we are right on the shore of lake Ontario (on the Great Lakes) up in Canada. Locally it’s all fresh water. Tropical diving, for us, would only be on holidays down south. Leaning towards the xtar d26w whale, and the thorfire TD26. Really pulling for the sofirn Sd-02A though, since they’ve been gracious enough to offer one up for testing and review. I’ve got some local divers interested in the whole “budget” light options out there, and it could mean a few (or more) sales for someone.
Depends.
Focus angle of the light is important to the requirement for the diver and for the environment. The Great Lakes now, from what I hear, are quite clear. So you may be able to get away with a variety of lights. If you have poor visibility, narrowly focused lights penetrate > better for seeing and being seen + signalling.
Wide focused lights in poor viz situations are kind of a mess, reflecting back like in a snowstorm, illuminating everything in the water but not what you want.
A reality of MOST cheap lights is they have low quality drivers. That translates into a light that is bright to START, and rapidly fades with voltage. You generally have to just up to much more costly lights to get around that issue. Functionally, that may not really be much of an issue on a single dive if you have enough battery to support the draw. But, don’t be taken in by highly exaggerated claims for these lights. Try to get some first hand reports of it.
Some may have poor heat sinking. The higher the output, the better that has to be.
Reliable water tightness is critical of course. That trait usually shows itself soon if it’s inadequate.
That's another interesting dive light I never saw before. I thought about getting the warmer tint of the SD02A and then decided on the NW tint instead. For the price, it's easier to get another one if I like it.
you’ve obviously missed the point. It would be easy for me to go buy something expensive at the dive shop, ( i just dumped $7k outfitting my wife and I) but the value is really lacking in most “dive” lights. Come on, $1500-2000 for a canister light??? Most divers have no choice because they’re not flashaholics. I have options to order direct and cut out the middleman…
The Boruit looks like the same light I mention in my first post as the U’King. It’s pretty much the same design as the DV-S9. Possibly a decent light. Mine worked fine, but I haven’t tested it extensively.
I know the DGX 600 (Dive Gear Express) that I linked to is a ‘cheap Chinese light’ with DGX logo on it. I forget the original brand name but it was pretty common for awhile. I’d strongly suspect the same for the bx2. The issue is sorting out the decent stuff from the crap. I’ve got a good number of cheap dive lights that are only suitable for walking in the rain. For serious diving, I take good lights.
Having said that I took a couple of those really cheap fluorescent yellow/green twist-on type for my trip to the Philippines. They are extremely small and light (serious weight issues with camera gear), and some of them put out a decent light. But, I did some serious touch-up work on the O-ring channel (crappy workmanship), and changed to better O-rings. Even with that one of them ‘seeped’ a couple drops and they were a pain to turn on and off.
Some measure of consistency, reliability, and possible warranty support is what you get from a real dive shop. They’ve done the vetting for you. It’s pretty much that vs. lower price + unknown quality.
I ordered the SD02 and have a tube of Sil-Glyde ready. The side button on the SD02 I'm not sure how to make water proof other than hope Sofirn did a decent job with it.
Hmm. Thorfire S1 and Sofirn SD01, I suppose shouldn’t be too much surprised as I notice many Thorfire flashlights have look-alike (or exactly the same) models as the Sofirn ones, since it’s said that Sofirn is the OEM manufacturer for Thorfire…
The Sofirn SD02/SD02A looks like a push-button switch, probably not magnetic, I was wondering if it will really be waterproof too…