Strobe buoyancy

Hi All,

I've been shooting with my new Z-240s but i noticed that they're significantly heavier then my old D180 strobes. Does any of you guys have a (cheap) solution to make their Buoyancy more or less neutral? I use locline strobearms.

cheers, Udo

I tried a pair of custom arms a friend had built by ULCS (their normal float arms don't add nearly enough buoyancy). Basically each arm was a big (nearly as large as the strobe) commercial fishing float with an ultralight ball at each end and a rod through the middle. I replaced the outer arms of my setup with these and it certainly balanced out the rig but they were ugly and cumbersome. For travel that setup was probably somewhat lighter than a set of YS350s but took up easily as much room in a bag. I decided to take the INONs back and replace them with YS350s which are positively buoyant.

Too bad really. The INONs are nice enough strobes but I think the small size makes them too clever by half. Buoyancy is everything underwater. If they took the existing design and added 2-3 inches of length (without adding any other weight) and maybe made the switchgear more suitable for cold, gloved hands they'd really have something.

Clinton

Two suggestions you could try:

1. UCLS makes some buoyant float arms (they're not actually positively buoyant - just neutral).

2. Use lithium AA batteries; they weigh significantly less than alkaline or NiMH. Another benefit is that they last about 6 times as long, so you only need to change batteries about every 8th dive, meaning less times opening the strobes, so less chance of leaks...

Thanx, for your replies. The Lithium cells sounds like a good idea, unfortunately they're not rechargable... About the ULCS arms: i think they're as nutral as my locline arms so that won't make a big difference. I think i'm goin to fill up my strobe arms with the foam that they use for producing surfboards, i'll just hav to cut them in small enough pieces. Now i only should find out where to get the material....

cheers, Udo

Hey Udo

Hardware shops sell cans of spray insulating foam which hardens to a cut-able surface. The stuff is a bit nasty to use and you need to be careful with it as it expands rapidly. But it works well enough

Have you thought about wrapping the strobes and/or arms in old neoprene? Every SCUBA shop around here has old used 7mm suits (even old rental gear) that you can get relatively cheap.

How about Ikelighteners?

I made these strobe suits and used Ultra-Light High Density foam inserts on my D200 with dual Ike DS-125's. This healy system became about 2 lbs. negative with these mods.

I also use a "water-noodle" ($3. from target) sliced lengthwise and placed over my strobe arms. Secure them with zip ties.

Good luck and dive cheerfully!

Ron

I have no idea how much this will help and it may be so little as to be laughable, but as I have just purchased a Sea & Sea DX200 and a pair of Z740s, I went ahead and put a couple of foam sleeves around the two 8-inch ULCS buoyancy arms that I have when I rigged out the camera at home. The foam is closed-cell foam sleeving as used for pipe insulation. In fresh water, the buoyancy arms float and the foam distinctly raised them even more, but I'm don't expect that small amount of foam to really amount to much help. Nonetheless, if you extended it to longer lengths, it might offer some benefit. I thought of adding two 5-inch standard ULCS arms with foam sleeving around them, actually doubled up with another foam insert to fit snug on the arm, but I decided the extra arms weren't needed. I've yet to get in the water with my new system but will be checking it out soon in a local lake, to assess the manageability of it, knowing saltwater will only improve the situation. The DX200 with Athena dome, D200, and 12-24mm Nikkor zoom is sufficiently negative that I'm not so sure the Z740s will add that much objectionable negative buoyancy. The overall system is about 5 lbs. heavier than the rigged out Nikonos V that I was using, and it too was negative, thanks largely to the big SB-102 with 6 c-cell batteries, so I'm expecting the new setup to actuallly handle with better balance. You can see the foam sleeves in this photo:

As I said...probably too little to even be of much benefit. I hope I find it was all a moot point to even try, in the sense of learning the system handles well enough as is.

Regards,

Daryl