I have an Orcatorch D910V video light. It has worked fine for several years but when I took it out to charge for a dive trip in March the magnetically attached charger wouldn't stick. Looking closely it became apparent there were several rust hills forming that held the charger too far away for it to stick on. Here's what it looks like now:

The three gold colored spots are the rust hills. The three smaller silver spots are the charger contacts. After scraping away the worst of the rust I got it to charge and took it on the dive trip where it worked fine as usual.

The light has been rinsed regularly in fresh water after (most) dives. It is also possible the rust came from the inside of the coating on the back of the light.

Then I started worrying that water could get into the battery this way - through one of the three rust holes - it could easily catch fire. Lithium batteries can be dangerous! When I mentioned this to Orcatorch, they said to stop using the light - not a very satisfactory answer to this problem.

After contacting Orcatorch about this problem and finding the light was out of warranty they offered a new light at a 15% discount. I won't accept that offer as I have another light plus that's not a very generous offer, but it bugged me to the point of researching this problem on the internet. I discovered I could buy a new battery for $105, about 1/3 the cost of a new light - so I did.

When I asked Orcatorch why they didn't suggest the new battery to begin with, they did not reply - so I asked again a few days later - still no reply.

So I have a usable light once again and will dispose of the old battery properly, but the Orcatorch customer support was galling enough that I won't be a customer again after being "helped" that way.

Sorry,

Rant off,

Tom

Just to clarify, are the contacts shown are outside of the torch? I would expect that the rust is from the magnets used to hold the charger in contact with the terminals. I would think that just scraping back the rust and also considering sitting the contacts in a citric acid solution it would cleanup nicely. Iron oxide aka rust is soluble in citric acid but it won't dissolve the iron that has not yet rusted.

Also to clarify, is the new battery a complete unit with outer casing and contacts? It seems like a spare battery is a better deal than a new torch.

On the Orcatorch web page that spot seems different. They could have changed the charger or it's just the rendering.

https://www.orcatorchstore.com/collections/u-w-photography/products/orcatorch-d910v-high-cri-neutral-white-video-light-for-underwater-photography

But from that page it seems that the torch would charge from the outside, so If you are afraid that water could enter the light via the rusted pin, a new battery doesn't solve the problem or I didn't get where the problem arose.

My partner's Orcatorch has the same issue (and we know of other too).

She discussed this with the Orca reps at the Boot show in January and they suggested a new battery unit. Yep, over €100 so she decided just to charge it by unscrewing the battery unit and charging using the plug in cable rather than the external magnetic contacts

37 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

Just to clarify, are the contacts shown are outside of the torch? I would expect that the rust is from the magnets used to hold the charger in contact with the terminals. I would think that just scraping back the rust and also considering sitting the contacts in a citric acid solution it would cleanup nicely. Iron oxide aka rust is soluble in citric acid but it won't dissolve the iron that has not yet rusted.

Also to clarify, is the new battery a complete unit with outer casing and contacts? It seems like a spare battery is a better deal than a new torch.

Chris, yep, the contacts are external and attach to the charger by magnetic contacts. We tried removing the rust but the contacts, or the fitting, seems to be misshapen by the rust or some other action and the magnetic contacts won't adhere.

The battery does have though a plug-in charging socket on the inside (so the non-water contact part of the battery) which is accessed by unscrewing the battery from the light head. It works fine but means taking the torch apart (not complicated) to access the charging point.

That magnetic charging system does seem to be a weak point.