FAMI Rechargeable LED 50 Umbilical Torch

[onthetrain]

hi troops, anyone used one of these? How good is the output? Its claimed to be as bright as HID in divers whorehouse advertising.

I was leaning towards a hid until a buddy broke his bulb by giving the head a fairly innocuous bump. The he told me the cost of a replacement bulb FFS you could pay less for a small familycar!!

Seems like a decent price.

Most of my diving is in the 40M range with limited wreck penetration. Not into caves.... The colour is immaterial (ie does not have to be black). Have thought about a salvo but i find the cost of replacement bulds prohibitive....

Views on a psotcard please............

[robprice]

I like those torches, I all so have the Power 4 LED as a back up.
Enough for me to use but as always every one to there own.
Some on here wont agre but....
I recomened them.

Robprice

[Shaunzxr]

Originally Posted by robprice

I like those torches, I all so have the Power 4 LED as a back up.
Enough for me to use but as always every one to there own.
Some on here wont agre but....
I recomened them.

Robprice

I think I'd like one of these torches but I don't want to get it down and be disapointed.

Rob have you compared it underwater to a HID torch

Cheers

[Paul Evans]

Ok..............

Just got back from the Maldives

Run a Fa & Mi Multi LED 50 umbilical and Multistar Hid12 umbilical on the same dive, I had the HID and SWMBO had the LED.

The LED is good, very bright and a cool white light, but the HID is brighther and can penertrate better. burn time for the HID was about 120mins, at this point I recharged it just to be on the safe side, The LED never got recharged .
This is the realy good thing about the LED. Not sure what the total runtime is on either but two dives on the HID then a recharge and four on the LED would seem about right.

Both were run with Goodman handles, what a difference that makes. However be warned, connecting a Fa & Mi hande to the head is a major DIY Job
The handle does not have a counter sunk hole in the middle, only a tapped one. I drilled a new hole on the other side and counter sunk it to take the machine screw supplied with a rubber tap washer between to stop the two aluminim surfaces grinding together. With the tap washer it all locks up nicely and is centered and compact

We also had two Power LED 18's with us for back up, these are great little back ups, fits easly in a pocket, I ran mine using it day and night over 12 dives (Not continusely) but also for spotting from the shore and jetty in the evenings and did'nt need to change the Batts

The LED 50 comes with a Worldwide Switch mode charger, but be warned the HID comes with a 240V UK charger, check this if you buy a HID they may change it, In our case it is not a problem as I use the charger from the LED (Same Battery packs).

In all both are very good, The complete shock on the boat when we came back from the first night dive The Germans were gobsmacked
one of them had a D9 but everybody was talking about the lamps

But beware................ Navigating customs at both Heathrow and Male was a lot of fun, They took swabs at Heathrow (sniffing for explosives), I transported them in a aluminim flight case (The boxes they come in are poor, One had to be sent back to DW as it had broken in tranit.)
When the case went thru the X-ray it did look a bit suspect.................

Got ours from DW, got a excellent deal at LIDS. and the customer service from DW was fantastic as ever.

If anybody wants to know more post again and I,ll try to help

[Twinsetmad]

A mate of mine has a Fami HID...much brighter than my Greenforce FII with a tristar LED on it ..but he's had nothing but trouble with it.. Its flooded twice and sometimes just won't switch on. Very bright, but he's at the stage now when he dosn't trust it .....

£400 light ??

[Paul Evans]

Originally Posted by Twinsetmad

A mate of mine has a Fami HID...much brighter than my Greenforce FII with a tristar LED on it ..but he's had nothing but trouble with it.. Its flooded twice and sometimes just won't switch on. Very bright, but he's at the stage now when he dosn't trust it .....

£400 light ??

I am very surprised to hear It flooded, Double Barrel O rings everywhere!

Just grease it and Go

[Scuby]

Originally Posted by Paul Evans

I am very surprised to hear It flooded, Double Barrel O rings everywhere!

Yeah I've got a Fami torch too and can't imagine how you'd manage to flood it. You've got to be doing something fairly majorly wrong to manage to flood it twice!
Get the external charging cap - means you never have to unscrew any of the covers of the torch so on the very rare occasion you do you won't mind spending 2 minutes making sure its all clean and screwed back together well - something you might not do if you're rushing to get it off-charge and into the water.

David

[onthetrain]

Paul, thanks very much for the info. Very comprehensive andd useful.

Alan

[Paul Evans]

Alan

couple of more thougts.................

There have been problems in the past with the umbilical, basically it fails
One of the get outs for this little problem is the fact the kit is supplied with another long handle and the lamp and batt pack can be assembled into a single body unit. So if the umbilical fails your not stuffed. You can do this with the LED and HID.

The lovely blue anodised finish is shite, I get the feeling ours will end up silver quite quickly.

The body and parts are very well machined and to be honest it is quality.

The HID has a continueous burn time of over a 1000 hours but lamp life on a HID is governed by how many times you strike the Arc, I,ve seen posts on this board and others, some saying 70 some 100 strikes, then again if you buy a HID you should know what you are letting yourself in for

Any lamp with a Ballast should be transported properly, I.e. Wrapped in cotten wool



The electronics and lamp in a HID are fragile, as stated I put ours in a Ali flight case and used that wavey soft packing foam top and bottem and all edges, The foam was pink ..........................