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New torch

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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devondave

New Member
Oct 5, 2007
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Just treated myself to one of these.
The Brightstar LED Darkbuster, well with a name like that, how could I not?
700 Lumen single 12w LED.
5 hour burn time.
LI-lon 4400 battery.
Depth rated to 300ft.
I paid £164 for it plus £5 for a pistol grip, the build quality looks good on it and the light is incredibly bright, haven't used it under water yet though.
Has anyone got or tried one and if so is it any good?
Please don't say it's crap because I'm still in love with mine.

Regards,
Dave.
 
Last edited:
Very impressive specification. You hardly need the lithium battery with LED's but nice to have anyway. 700 lumens is enough to cook fish with.

Where did you get it from? What about battery charging or is this a non rechargable set up?

Looking forward to hearing a report on its performance.

Dave.
 
Only 300ft, but the fish are all at 301ft!!!

Ahh! So that's where they were all hiding last year.

Dave, the Darkbuster range can be bought from www.pcbuyit.co.uk/dive.
The site is a bit rubbish but the service is prompt and efficient, if you call them they're friendly and helpful.
If anyone does buy anything enter DIVE01 in the coupons box for a discount.
Charging is simple, a coin opens a screw on the back, plug it in and a red/green light indicates when it's charged, about three and a half hours from empty.
Tests show a burn time of six and a half hours, though five is stated.
Depth tested to 400ft, rated at 300ft.
It comes with a glass diffuser to widen the beam, good for photograthy.
I ordered a pistol grip ( £5 extra ) for spearfishing, although this will be my main scuba torch as well.
Rated at 700 lumens, lumens are not always the best indicator of the brightness of a torch, but this thing is incredibly bright.
I hope to get to use it soon and will post a report on it's performance.

Regards ,
Dave.
 
Reactions: Old Man Dave
Looks very interesting Dave. Can you do one thing for me, look in the lens and see how many led's it has, it's just there seems to be some confusion on t'internet.

Some claim it has a single led, while others claim it uses the Cree XR-E Q5. But that led is capable of about 200ish lumens, so it's either using 4 of them, or not using that at all.

More likely is the MC-E. That can produce over 800, depending on the bin, and tally's with the 12W claim as it runs up to 2.8 amps, so it was running at it's max rating it would need an input volatge of around 4 volts, which is spot on for a single lithium cell hot of the charger.

The problem with MC-E's is because they are quad die emitters, effectively 4 led's crammed tightly together, is they are hard to focus into a narrow beam which is generally preferred for diving because of the illuminating area on the chip. This light looks to have a decent depth reflector which should work well though.

It looks well built and the bits it comes with like the pistol grip and the diffuser lens are nice touches. I'm a bit surprised by the rubber cover around the front of the torch though as high powered LEDs worst enemy is heat and that cover will insulate the heat sink the led will be mounted on from the water. I'm sure they've thoroughly tested it though.

The price seems pretty decent, though you can get MC-E dive torches for well under £100, but they're not as well built as your Darkbuster appears to be.

Overall it looks like a good torch, I'd like to know about that led though. If you can clearly see it does it appear to have a black cross in the middle of the yellow area like the one second from the left on this pic:

 
Hello Maggers, the torch has only one LED and yes your right, it has a black cross over a yellow area.
I did wonder about the heat sink, the bumph on the web site say's it can be used out of the water but I'm not sure in how far I'd trust that, the site is a bit pants, it labels this torch as an HID with a LED bulb.
They do sell HID torches with a stupid amount of lumens, 1750 with a 24w bulb, but I've seen no reviews of these.
How did you get on with your home-made torch?

Regards,
Dave.
 
Reactions: Magpie
Yeh, it's an MC-E then, should be good and well capable of the claimed 700 lumens MC-E's do need decent heat sinking if being run at full amps, I presume it extends down into the body which is outside the rubber cover? You'll probably feel it warm up if you keep it on out of water but you shouldn't do any damage as long as you don't run it for hours.

The HID Darkbusters are well known as good value HID lights.

Ah, err, erm, got a bit carried away with the homemades! Since the one I've posted on here I've made another two, one using 7 xp-g leds at around 300 lumens each (with OMD custom heat sink, cheers Dave), and another umbilical canister type based on a maglite and an otterbox, which uses 3 Seoul P7 leds which are similar to the Cree MC-E in your light in terms of output (the furthest left on the pic I just posted).

Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with 3 of them though! Keep meaning to post a thread with some pics of the two new ones but don't get the time, and the umbilical one isn't quite finished yet, it all works, just need tidying up.

Been too cold to dive with any of them yet but spring is here....
 
Reactions: devondave
A quick review of the torch.
It was used for a weeks scuba diving in the Red Sea.
For day time diving, used to enhance colours at depth, the torch is fantastic, very bright and easy to use with the pistol grip.
At night I found it to be far too bright, the critters scattered as soon as the beam came anywhere near them.
Fitting the glass diffuser helps a bit but it's still too bright for most marine life.
Might try to find some kind of coloured diffuser for it (any suggestions welcome).
A very bright LED that has a crisp light, which can reflect off of particles in the water.
I prefer the softer, warm light of my wife's halogen torch, but the halogen is three times the price and the LED has five times the burn time.
Over all I'm very pleased with this torch, as bright as you could want, easy to use and well built.

Most importantly this would make an excellent night diving torch for spearfishing, with a beam that can pick out a fish at twenty meters, neutral buoyancy and a pistol grip, this is an easy torch to use.
Highly recommended.

Regards,
Dave.
 
the handle is exactly the same as a UK handle they must source from the same place or something like that. but the light looks very nice to bad im hooked on Underwater kenetics (I have a aqua sun, light cannon D4, D8, c4 led, c4 and a few small ones) if your not used to the led your going to love it the blue color of the light makes it easier to see in the water. the burn time is much better than my aqua sun but it is less powerful. sounds like a nice setup though. how big is the light?

i prefer the lantern handle, why did you chose the pistol grip?
 
Hi Will, the torch is 200mm long and 75mm in diameter.
Mine weighs 800g though the spec' Say's 870g.
The pistol grip is an optional extra, the torch is still sent with a lantern grip as well, so you can use either.
My old light had a lantern grip and I just thought I'd try a pistol, not much between them really, maybe the pistol is a little easier for hole fishing?
Sorry I don't have the imperial measurements to hand.

Regards,
Dave.
 
no worries about the imperial measurements. your light is almost identical with my aqua sun but the aqua sun has two bulbs and has a shorter battery life. i might look into the dark buster unless UK comes out with a new battery
 
At night I found it to be far too bright

WHAT? There's no such thing as too bright! rofl:t

Good write up mate, sounds like Darkbuster have done a good job of converting to LED.
 
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