Salvo 21w/9Ah HID Review

[Bantam]

My light sabre arrived from Divingniknaks (ooo! new website!) last week, and I got the chance to get it wet on Saturday, only in Gildenburgh (With Conor and Rick), but still a good place to get used to it. Also bumped into Jamie (Crispyfiver) there too.

I did look at the Woz approved method of bungeeing it to my backplate, but as I had a couple of spare tank straps, I used one of those and placed it nestled in just behind the wing, upside down so I could reach back and turn it on without learning to be a contortionist (good tip woz).

When you first spark it up there's an initial flash, then it takes about a minute or two to actually come to life.

First thing I noticed is that how easy to use with the goodman handle and umbilical. Very neutral, very natural and feels very easy to wave around. Much better than a pistol grip or long-metal-bar type thing (like on the kowalskis). I used a double ender to keep the cable routed nicely around my left hand side. I also used a gauge lanyard (like a long loop of string attached to a small piece of webbing with a pinch clip halfway down and a keyring at the other end, which I put onto a 90mm bolt snap). It was long enough to enable me to have it attached at all times, yet if I wanted to I could let it go and it wouldn't drag through the mire.

The light is a much higher temperature - very much blue white versus yellow-orange white of Halogen. Now whether my bulb is bad or not I don't know, but what I did notice is that the light is slightly flickery sometimes. There's an obvious frequency /vibration and there also is (every so often) pulses when it flickers. But they are few and far between. As I said, it could be the bulb. There was also a slight halo effect (#3 reflector) but I could tweak that using the focus. Also, there was a noticeable yellow dot on the edge of the light, but again that may just be an idiosyncracy of my bulb being brand new.

(NB - Don't use a lanyard tied around the end of the ballast as it stops the focus from working well. I learnt that one ). Also, when you're using the goodman handle, you have to take the torch off your hand to change the focus, else unlock, adjust the ballast end, then lock back down.

Even with good sunlight the torch lit things up amazingly well, things looked bright and the light penetrated well. A consistent beam with not alot of leakage sideways.

Finally, the charging is brill. It's a computer controlled charger unit. Three lights tell you it's status, red for ready, amber for charging and green for done (trickle) I used it for about an hour and a half on Saturday, and when I got back home I plonked it back on charge. It took about 20 minutes for the charge unit to change from Amber to green. I then left it on for another 24 hours to trickle and took it off this morning.

So would I recommend it? Yes. Considering a 10W handheld MiniHID from Kowalski is £550, the cost is not much more for a considerably better lamp. Very sturdy construction, built to be bombproof.

Just my opinion. YMMV.

Mark.

[londonsean69]

Glad you like the light, I bought one and love it, even though I have barely got it wet.

I took it to Wraysbury the first weekend I got it, but the vis was about 2ft, so loads of backscatter.
I took back there this weekend, and after swimming out to over the Bus, I realised I hadn't connected the battery I doubt the torch would of made any difference though, because the vis was about 6 inches (not kidding - worst I have EVER seen).

I was doing a Discover Scuba yesterday in the pool, and thought I would see how bright it is in clear water. VERY bright is the answer, you could light up the pool from one end to the other, and it really was like a light sabre. There was this cool shaft of light

Can't wait to get it out to Egypt with me (next week) as I am even going to use it during the day, although only deeper than about 15m (depending on vis).