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.

Ok now everything is clear.

3 hours ago, Davide DB said:

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.

If you google a replacement battery it seems to show the back end of the torch complete with outer skin and battery contacts. It's not entirely clear though that you would get the whole back end of the torch.

Agree that the magnetic contact seems to be a weak point. You could try scraping the rust off and then soaking in citric acid.

All,

I haven't received the new battery yet, so can't comment on whether the rear magnetic charging attachment has changed.

I'll post again after it arrives.

Still not sure the rust can't penetrate the original battery housing. Rust spots seem to be a bit of a risk, so a new battery should overcome that.

Tom

Edited May 18May 18 by wydeangle

1 hour ago, Chris Ross said:

Agree that the magnetic contact seems to be a weak point. You could try scraping the rust off and then soaking in citric acid.

Yeah, I thought that too. The rust can be removed for sure but the distortion of the contacts remains and the magnets just won’t hold for charging to take place. At least that was our experience. Annoying.

21 hours ago, TimG said:

Yeah, I thought that too. The rust can be removed for sure but the distortion of the contacts remains and the magnets just won’t hold for charging to take place. At least that was our experience. Annoying.

In theory only the contacts need penetrate the casing. The little magnets don't need to go all the way through to work. Only way to tell for sure would be to cut one apart. From the picture the contacts seem to be stainless steel so should not rust. If you get a new casing should be minimal risk to file the old one flat to see if it fixes the attachment issue..

OK - the new Orcatorch B90 battery arrived:

It looks identical to the 4+ year old original and seems to be charging OK using the original charger.

It will accompany us to Bonaire next month where I hope it will perform as the original did. The original will be disposed of using the local hazardous waste facility.

All's well that (I hope!) ends well.

Tom

PS: Still not going to buy anything else from Orcatorch - education is never free...

Tom, can you see distortion on the old battery? The magnetic contacts are not perfectly aligned on the same plane so the magnets won’t stick?

Our experience is that is the issue, not rusting (although rust is present) and I’ve seen a few examples of that.

Tim,

Not sure what you meant by distortion.

The problem I experienced with the old battery was that the rusted magnet areas swelled and got thick enough to prevent the charger from making contact - in other words, the rust bumps pushed the charger away from the battery contacts. After I scraped enough of the rust bumps away, contact was made and the charger did its job.

That was when I started worrying about water getting into the battery. There may be another seal under the magnets to prevent water from getting to the lithium but I didn't want to chance it, so the replacement battery seemed the way to go.

So far it looks like it will work fine,

Tom