Hjeh, and got away lucky in the 2nd shot. :laughing:
I just saw one of the little armadillos here crunching away on catfood and busted-up cookies on the patio. Birds didn’t even touch the latter (they’re like, “Hey, wherenahell’s our bread??”), but I knew come nightfall someone would.
We had a white skunk here last year (yeah, all white but 2 parallel black racing stripes down the middle), but haven’t seen him/them this year.
Thing is, you could smell when they were in town. Their stank just carried…
Anyhoo, love the way the ’05 just lights up everything in sight, and the magswitch is a hoot!
I was eating at twilight in The Basin campsite of Big Bend NP and heard something coming up to the table. It was a white skunk with spots where stripes normally are. We jumped away and in doing so, scared the critter away. 20 minutes later, I heard little feet again. This time, it was a brown skunk with white strips. OMG! Better than bears!... I think.
Wow, I thought there was only one kind of skunk, too. Black, white stripes, speak with French accents, etc. Had no idea there were so many, especially in Texas.
But this is NYC we’re talking about, and I never ever expected to see skunks here, yet multiple kinds. Trash-pandas, sure, as they live in cemeteries where they’re relatively undisturbed, and forage for food at night. Was surprised at my possums, especially when I got to pet one which was wedged in a trash bag licking out cans of catfood. Yep, played dead when I pried him out, must’ve come to when I was showing him to a neighbor who was coming home late, and the critter saw his chance and made a waddle for it, taking off down the alley, so I let him go. (They glow red under UV, too.)
Did order 4 of these and we are using them daily for diving down to 10m (been testing for several weeks now)
So i will just add my feedback about the product
The magnetic switch will get “stuck” and hard to twist using it one handed i guess due to small tolerances and salt buildup (does not happen to our SD01)
The “snap hook” for the lanyard will break quickly wish the hole was bigger so u can just insert the lanyard right away.
The turbo mode does not work with some batteries it will automaticlly handle the light as “low battery mode” and turbo mode will be as bright as second mode.
The spring and back cover will oxidise quickly so u need to remove the spring and whipe under it. You will notice this by the light blink as low battery when its not for hours and being in “low battery” brightness and sometimes randomly shutdown.
Basiclly alot of improvement to be done to this light (SD01 works much better using it for years daily never any issues, if someone is looking for a stable diving light)
With that said the light is amazing when its brand new and with some tweaks it works just fine. I did rope the lanyard and found a battery brand that works. Then did put a bit of soder at the bottom of the cap and spring for increased surface connection and on the tip of the spring.
Noticed that the SD01 costs @ twice as much. Thanks for the oxidation notes, there is a product called Deoxit Shield that I will try and preemptively use and see how that goes. Planning on using it as a salt water kayak light where it will see sand and salt, but only a bit.
I thought “standard procedure” when diving in saltwater is to take your goodies, let them soak for a while in fresh water, then give ’em one last rinse.
That should get rid of any built-up salt deposits, no? Also keep things from rusting.
It would be nice also to know how is disassembled; I arrived only to disassemble the front ring and control the glass (3 mm thick); I would get to also remove the ring of functions, so you know how to clean it and keep it healthy
That is standard procedure, but may not be quite enough.
Some of the springs and parts in these can be pretty low carbon steel. Figure an hour saltwater soak, then 1-3+ hours transportation back home, which may allow drying depending on the temps, then freshwater rinse. To get into tight spaces with poor circulation (threads, switches) the soak would have to be a (very) long time (hours), longer than most people likely soak for. Much of the time it’s pretty much a short dunk and let dry. Even then those same items stay wet after the soak for hours to days, maybe never completely drying out due to poor air circulation in those closed spaces.
The chrome plating on regulators, brass, and even some grades of stainless steel show rusting and corrosion over a year of constant diving even with good care. The harder the area to rinse easily, the worse the problem. Saltwater is a pretty harsh environment for metal.
Example:
My camera tray setup (the holder everything is attached to), is made of well anodized AL, and assembled with high grade SS bolts and nuts. Those are greased with silicone on assembly, both for corrosion protection and dissimilar metal electrolysis. Immediately after a dive they get a quick soak in warm water. It’s easier to rinse the salt away when still wet. Back at home they get a longer soak in warm water. Even so I need to take them apart every 6-12 months, clean all the parts, and grease before re-assembling. If not, they can get very bad.
We have use SD05 for free diving until 30 meters deep, while spearfishing. It’s the better small diving light for free diving. So simple…
Powerful, very easy to use with the rotating ring, with bright hot spot and a very useful spill, in a palm size light.
We use five of them for three and half months in salt water without problems at all. Samsung 40T on them…
In free diving there is no possibility to activate the time step down, or the thermal step down, so this light seems to be the perfect small size free diving light…
It would be better ofcourse if the emitter was the new 3 V XHP50.2, because we wouldn’t have the low efficiency boost driver, but maybe in the future Sofirn will do it…
I wonder what a NYC coyote accent sounds like?
