As the title says… this series of posts will be concerned with my approach to the creation of an intelligent and versatile Dive Light.
After looking closely at the market I had few choices;
- Stick with the (initially) low cost replaceable battery type
- Hand over lots of cash for for a Halcyon or Sub
- Design and build my own and if the market looks viable – sell them at a fair price.
With a background in Electronics, some Microprocessor systems design (long ago) I not surprisingly decided upon option 3.
I had been unable to find what I was looking for on the open market and certainly nothing at the sort of price I was prepared to pay so I came up with the following list of requirements prior to starting upon the design itself.
- Bright and with a high colour temparature
- At least 60 minutes burn time between recharges
- More than one power level
- The option to use different lamp/bulb/globe [reffered to as globe from here on] ratings
- Some form of signalling system to inform me what was going on in terms of power level
- Battery health indicator
- Battery protection feature
Well the combination of all these things meant some interesting challenges in terms of the electronics and especially as I wanted to keep costs down.
In order to make this system as appealing as possible it needed to offer a number of different configurations in terms of globe rating, battery voltage and capacity so the control circuity needed some degree of intelligence.
After much thought (scratching of head) I decided to utilise RISC processor technology and write the features in by way of assember code and being ex merchant navy, the signalling of state would be audible and morse code! (It can of course be altered to single tones if desired).
And so started the long-ish design process.
The system is now finished, works perfectly and out performs my initial expectations.
I have decided to look into a couple of possibilities and may well do both;
- Fully manufacture complete Dive Light Systems
- Create Kits for the electronics together with detailed assembly instructions. The Kits could be pure parts or ready assembled ‘modules’ that simply need connecting to an appropriate battery and light head.
[ I would be intersted in your comments in terms of what level of assembly you would want to be made available - from bare board to fully assembled ]
The spec of the finished article became:
- 50 Watt MR16 Halogen Globe overdriven at 17 Volts rather than 12 Volts = very bright
- Piezo on/off and level switching (Piezo units are totally sealed and incredably reliable)
- 5 Levels of activity – Off/25%/50%/75%/100% relative to the 17 Volt drive target
- Audible signalling to match each change in state
- Off (- – - ..-. ..-. ) in morse
- Low
- Medium
- High
- Full
What has resulted is versatile, seriously bright and with a colour temperture to 6500k.
As an added bonus the light levels are held absolutely constant throughout use making it ideal for photography as well as the usual benefits of lighting up the way ahead. As I get time I will describe more details of the finished item and put up some photos and possibly a short video of the system in action.
More later…