First Look: Salvo Rats

[Lou]

Has anyone taken the Rat Jnr's in the water yet? Looking at them being the ideal holiday torch for the Gos - lightweight, birght enough for an occasional night dive, but good for lighting up what you are looking at for colour etc in the close range?

[Rob Dobson]

Close range yes but the angle of the beam does restrict you to close range in murky UK waters. Nice clear foreign waters should be OK for the night dives etc but I've not had the chance to play in any since getting my mitts on one.

[Chriz]

As long as the build quality is as good as the Heser ,I could be investing, as I flooded mine in salt water two weeks ago, stripped it & threw it in a bucket of fresh & gave it a quick clean with the intention of giving it a proper going over when I got back.

Forgot about it 'till I read this article, went to get it & found it's been on since the 25th of last month and it was still going!!

Regards

Chris - 0
Sea - 2 (camera & torch!)

[dublinbay]

Originally Posted by Chriz

As long as the build quality is as good as the Heser ,I could be investing, as I flooded mine in salt water two weeks ago, stripped it & threw it in a bucket of fresh & gave it a quick clean with the intention of giving it a proper going over when I got back.

Forgot about it 'till I read this article, went to get it & found it's been on since the 25th of last month and it was still going!!

Regards

Chris - 0
Sea - 2 (camera & torch!)

Great report Chris

[DIVE BUDDHA]

look like very nice torches so going to be doing a little more research on the salvo i recon!!



regards leigh

[rob lumb]

leiigh
have a look at the greenforce diamond plus back up torch or the tektite expedition ls 4 torch.bothe are leds the greenforce has a 3 watt led in and the tektite has a 4 watt led in.the greenforce runs on 2 lithium batteries and the tektite runs on 3 c cell batteries and is a dir torch.
LUMB BROS Hand Torches
LUMB BROS Tektite Range Of Torches And Strobe's

the picture of the ls4 tektite is in silver but is also available in black.

the greenforce back uo is comparible in size and power to the salvos
and the tektite is comparible in size to the heser.

rob

[rob lumb]

forgot one thing the greenforce back up torch now comes with the same end as the salvo rats where you can attach a key ring through etc

rob

[diablo]

Nice report. It'll be interesting to see how the jnr reports in the water.

[Rob Dobson]

BTW the other week I was inside a silty wreck (The Radiation) and I took the time to put the Heser and the 3C Rat next to each other. I *really* liked the beam on the 3C Rat it has a tightly defined central light column which penetrates well and then a neat cone which flares out a few degrees around the central column. This lower intensity cone area is ideal for reading gauges up close whilst the central column makes it a decent tool for signaling.

The Heser by comparison is a more uniform light column. It projects fractionally further and the beam is whiter. As a pure signaling device the Heser just has the edge.

I didn't have the Jnr Rat on me at the time as a sub-30m wreck didn't really require 3 back/up lights

If I was stuck deep inside a wreck without a primary light and I was relying on a back/up to get me out then I think I'd reach for the 3C Rat first because the extended area of close range illumination is likely to be more useful than the marginal increase in range that the Heser offers.

When I lost my primary light scootering around a different wreck I reached for the Heser as I had enough ambient light to read my gauges and I needed the distance to stay in light contact with the guy I was scootering with (with limited success as it happens).

Both the Heser and the 3C Rat are great lights but with slightly different beam characteristics and therefore could be better suited to different environments. Take one of each...