Snoot with a diaphragm for a Retra flash

[CaolIla]

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

[TimG]

I just love the idea of a snoot with a diaphragm. I know Retra have looked at it…. but….. Come on Oskar! 

[CaolIla]

1 hour ago, TimG said:

I know Retra have looked at it…. but….. Come on Oskar

What can I understand ? 

[makar0n]

This looks absolutely genius, well done!

[Barmaglot]

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. 

[CaolIla]

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. 

[CaolIla]

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
 

[Dave_Hicks]

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.

[CaolIla]

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.

 

 

 

 

[TimG]

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.

[TimG]

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. 

[CaolIla]

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 😉

[Gudge]

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/

 

[CaolIla]

Sorry but that's a 😞 solution, put the diaphragm into salt water will not work a long time.

[Davide DB]

Link to this thread added to our working and tested project list

 

 

[Alex Tyrrell Dive4Photos]

On 2/2/2024 at 2:33 AM, TimG said:

 

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.

I had the same thought a few years back and suggested it to Retra, getting the same response as you, to which I was a little sceptical of. I then tested an early version of the Marelux SOFT Pro and the diaphragm jammed after one dive! I'll stick with the masks on both my Retra LSD and Backscatter MF-2 thanks, simple and reliable, and fully behind Retra's thinking now!