up on reassembly part). Any one else know anything? Maybe the manufacturer has changed things to fix the previous problems.