CaolIla Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Hi I build my own snoot. The complete story is to find here Fabrication d'un snoot a diaphragme pour flash Retra - L'impression 3D pour la plongée - Plongeur.com - Le site de la plongée sous marine in french sorry. I put here the final information and pictures. It's a snoot for a retra flash The idea is to use a diaphragm to control the size of the light To be sure that the inner part stay dry I made a rotation system with small magnets You can see the hole size small and big. First conception in 3D and the part in real Somme test on land That the final version of the snoot I use The snoot underwater is positiv it's fine I love that he swimm over the housing when he is attached on it.. I made only one trip with this snoot but unfortunatly i made no pictures with it. I had probleme with my flashes. You need to wait the next trip to see some underwater pictures I hope you will have some idea for you DIY 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 I just love the idea of a snoot with a diaphragm. I know Retra have looked at it…. but….. Come on Oskar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 1 hour ago, TimG said: I know Retra have looked at it…. but….. Come on Oskar What can I understand ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
makar0n Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 This looks absolutely genius, well done! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barmaglot Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 2 hours ago, TimG said: I just love the idea of a snoot with a diaphragm. I know Retra have looked at it…. but….. Come on Oskar! It's a lot better of an idea in theory than in practice, those diaphragms are quite fragile and prone to breakage. Also, if you want any shape other than a circle, you need a mask. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 2 hours ago, Barmaglot said: those diaphragms are quite fragile and prone to breakage. I'm not sure that this diaphragms are fragile... and it he have some problems that's not really an issue... I have a second one and I can open the snoot and replace it The price is only 17 € .. The second point is that I can change the lenses in the snoot to adapte the focal length easily. For the moment I have 20/25 cm focus length.. I made test with shorter but 20 cm is for me a good distance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 2 hours ago, Barmaglot said: Also, if you want any shape other than a circle, you need a mask. I know bu I don't need such a feature for the moment. If I want that it's not a problem. I'll add this on my snoot. 2 solutions, add a part at the end or build a new piece with a build-in shape positioning. With 3D printing it's easy to add something and it's realy fast if you have the skills to build 3D models Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave_Hicks Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Thats a very cool project! Really ambitious and well thought. I'd love to see some images from the snoot. What did you do to make sure the watertight compartments stay dry at depth? I've experimented with some 3d-printed camera arm floats and found this difficult without making it too heavy. An epoxy coating was suggested but I have not tried that yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 Hi @Dave_Hicks Thanks I use epoxy to seal and sometimes to solidify a little bit I cover with fiberglass In the case of the snoot I use some O-Ring The first version wasn't ok some water get in. But with the last version it's fine. I made dives to 40 meter without any water in. The next test will be 3 weeks and between 40 and 45 dives... no probably only 20 to 30 dive for the snoot. Depending of the dive type we have. but at the end 5 days Lembeh with snoot 😄 Before this holidays i'll made some dive in lac with cold water to practice a little bit with the snoot. He will dive several time to 40 or more. This part is the most complex I build it was realy funny to explore the usage of O-ring to seal the snoot and the second challenge was to make the screw to close the 3 parts. The 3er was the rotation of the diaphragm, I'm really happy with the solution I found. This snoot is not perfekt it will be a other one. My idea is to add a small light in the snoot with a baterie. The Retra have a focus light in the middle but it used a lot of power... If I find an other solution I'll try it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 4 hours ago, Barmaglot said: It's a lot better of an idea in theory than in practice, those diaphragms are quite fragile and prone to breakage. Also, if you want any shape other than a circle, you need a mask. Yeah, that's what Oskar said when I asked about it: they are fragile and prone to breaking or jamming. Made me wonder about the Marelux one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 6 hours ago, CaolIla said: What can I understand ? Sorry! That was not very clear. I asked Oskar about a diaphragm version of the Retra LSD. He said it was something they had looked at but decided against as they were fragile and prone to breaking. But... I live in hope they could solve that problem. I like the masks but being able to dial in a circular adjustment (point taken on the shape issue, Barmaglot) would be terrific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 15 minutes ago, TimG said: they were fragile and prone to breaking. Really not sure... the construction ist good and I didn't find any problems. To be honest the first dive was a disaster for the Version 1.0 of the snoot. It was flooded. After that the diaphragm was rosty. I disassemble it and clean it... reassembling it was a small challenge.. Now it work smooth. I have a second in reserve just in case 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gudge Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Here's a Retra LSD that's been converted to have an iris disphragm: https://www.carousell.ph/p/retra-lsd-mia-snoot-with-manual-iris-aperture-1259838460/ 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaolIla Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 Sorry but that's a 😞 solution, put the diaphragm into salt water will not work a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davide DB Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 Link to this thread added to our working and tested project list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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