Dive Battery build

S

Steve Holloway

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Oct 15, 2018
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Hello from Milton Florida,

I've been diving many years and mostly for fossils in Florida. Kids came and the gear was put aside and finally its time to get wet again. My dive light was a 50W Halogen Bi Pin type light canister. I doubled up 2, 12V 7.2Ah to power it for 2 hours. Most places we dive are freaking dark, either deep and stained or stained and deep! LOL

I pulled the light out, and decided that after 8 years there might be more options now in LED and Li-Ion.

My light is a 2 pin G6.35 head.
umbilical to my switch. Weight is about 8lbs in an acrylic case that is HUGE!

What I would like to create is something in the 100W range in Halogen 12v. I'm not sure or haven't the knowledge to locate an LED with Bi-Pins yet. It would be awesome to have more than a 2 hours burn time also. I'm going to machine a new water proof battery pack. I would first need to find the battery types and complete size to fit into a housing.

if I could create a 5000 lumen plus beam in LED with 2 pins that would be awesome! Just looking to pick your brains! The machined piece would be MAX 3" dia. hopefully no more than 8 -10 inches in length.

Steve
 
Look into Cree 100W led. I say Cree because of the color truness of the light.

As far as batteries, I'd recommend the LiFePo4 cells as you can get 12V drop in replacement basically running 4s on them. They are packed full of power, and would run many hours on a charge. Maybe even longer than your tanks will ;)
 
100w is way overkill in that container. You need like several smaller ones or thats atleast more common. When we do diving we run several leds. I have modified some as well with all from 1 to 5 crees in same container. You can find prebuilt lenses that fits directly and then you just add the leds ;) . Scrap the current g4 holder!

Compare to this lamp https://www.valostore.se/produkt/lupine_betty_rx14_hd/ and you get an idea on whats needed to even reach 5000 lumen.

The voltage is not any big deal since you anyways need a driver so you can get whatever you want. Normal Lithium cells is more than enough. Do you do tech diving or normal? Canister or do you keep the battery in the lamp itself?

I prefer high capacity liions in favour to LiFe. But thats since I want it to be easy to travel with and I dont do more than 60 minute dives so a 2hour battery time is more than enough. I keep several battery packs that I easy can switch out.
 
Daromer: Is there anything you "don't" do? :p

No wonder your skinny, you're too active!!! :cool:
 
My wife say the same thing :p I have touched to many things in my life its just that I often feel that I dont have the full knowledge always but im very very eager to learn more and stand corrected if Im wrong :p
 
I dont know a lot about diving, but I do know a few things about lights

Coming from a halogen to LED you are going to want to watch your color temps buy a good emitter, something that has at least 80+, but 90+ CRI is better. The colors / color balance will look a lot better, more natural, full spectrum.

alternately, because this is a custom build, you could also consider looking at other wavelengths / colors / spectrums that may have special applications for diving.

Other things to take into consideration is adjustable brightness and general beam pattern. There is such as thing as too bright, and I dont know what is optimal under water, but the reflector design (spot vs flood) are also things to consider.
 
Changing the intensity is very crucial i would say. If you plan to take photos or videos the color and such is even more important. Going from an open area to a close or confined area or for that matter from 50 meter of visible sight to 50cm you really need to be able to change intensity or you just blind ur self :D

Using a prebuilt lens with lets say 5 or 7 leds you can have both wide and narrow ones in same and switch between which ones are in use. Most people i have seen built have skipped any moving parts like being able to move the focus because its just a hassle to build. Its generally easier to just switch between leds instead.
 
Thanks again, I can tell this is out of my league but still looking forward to building something away from the 8lbs of battery! If its to LED thats great and if we have to stay with the Halogen 50W just need to reduce battery size or go LED to also gain burn time and lessen weight of canister.
 
If you are simply trying to retrofit an existing light to lithium it is very possible I have done conversations in the last, and even concerted a halogen to LED
As far as waterproofing, I saw at one point in time someone made a back and fully potted the battery in some potting compound to make it very durable and watertight. I dont see why that cant be done here if you are not working with a waterproof housing.

Alternately, in high risk activities such as diving, sometimes your best course of action is to just buy a better high quality LED light from a good manufacture. Unless you are an experienced builder you will probably get more safety and piece of mind from something designed for that application.
 
There is no use staying with Halogeen today if you ask me. If you want you can just buy lamps already done with leds inside. Whats important is to get proper seals so depending on type you have you can just fit an existing lens inside with leds. i have done it.

What lamp do you have today?

For instance this type
 
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