NEW TrustFire TR-DF003 2x26650 3xCREE XM-L Diving Light

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.

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Holy Alka Seltzer! Sorry to see that.

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.

Hehe, it looks like itll dissapear after second dive :smiley:

I wonder do all budget diving lights corrode like this. XTAR lights?
That MCE 2X18650 light (Magicshine?) about wich we talked a lot here?

DX just today listed this flashlight, price: US$ 100,70
http://dx.com/p/trustfire-tr-df003-3-x-cree-xm-l-t6-3000lm-5-mode-white-light-diving-flashlight-black-2-x-26650-155784

My friend bought this lamp and took it to local shop for testing. Max output was 1063 lumens :expressionless:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16735593/trustfire_tr-df003_jarmo%20(kopio).png
I was going to buy same lamp, but seeing those test results changed my mind. I think that it would be good result for one led light but not 3. Tested current at max brightness was about 1.3A.
Is that unit somehow broken or are leds used approximately 30% of maximum power for some reason?

I have my TR DF003 about a week now. This lil diving light was clocked at 1440 Lumens a number of times by me. Even without a meter i can say with certainty this is no 1000 lumen light.
The numbers dont exactly jive as well…3 X XM-L 1063 Div by 3 = ?

Nooooo way

Welcome to the family, ColdWater Diver!

Anyone who has dived with this flashlight and did not have problems?
I’ve tried today at home under water and I have seen that sometimes does not respond to changes in light mode when turning, tomorrow I’ll go to a store to buy O-rings
quality and diving’ll try it next Saturday.

Greetings from Barcelona

Welcome to Flashoholics Anonymous, shackleton!

Has anyone changed better driver into this flashlight to get more light from it?
When I make deep dives, I need as much light as possible, but those deep dives are not very long. 1 hour runtime would be enough at full power. Also it would be nice to have lower power modes for longer dives.

So what is happening here? Is it the salt water dissolving the aluminum?

No. It's not a problem of salt, but the salt partecipate to what is happening.

What you see there is typical electrical corrosion happening underwater: electrolysis. I work with ships, and know well enough the problem.

When this light is switched on, the ground (or -B as you prefer to call it) is from the cell bottom to the tailcap, and tailcap fully tightened makes contact with body, so also body is grounded, the ground then goes to driver and led. The + pole from cell goes to driver and led. The circuit is closed and the light is on. There's no difference of electrical potential between body and tailcap and no corrosion happens.

But when the light is off, the ground is only the tailcap. Not being fully tightened means no contact with body, so body is not grounded. So what happens next? Happens that + pole goes through driver and led, and to body. The circuit is open between tailcap and body. That is easy to figure out, anything that can electrically connect body and tail, will let current flow, and light will switch on. Well, when the light is on air, the air is relatively dry and a very bad conductor, so no problem. But when immersed in seawater, the salt rich seawater act as an electrolyte, and happily flows electrons. The body and tailcap are acting as anode and cathode, the cells supply the power, the seawater is the perfect electrolyte to the job: the anode release electrons and the electron-deprived metal corrode and dissolutes in the water (pitting), the cathode receives the electrons and in the area builds up a layer of whitish minerals from the water.

As soon as the cell can supply current, the corrosion will not stop, untill the cells are depleted or all the metal dissolved. The higher the current rate the cells can supply, the faster the corrosion. The anodization prevents the aluminium from corroding in air atmosphere (anodization is an induced passivation, which is electrically inert in air), but can nothing when in seawater, because the chlorides (salt) dissolve the alu oxides forming the anodization.

The next bad part of the figure is that there's no real solution to this. The use of a mechanical or magnetic switch (rubber booted) and keeping body and tailcap grounded (electrically connected) will anyway slow the corrosion rate by an enormous margin, eliminating the current dispersion.

Note anyway that alu in seawater will corrode, and any scratch to the anod is a good starting point.

Note also that most frequently used alu "light alloys" are not suited for seawater immersion, because of copper content. The alu alloys for marine service are special alloys low on copper and high on magnesium and manganese. Can you bet, they are more expensive than other "normal" alloys for terrestrial application, so I can hardly believe a flashlight producer will invest in these. Much easier to use PVC or other high tech "plastic".

Hey Rockspider,

Wouldn’t it be possible to isolate the grounding from the bottom of the batteries, and connect it through a wire to the circuit board? Maybe there is not enough space inside the body for the wire, but maybe some kind of isolated flat wire?

I agree that using aluminum is a problem in itself. That’s why you don’t see many genuine diving torches in this material.

I know it is off topic, but the Danish company Wiseled makes some high quality underwater flashlights, who apparently have solved all these problems. The reason being off topic is, that they are unhealthy expensive: http://www.wiseled.com/flashlight_adventure_diving.htm

Peter

Thanks rockspider for the great explanation!!… RE: electrolysis and electrical potential.

thanks!!

Re: Olderman

Yes making an internal wire connection between battery minus and driver would solve the different potential issue between body and tailcap, but anyway the tailcap must always be well tight in order to keep the same potential as body.

Re: Kramer

Thanks

I know that this torch is not sold by DX alone, but they are one of the big resellers, and they are official members of this forum.

What is their explanation of this Trustfire TR DF003 having those big issues? Maybe they should ask the company Trustfire or whoever is behind the design of it.

All we see is an ‘ooops we just correct the lumen output in the spec’s’, nothing else. Maybe I just haven’t read the official statement, but there should in my mind be some kind of statement from the supplier / producer after this kind of blunder.

Are you all satisfied with your money back, and that’s it? Wouldn’t it be fair to ask for an explanation? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear, what they are going to do in the future? Are there going to be an updated version with all problems solved?

Am I too demanding? :~