I haven’t been able to dive yet with this light, but I did test it here at home in a 30 gallon trash container filled with fresh water. I wanted to see if my light has the same issues as others have reported. Obviously there’s a huge difference in how I’ve tested it thus far and actually diving with it in deep water.
After properly greasing all threads, I turned it on HIGH mode and tossed it into the container for 15 minutes. I then removed it and dried it off while still turned on and then manipulated the tail cap and all was great. The light worked perfectly on all modes and turned off just fine.
Then I turned it back onto HIGH mode and tossed it back into the water, and while on the bottom of the container I proceeded to manipulate the tail cap and found it wouldn’t switch to any other mode and would only stay on HIGH mode. As soon as I removed it from the water, it would work perfectly, changing to any mode and would turn off.
It’s unfortunate this design is a flop and may not be a reliable light on an actual dive, but since I do use all my dive lights out of the water, I still like the light alot and will be keeping it. I just wish I could figure out an appropriate fix for it, but I really don’t have a clue.
I got my replacement O-Rings from Nowell yesterday.
Replaced the tail and forward body rings.
The replacements are much nicer O-Rings than the originals. Better fitting, not as stretchy.
I took it down to 90ft today. Vis was in the area of 50ft. No leaks .
Still experiencing the shorting problem so I switched to high mode on the surface by holding the light up and out of the water. I left it on high for the duration of the dive.
In the video that’s my buddy’s GreenForce light in some of the footage.
When diving I don’t see all of the backscatter that you see in the video and the hotspot in the center of the beam is exaggerated on the closer shots by my camera’s exposure settings.
Despite the problems with the switch or lack of a switch actually, I remain impressed with the light this thing generates. It is very bright!
Rookie alert:
I’ve never done any mods on a light so I have no idea where/how to start.
I’m hoping there is some way to change out the tail or maybe drill it out and install a switch.
Any way I’m going to hang on to this light just because of the reaction it gets from other divers. I love that.
Yup it bright! Can’t wait to use it in the cenotes!!!
JP, can you do me a favor?
Next dive can you put regular scotch tape over the lens before jumping in and show us what the difference is like?
It’s the best diffuser I’ve found so far but I have yet to dive with the lights.
Kramer 4140 says “… I am not trying to degrade what looks to be a well thought out design… Just stating a commonly known fact that a traditional O-ring gasket is susceptible to water intrusion when the mating parts are subject to rotating twisting and sliding motion. Yes this is why many dive lights have magnetic switches or mechanical switch designs that do not place gaskets under sliding motion when power cycled.”
Well I can testify to having used “twisty” dive light with no switch at all over and over and for many hours and to pretty respectable depths. Some of them were PrincetonTec and there were others. The proper O-rings with a reasonable lubricant works FINE if everything else is in order. I’m not quoting someone else or reporting rumors here - this is from my own experience. I’m not saying that this light is adequately designed or manufactured but the O-rings it comes with are certainly no adequate. It’s obvious that they’re a bad fit and they’re probably not made of the right material either. That could be why there’s a guy on eBay who’s selling a replacement set that he claims will do the job. I’ve ordered one of these lights and I’ll try to experiment with some O-rings to see if I can come up with the answer for this one.
Hi you all,
Every time I search for a led flash light, I came accross this forum, and it helped me not buy one so far. Because every time I decided to pull the trigger on one, I did not like some reviews and decided to wait untill the perfect one (Yeah right!) arrived. Posts on Trustfire vs sky vs dry vs … fried my head. 3TX? I wander if I can fit 5 xmls in it. Oh, wait! There is j12 now. Could I mode it to get rid of the flashes and power it up more? J16? When did this happen? What is the difference between this and J18? Holly crap X100! Would I be shot to death if the soldiers take it for a bazooka? And now I need a diving flash light for which I have been hunting for sometime. When I first saw this one by chance I set my heart on it. Searched for comment and here I am. So what is the final verdict? Corrotion on the un-anodized parts, shorting underwater, leaking due to shredded o-rings? Seems like this one is a good deal except the problems with the light. Free shipping here. http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Mail-free-1-Set-TR-DF003-TrustFire-LED-Flashlight-CREE-XM-L-T6-LED-35W-3000/903269_582654178.html
Comes with the Tr-006 charger. I think it is capable of charging from a car power plug if I get an optional cable. Only one seller confirms this while others don’t even mention it, and another one said it can’t. I need a confirmation on it as well. If I have to wait for a better one then I might consider this one on land.
