Archon D10U 18650 aspheric diving flashlight, a non-diver review

Glass and O ring are up to some pressure by the looks of them.

As I understand, divers do profit from tight beams without much spill, it helps seeing through blurry water, same as they work better when seeing through fog, or smoke.

I will send you the light straight away ;-) .

Please keep track of what is happening to the light on the way down, with depth numbers. You can send your notes to the surface tied to a small balloon.

:D

Put it in a pressure cooker (snelkookpan) and pump it up (with an old CO2 fire extinguisher for example)
O, add a meter ! :stuck_out_tongue:

I miss your job sometimes, djozz… :wink:
But you could maybe simulate some depth by gas pressure.

Hmm, the hydrogen bottle at work is at 150 bar, I could hook it to some container filled with water and the flashlight, simulating 1500m depth :evil:. But I guess a soda bottle will not do as a suitable container ;-)

I am a diver, but this has to be the stupidest idea for a torch ever. Yes, a hotspot is very important, but equally as important is spill.

Thanks lionheart for your view on this light, perhaps this is why there is little information about it on the internet.

Still looking for someone who wants to check it out at some depth underwater :-)

We really do appreciate your reviews though mate, great job.

I totaly disagree actually, i think it is a good idea to focus lights for underwater use, if you want to i could test it down to 70mt or something…. But already before i have tested it i can mention some flaws…. it is to big to be a backuplight and to small to be a primary i think… (primary lights should have a long burn time) the design is also not that recognisable for divers… it needs a goodmanhandle of some sort (if it should be a primary). And i suspect it to be quite heavy in the front with the glass lens…. I would have solved it with a fresnell instead…

Hi esmi83, I'm happy to send the flashlight to you for testing underwater. You can keep it afterwards so if it is destroyed in the process that's fine. I do like a report of the test in this review-thread, with perhaps if you have the opportunity some underwaterpictures (video? :bigsmile: ) of the light in action/ the light failing . If you PM me your address I will send the light :-)

I’m not getting how the zoom works. What is stopping the zoomies from being pushed in at higher depths? I have some tight sk68 and they’re very hard to zoom in/out just by air pressure difference, at sea level.

Now this thing will go to 60m - so that’s 7bar vs 1bar air inside = 6bar difference. Again, I’m not seeing how the zoom withstand this pressure difference and not being forcefully pushed in by invisible Hulk.

P.S: There’s a report at CPF that this light failed and leaked at first dive. Look forward to see how this one performs. If possible, videos :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

I’m with Pulsar13. Being a diver there is significant pressure buildup underwater. Since the inside HAS to be air, and the outside water there is going to be some serious pressure there.
I can offer to take it diving but shipping to the US is likely prohibitive.

Tight beam vs. spill - is very much dependent on local conditions and what the diver wants to do with the light. For murky water and signaling you want a powerful tight beam. For clear tropical waters, video, and night diving in those conditions a light with more spill is often what is desired. I find it interesting that some of my NW dive colleagues take their halogen lumen monsters on tropical vacations. I think this is like bringing a car headlight indoors to find something in a closet.

Forgot about this light…if you haven’t found someone to test this light I can, but it will only be to 35-40m (ex-HMAS Adelaide off Terrigal, NSW) and it won’t be until the water warms back up a bit (it’s currently 16 degrees, eek!!!)
Anyway, no great hurry, I won’t be diving before October.

Wuss - :slight_smile:
Here it’s 10*C and the peak of summer warmth. :party:
In a few months it’ll be 7*C.
Drysuits (almost) mandatory. If you don’t, you likely quit.

Nice review djozz, i really like the photo of the beam on the tree. Trying to take good photos of my thrower i know is very difficult to take a clean shot of a thrower, at least i am failing. What camera do you use ?
Thinking about the light i think they have make the life too much difficult trying to make an aspheric that have moving parts an underwater solution. If this light do not take water inside @60m than Archon must be a very high quality line of lights.

Drysuit? So you don’t feel the water temp at all?

Wuss :wink:

Right now, not much. In Feb - March, it can get a bit chilly. :open_mouth:
You might consider it. A thin dry suit with minimal undergarment would vastly extend your dive season. One of the best parts is getting out and NOT being wet. Around here the late fall and early spring are the most interesting, and coldest, times to dive. Visibility can be highly variable in the summer plankton blooms or the winter rain+river flooding. Drysuit diving probably is around 90% of the active dive population. Wetsuit divers get drysuits or give up.

A newer club diver showed up a couple weeks ago in his old wetsuit. He thought it was warm enough to use it and was still not completely used to using a drysuit. He thought it would be relaxing to go back.
His opinion at the end of the dive - “I’ll never do that again!”

I have been looking at dry suits, I had my heart set on a D1 Hybrid (Waterproof) but then found out you need like 30lbs of weight with it. Still looking for a decent dry suit, Scubapro make some decent ones, so do DIY apparantly. I just invested in a Waterproof H1 7mm so that along with my W1 should vastly extend my dive seasons.

A 7mm wetsuit has a lot of floatation, most of it VERY compressible at depth. Buoyancy is highly variable due to compression. Same thing with a drysuit.
For your purposes a shell with appropriate undergarment would likely work better.
I use a high quality compressed neoprene here but that gets you into the $2500-3K level.
Weighting is a function of the insulation you are using. I actually dropped 6# and increased my bottom time 10” when I got that suit.

Got a steel tank?