Well here's further proof that all those early teenage years watching Blue Peter weren't in fact for the youthful Sarah Greene and her rara skirts but actually for John Noakes and Peter Purvess and their wizardry with lolly sticks and sticky-back plastic. Honest! (anyone residing outside the UK, skip above paragraph).
The background to this is that over 2 or 3 seasons I had 2 puzzling leaks on my Sunray battery pods (used on Stingray 2). In the end I wondered whether I had simply knocked or just leant on the battery pod doors and this had caused the leaks. The Bluefin FX1 itself is a nice chunky robust piece of engineering (dual o-rings, thick walls etc.) but I do think the older Sunray battery pod doors are a weak point in comparison. I would love to see a new generation of design that addressed the vulnerabilities. The light heads themselves are awesome however.
My revolutionary, patent-pending new guard (widely tipped for next year's Duke of Edinburgh's Innovation Award) is made from the bottom of a plastic bin (garbage can to you stateside folk). It's mounted on the front of the pods using one of those pod locking wedge thingies (technical term) which arrived with my housing. I don't know whether LMI send this spare to all housing purchasers or if it was part of the service kit I ordered. To strengthen things up a piece of plastic chisel handle (the handle is plastic, not the chisel - a plastic chisel belonging the chocolate teapot school of usefulness) was mounted between the piece of pedal bin and aforementioned pod locking wedge thingy. I should stress that the handles of a wide range of hand tools would suffice. Er, perhaps I'd better let the pics speak for themselves (thoughtfully green-screened for you so you can superimpose on the background of your choice) ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16987760@N00/...57594399941760/
You need to drill 3 holes in the pod locking wedge thingy for 3 stainless self-tapping screws (not 5 holes, as possibly visible in my pic - I was dreaming of Sarah again and accidentally drilled them in the wrong place at first).
The other pod locking wedge thingy is towards the rear of the pods, so basically 2 are used now instead of 1. There is no pressure at all on the pod doors.
It works as they say, like a charm, and allows one to swim around with gay abandon, merrily shearing off the top of the reef without concern for the slightest scratch to your shiny equipment.
Removing the guard is, as they say, as snap. Takes just a couple of turns of each of the 2 allens screws and you're done.
I told you it would be knicker-gripping stuff. Your local tupperware store awaits. Heath Robinson, eat your heart out!
