Mechanical Mashup Episode 20 Hack a $4 flashlight into a scuba diving light with a laxative!

Dave shows a BRILLIANT hack to take an ordinary cheap LED flashlight from HomeDepot and waterproof it so that it is capable of  scuba diving past 80 feet! Its one of those OHMYGODTHATISFRIGGINBRILLIANT projects. Enjoy! Here is the instructable or print worthy version of this cast Here is the video file to download

Dave shows a BRILLIANT hack to take an ordinary cheap LED flashlight from HomeDepot and waterproof it so that it is capable of  scuba diving past 80 feet! Its one of those OHMYGODTHATISFRIGGINBRILLIANT projects. Enjoy!

Here is the instructable or print worthy version of this cast

Here is the video file to download

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6 Responses to “Mechanical Mashup Episode 20 Hack a $4 flashlight into a scuba diving light with a laxative!”

  1. kruemi September 11, 2010 at 6:56 am #

    Wow, this is really cool! Love the idea! Will have to test this myself!

    And: where is that cool spot you have been diving?

    kruemi

  2. Dave Spencer September 11, 2010 at 8:02 pm #

    This dive was on the St. Lawrence river outside of Brockville Ontario. The wreck was called the Keystorm and was the coolest wreck I have ever been on.

    http://www.saveontarioshipwrecks.on.ca/Diverguides/dguide8.html

  3. Dave Bell September 15, 2010 at 9:14 am #

    Guys, your hacks are great, the projects very cool.

    The only thing I would really like to see added to your site would be a text & photo version, maybe a little like “Instructables”. Video is fine, and they are well produced and a nice mix of instruction and humor, but text just has a lot to offer. Copyable, scannable, page-flippable. Video is (for the most part) a single, start-to-finish stream (and streaming is often slow and full of hitches, even with very fast connections!)
    I’m sure you have the entire episode scripted, as it’s way too well done for an extemporaneous talk. Post the script, with some high-res stills as an adjunct, and this will be a truly killer site!

    Dave

  4. admin September 15, 2010 at 9:19 am #

    We post most of our builds on instructables actually. I did not include a link though. Here it is and I will update the post. http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-a-4-LED-flashlight-into-a-scuba-diving-light/

    Thanks for the comment and there is plenty more where that came from. Thanks for the compliment!

  5. Adm Chrysler September 15, 2010 at 10:16 am #

    How about a digital camera or camcorder? Would love to see someone apply this concept to a cheap flipcam or something.

  6. Dave Spencer September 15, 2010 at 1:41 pm #

    I did touch on the camera problems in the instructable but they got edited out of the video. Ill just copy and paste what I wrote…

    If you have Ideas for other things you could take underwater like this, let me know in the comments, I’d like to try it! Next time I’m going to do a larger flashlight.

    Before anyone says it! I don’t think cameras will work well for a few reasons,
    1) they are not sealed at all to begin with and would be hard to do so.
    2) the index of refraction through the oil would be different than air which would screw up the way the lenses work.
    3) the lenses have lots of little gaps inside that would be hard to purge of air.
    4) waterproof housings are not that expensive considering what they protect.

    I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m just not sure the risk and effort are worth the reward.

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