Dave_Hicks

Give aways only. I made some extra to share, and will share the design soon.

The Backscatter HF-1 strobe has been out for a couple of months now, and a number of divers are using it with great success. The reviews have been largely positive as well, and it seems to be a great product. I've done about 20 dives with the HF-1s and I'm really pleased with it. The power level, recycle time, battery life, and actually useful videos lights add up to very compelling product. When compared to other strobes with fewer features at almost twice the price, it's a killer deal. All that said, when I've talked to other UW photographers about it, I've really only had one criticism related to the controls and ergonomics. The Power Level Knob is terrible. The Power Level Knob is too difficult to turn while wearing gloves and worse, you can't tell By Feel what power level position it is in. There is a tiny white dot on the knob indicating its position which you can't see unless you point the strobe's back right into your face. Personally, I use long arms and rarely have the strobes pointed straight forward so I have to reposition the strobes just to change the power level. At night this is even worse as you also need to point a light at it. This design is very problematic, and I hope Backscatter will fix it in later production. In the meantime, I have come up with a solution. I made a new knob that slips right on top of the existing one. This simple 3d-printed part slips snuggly over the existing knob, aligned with the existing white dot. It is much simpler to turn with glove on or off, and you can easily tell it's position by feel. The knob turns freely in the full range of settings. It was just as easy to print out 10 as 2, so I made a big batch to share with others who might be interested. I still need to do a few more test dives with it before I declare it to be finished, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. I'll publicly share the 3D STL design files once I've tested it a bit more.

Not all scratches/dents will polish out. If the hit is hard enough the flaw goes deeper than the surface in the acrylic. I've polished many of my dome ports successfully. However, I have a Kraken Wet/Wide KRL-09s and had a "scratch" that would not polish out. Like the OP, I ended up sending it for a replacement of the acrylic element for a reasonable cost.

I installed this update yesterday on my PC with an Nvidia 4070 GPU. I used the Enhance/Denoise feature on a couple of photos and it seemed to be significantly faster. Used to take about 10 seconds and now a few seconds quicker. If anyone has not installed it yet, it would be interesting to do some stopwatch benchmarks.

I looked in the popular libraries, but nothing for S&S. Nauticam is a lot more common.

Welcome Stephen!

I may have one in pieces. I will try to dig it up.

I left that job to another guy. This ray was first seen a few days prior and the Diver touched it! Got shocked Real Good! More than once too.

It's Six-Gill shark season in Puget Sound, and lots of divers hit the local shore dive "Redondo Beach" just south of Seattle for a rare glimpse of one. I went diving last night and found an even more rare and elusive creature, the Pacific Electric Ray. They are not generally seen in the PNW, so this was a real treat. These rays are documented to be about 4.6 feet (1.4m) long and this one was at least that if not a bit more. More impressively it was really thick, like a pitcher's mound. [Nikon Z8 w/24-50mm, WWL-C, f7.1, 1/60s, iso500, Pair of Backscatter HF-1 strobes]

I'm surprised you needed supports for this. What orientation did you print in?

Yes, some strobes have notoriously weak sensors, especially S&S. The Backscatter MF-1 was not super strong either. I think the latest Retra firmware update had a fix to improve sensitivity. So this is a common issue. If what you are using works then you are set. If you ever have problems, you know what to do.

The 613 fiber is a better transmitter of more light and it has a tighter bend radius so it won't be damaged as easily. This allows for longer cables, support for less sensitive strobes, and protocols like ttl that need more signal. Cheap toslink cable is nearly as good but more fragile. The 3mm stuff is probably not glass and is not great for strobes like S&S.

They don't scam all or even any of the bags on exit from the terminal. Just a few randomly or if they see a juicy pelican.

Pack your cameras in a suitcase. Put dive gear in a pelican. They will zero in on the pelicans and bypass the suitcases.

I made a custom nauticam focus gear for my friends similar LensBaby manual focus lens a few months ago. I could probably make one for this lens with a few measurements. (assuming nauticam)

What a great set! Amazing work.

Backscatter has said they plan to release an HF-1 snoot. I will probably stick with the MF-2 for snooting for now.

The MF-2 is so compact that it's not much of a burden to pack. And now that I have the HF-1 strobes, I can ditch 16 AA batteries and 2 chargers. The MF-2 can share batteries and charger with the HF-1s. Plus, it has the added benefit of giving you redundancy if another strobe should fail. I've seen so many strobes fail on trips it's really a life saver to have a spare. And remember, spares are not just for you but also for your dive buddies. I know my save-a-dive-kit and spares get used a lot more to help other divers!

