[PSUBS-MAILIST] Emer Buoy brake and clear resin

[Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles]

 Hank,

A few things I've gleaned in my quest to find the ultimate off-the-shelf submarine light.

I've noticed that most off-road lights have moved to a tight spot pattern that is wide enough for a vehicle trying to illuminate 100-300 feet down the road but much too small/narrow for the 3-30 feet distance we would shoot for underwater. The Harbor Freight Road Shock Edge for example, at 3-10 feet distance has a concentrated spot diameter of about 10 inches with not much leaking light to the sides so totally useless for underwater use unless you wanted pinpoint light on a single seashell.

As you described, the reflector can be removed to convert the output into an omnidirectional flood however doing so results in a noticeable illumination loss because almost all these inexpensive off-the-shelf LED lights get their high luminosity rating by concentrating the light via the reflectors. Your use of a light bar is an exception because you're starting off with a 20k-30k lumen output with reflectors and removing them still leaves you with a whopping amount of light. The 4 and 6 inch round units don't have that same capacity unfortunately, especially those running on 12 volts. I did try the TigerLights without the reflectors (before expoying) and the intensity of the light seemed about as bright as a 75 watt house light bulb. A great omni-directional light pattern but just too dim. 

There's potential I think to build a hybrid using an off-the-shelf LED housing and replacing the PCB with a COB LED as described on the web site at http://www.psubs.org/design/lights/ that Cliff and Alec both use on their vessels. Installing the driver inside the vessel rather than inside the housing should make that a pretty easy conversion and result in a whole lot of light output. That will likely be my next side project.

Jon



On Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 12:22:20 PM EST, hank pronk via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:


Jon, this is great news.  When I make oil filled lights, I remove the reflector covers, the little cone things.  I find the scattered light is better than a beam.   
Hank
Sent from my iPhone

  
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