Salvo 12 Watt LED Umbilical review

[drunkdiver]

Mine started working again and then stopped again. After having a look at it I reckon its the switch / contact mechanism between the battery pack and the head. I noticed sometimes when i screwed the head on i get a quick flicker of light and then it goes off again. I also noticed that the thread on the head and battery pack is slightly damaged. Not sure how good Delrin is for making threads.

I agree about the goodman handle clip. Whilst it didnt come off in the water I pulled it out a cuple of times on the bank. Also whilst the soft goodman is ok I would much prefer a solid one. I will probably come up with my own solution for a goodman handle. Or see if I can get someone to knock me one up.

Having said all this as long as they get the problems sorted I still reckon this is probably the best torch in its price range by miles.

[Rob Dobson]

Originally Posted by Howard Payne

The irony of all this is that one of the advantages of these LED lights for me is that they have so much less in the way of electronics inside them to go wrong compared to HIDs. Added to the compactness of the heads and the almost limitless life on the LED chip - this really should be the future

Err.....? Less electronics to go wrong versus HiD? I think there might be more as it happens.

I do like the look of the new Salvo LEDs but I really can't justify getting *another* primary light. Or can I....?

[steve6690]

Originally Posted by Rob Dobson

Err.....? Less electronics to go wrong versus HiD? I think there might be more as it happens.

I do like the look of the new Salvo LEDs but I really can't justify getting *another* primary light. Or can I....?

depends really....if it's directly driven then there is really only a series resistor but I suspect that these lights use the Osram Ostar 6-die led which needs 21 volts to run at full power, so some kind of boost driver circuitry would also need to be used...

[drunkdiver]

I expect there is more electronics in the LED versions, however it will all be low voltage solid state components which are extremely reliable. As long as the LEDs they use are mounted in the correct manner (heat sinking) then they should be extremely reliable.

Im pretty sure they dont use a series resistor (waste of power) and this does not give a constant light output as the battery runs down. I would expect they are PWM driven.

[Whoji]

Hope you get it fixed for next time so I can witness the awesome salvo power first hand!!

[drunkdiver]

Once youve seen it i reckon you will be selling your greenforce HID.

[NeilB]

It's electronic and like all electronics it will either fail very quickly or last forever......you, unfortunately, got the former.

[drunkdiver]

im pretty sure the failure is mechanical !

[rongoodman]

I spoke to Salvo today and Cory had just looked at this thread. I might end up upgrading to the 21W LED, just to get the more traditional design, and they were fine with that. The 12W is a new design, and sometimes things just happen. (I make a habit of installing the newest version of OS X on my Mac about 20 minutes after it hits the Apple Store shelves too.)

[drunkdiver]

Made a phone call and sent an email this morning and im still waiting for someone to get back to me ! Unfortunatly cannot afford to upgrade to the 21watt so im stuck without a torch until this is sorted.