It's a lot nicer to have your carry lanyard at the top of your first pair of Arms. You can carry the rig without it being unbalanced, and it's much easier to hand up to a boat from in the water.

The problem with that is that I would have to print vertically, and I found out experimentally that it does not work well. You end with concentric rings on the long access with no cross-hatching from layer to layer. That model ended up imploding with a crack across layer lines and the (vertical) gyroid infill collapsing. My Fusion CAD model actually has a cylinder and rounded-rect option in it. The rounded rectangle design can be printed on its side and the long top/bottom surfaces print with lines at 90degs between layers which results in a stronger print. I also changed to grid infill vs gyroid (8%) that supports those long surfaces. Lots of opinions say that gyroid is better, but not under 4atm of pressure apparently. I further added two internal ribs 5mm wide @ 30% on the thicker half of the float. The other half ends up better supported due to the inset grove for the ULCS arm. I considered adding groves or loops on the side for zip ties but decided against it. I plan to add a carbon fiber wrap and groves would not work with that option. Electrical tape holds them together just fine and will last for years of diving.

There will be a very limited range with a narrow plane of focus.

My current project has been making a set of Buoyancy floats for an Underwater Camera rig. The camera rig is about 25lbs out of water and as much as 5lbs negative in the water. Typically, buoyancy floats made of non-compressible foam are used to get the camera to around 1 pound negative or a bit less. I reconfigured my camera recently with the new HF-1 strobes and it got somewhat heavier and more negative, so I needed to rebalance it with new floats. I figured why buy something when I can make my own? The requirements are: * Minimize dry weight / maximize buoyancy * Watertight and pressure resistant to at a least 100 feet deep * Be competitive with the fairly lightweight foam blocks I ended up with a two-part float sandwiched together around a 12" ULCS arm with dimensions of 225mm, 65mm, 65mm. Weight was 200g vs about 120g for the Foam blocks. Buoyancy is higher than what the foam blocks provided by about 20% as I increased the volume a bit more than the foam. I was getting about 325g from 4 standard Stix floats. Jumbo floats would be about 725g. These printed floats are about 800g of buoyancy per arm. I tried a number of solutions, but the one that has worked so far is printing the floats with ABS, 1.6mm walls, top, bottom, 8% grid infill with a couple of internal 5mm wide "ribs" at 30%, and Acetone Painting of the entire print surface. The acetone painting melts the outer surface slightly and seems to be doing the trick of sealing the parts effectively at about 4 atmospheres of pressure. During test dives this week I took the floats down to about 95 feet max and spent more than an hour at over 80 feet of depth. I will need to test them to 130 feet before calling it done. A previous attempt printed with ABS, 5% Gyroid infill, and painted with epoxy ended up imploding at 75 feet. The print failed along layer lines with the infill collapsing. I changed the orientation of the print (horizonal rather than vertical), used Grid infill along the axis of maximum surface area, and add the internal 30% infill ribs. Successful PLA versions with epoxy were much heavier than the ABS solution. Now that I have tested these to work, I will probably add a layer of carbon fiber/epoxy to the outside of the floats. This will add durability and some improved aesthetic to the final product.

It's even easier than that. Just use a loop of paracord and slip a length of 1/2 inch clear plastic water line tubing over it for pennies.

I just watched it. I got a call out in the screen shots at the beginning of the video! TLDR; He likes it a lot, massive power, good light with the 4500k flat filter, killer battery life, good value, and excellent for tropical waters. Cons are that the two knobs (flat for mode, round for power level) should be reversed for better ergonomics. I had the same feedback when I got the HF-1. Weight makes them less suitable for cold water where you don't need that much power. I'm not sure I agree with the point about cold water. It's true you don't need high power levels in cold water, but I do find the battery life and fast recycle times to be very valuable regardless of location. My #1 reason for buying the HF-1 was for rapid recycle in cold water. I've felt limited by this with my Inon 330's for some time.

I will try to find a better example to post. The corner coverage of green water is not going to be useful. And I basically never point my strobe forward from each side like a test shot at a wall. The left strobe was high on a triple arm pointing down and inward, the right strobe was out at 90deg and point toward the diver with edge lighting. IMHO, coverage shots in the real world are only possible if you compose and light for benchmarks rather than artistic effect.