Sunray Mod Light vs. UK Light Cannon

BTW, I don't think this light is HID.

I think that the HID that was being referred to was the UK Light Cannon -- sensitive to droppage, and real expensive bulbs! ($70-80)

Yeang

James --

FYI I just got off the phone with Ryan Canon at UWCP (www.uwcp.com), who posts regularly at digitaldiver.net and is a good guy all around. I ended up getting the Mod light!!!

He offered me a great deal on the Mod Light (it was part of a package with 2x Inon Z-220s strobes) but indicated that he might be able to offer some similar discount to others too. I mentioned your name to him as I saw that you were really debating the purchase.

PM or email me at chng@fas.harvard.edu for exact details.

Yeang

I bought a Sunray mod light in April for a two-month trip, and experienced a failure about ten days into the trip. The unit refused to power up, and just blinked a flashing red LED error indicator. Eventually (two weeks later) it started working again, but then failed again after another week. I went through that cycle once more before it stopped working altogether, about five weeks into my trip.

When the unit worked, I liked the light output - very even coverage, reasonably bright (but not remarkably so). However, I was dissappointed with the battery life, and frequently found myself with no focus light midway through a dive. The recharger is not fast enough to keep up with charging between dives on a liveaboard dive schedule, so you need to keep the light turned off most of the time, and turn it on briefly for shooting only. I would much rather have swappable batteries or battery packs than a built-in battery pack that I cannot remove.

After returning the light to Backscatter for repairs, they told me that Light and Motion acknowledged a design defect, and replaced the control board and much of the rest of the light with the latest version. It would seem that LMI did not adequately test their product prior to release. While on the Kararu in Bali/Komodo, I spoke with a photo pro who says his company has stopped purchasing LMI products because of reliability problems. This is a pity, since much about the design of their product generally seems to be good, but unfortunately they need quite a lot of work on the reliability of their designs.

If I could find a light with comparable light output and swappable batteries, I would gladly trade in my Sunray.

I hope to find a 1" ball that screws directly into it.

Jeff & Craig,

I'll save you some looking.

ULCS part AD-MOD is the 1" ball you are looking for.

Thanks for the recomendation, Yeang! Enjoy your strobes & mod!

Ryan

Hi Bob,

good to hear about your experiences with Subal and the mod light in SE Asia. I'm sorry that you met with so much misfortune with 2 products that others have praised as being top of the line, but your perspective is very much appreciated.

As far as a light with comparable output, swappable batteries, MUCH longer battery life... try the UK light cannon as this topic says It was the way I was going to go before getting the Mod light. Instead of a 90 minute battery life you'd get 4-5 hours out of standard NiMH rechargeables.

The only minuses are: It's big, and heavy. No instant on/off, but you can jury rig a black plastic cover to hide the light.

I do not consider the so-called "extreme" price of a replacement bulb a minus any more, as I just found out that the replacement light bulb for the Sunray lists at $35. It is rated to last a whole 35 hours too.. a buck an hour. Ryan tells me that some people go through couple of bulbs a year. That adds up to more than a replacement UK Light Cannon HID bulb, which runs about $70 from leisurepro, and is rated to last 1000 hours, but usually less due to drops and fragility.

Yeang

IMHO, the Gilan Pocket can be a great spotting light. My previous post on this http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3482

John

IMHO, the Gilan Pocket can be a great spotting light. My previous post on this http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3482

 

John

Looks nice but is 3/4 pound negative in the water. It is also 30W. Pretty powerful for an 8 cell AA light! Wish it were neutral.