This way I won’t have to worry about different type of batteries. I will have just tr-006 charger with cap plug cable (since I travel with my motorcycle a lot). Then use it for the diving one (hoping that the one I will have in the future will be something like df-003. But then again I will have to wait until Kaidomain comes up with a driver that has no flashing but more dimming ability and for inputs up to 4 batteries and output for upto 3 A. Do ask for too much? (I know one can never ask for too much in this forum )
žPrices definitely dropped. Now we can gat it at 90$ including shipping (sunsky, eforchina etc)
(and thats the price for whole package - batteries and charger. )
I think this light would be much higher priced if it was any good for diving…
Thats diving light for diver who doesnt go into water, heh
I wonder why they dont check these things in the factory.
Man, thats most important thing in diving flashlight - quality of these freakin O-rings.
And than they expext Ill cough up dollars for the “great light” with all the wrong parts etc, and than lose my time by searching (if its poossible to find them at all) for the right proportion O-rings etc. Crap
All set for a dive last week, gear loaded, tank filled, batteries charged but the tr df 003 is barely on.
Full charge showing on the batteries with the tr 006, all green. Installed batteries in light, left it on for about 5 minutes and it slowly drained what little charge was left in the batteries.
I put them back in the charger and it shows all green.
I loaded a couple low 18650’s into the charger and it’s all red.
The 26650 batteries are toast. I got about 5 cycles on them.
I googled around “how to tell fake tr flame batteries” apparently there is a holographic sticker that should be on the battery. Guess what…not there.
If you look at the pictures of the light on the MF site the stickers are not there either.
Anyone know where to get the real deal batteries?
My trust in MF is about done for….fool me twice.
This light has been a roller coaster ride.
But I still want to keep it.
I have been doing research on building can lights. The 003 might be a candidate for that.
As for a diffuser, the outer bezel ring unscrews. There is an o ring on it but the aluminum ring doesn’t even contact the inner rings outer surface. It doesn’t seem to perform any function at all except that it would make a great place to put a thin diffuser, between the two rings. There is already a 1 ml gap there.
Ahmet:
There is a spot on the side of the tr 006 charger for an adapter cable to plug in.
If you want a great diffuser for this light check out the last post in my thread
Sorry to hear about your batteries, they do have great reviews if you do end up with the real ones though.
Sweet! That looks like a great light for video. No hotspot and powerful. Beats the little LiquidImage 300LM I’m currently using hands down. Can’t wait to see some underwater footage.
Still looking for the real deal batteries. MF has them, they just don’t come with that light though.
Talk about shorting out, My lights were bubbling under water. the tail caps lost a lot of paint. the bodies and heads lost a lot of metal. I mean like pieces just started breaking away from the lights. I have dozens of pot marks on the lights. the bezel of one has corroded away so bad that I have a 1/16 gap almost all the way around the head.
Those are great shots of the problem with this light. I’d send those right to the customer service dept.
I hope you were still able to shoot some of your dives.
Same thing happened to my 003. It’s just a dumb design for a dive light. It needs a proper switch. Did you notice that the lights wouldn’t turn fully off or change modes while this was going on?
That is an awesome tray set up. Did you make it?
I’m looking at a few different lights now. Ones I can source in North America so that return, shipping, customer service etc…is not such a PITA.
DRIS 1000
Novae MJ-810E
Tovatec SL1 at B&H photo
All of these look like they’d fit that tray of yours.
A decent triple xm-l dive light of around 1500 lm for under $100 just doesn’t exist.
The TR DF003 is too good to be true. This is definitely a design issue, not a production glitch.
If some relatively inexpensive improvements were made to the design this would be a killer (budget ?) light that wouldn’t cost too much more than it does now.
Is this considered some type of galvanic corrosion such as what happens on a boat if there are electrical leaks? If so, is this all caused due to the type of O-rings used? Sorry to see this!
Yup, I made the tray at work. In total with everything on it she was 7.5 lbs but in the saltwater it took 5 mins to get used to the weight as most of it was gone.
So one of the bodies on the lights is completely corroded to the head so if the o-rings ever go I’m pooched. Tried for an hour no luck getting it off. could use a vice since they are chipped like crazy anyway. To my knowledge o-rings would have nothing to do with the corrosion. Here are some more pics after they were out of the water and cleaned up.
.
)
