Development of the SmartDive Underwater Light

Our company have developed an underwater light that is installed on our entire range of ROVs: SmartDive-100, SmartDive-150 and SmartDive-300, and our underwater searchlights. It can also be mounted on any other underwater device or used as a hand flashlight while diving.

Now we will tell you why we decided to create our own underwater light, how it was tested and what happened in the end.

There were no lights during the first tests of the SmartDive ROV prototype. At that time, we tested its maneuverability and buoyancy. But, of course, we knew that without LED underwater lights anywhere. We have never used dive lights made by other developers, only our own. This decision is due to the fact that we did not find foreign or Russian analogues, the ratio of price to quality of which would suit us.

Therefore, by the time of the next tests of the SmartDive ROV prototype, we already had the first version of the driver ready and the LEDs were selected. After some time, we also developed a housing for the driver of the future underwater light. First, we made a long lamp board, which is good for tests and inconvenient for real use: a rectangular driver was hard to fit in a round lamp. This board was large and uncomfortable, but it was possible to debug the operating modes of the circuit on it. It had to be placed along the lantern, due to which the dimensions of the entire device increased. Then we redesigned the electronics, removing everything superfluous from it and replacing the rectangular LED driver with a compact round one.

By changing the driver, we managed to reduce the length of the light body by almost 2 times compared to the first version. As a result, the length of the lantern is 54 mm, the width is 40 mm, and the weight is 170 g.

The tightness of the aluminum housing which contains the lantern is provided by mechanical seals. To achieve the most reliable sealing, it is enough to place 1 rubber seal on each side. To make sure that the aluminum housing for the underwater light is airtight, we tested it first in a pressure chamber, and then in real conditions with an ROV. Everything went well.

Besides creating the board, choosing the right LED was a very important part of the flashlight design. We were looking for an LED with a high light output and a wide beam angle. The 7x7mm LED we use gives as much light as a 35W ceiling light that can light up half a room.

Due to the small size and high power of the light flux, the LED heats up very much, so it was necessary to use an aluminum case to remove the generated heat. If we were working on the surface, the case for such a powerful LED would have to be made three times larger, but the water provides us with such good cooling that the case turned out to be very compact. We also tested it - we placed the light turned on at full power in a container of water, controlling its temperature. After several tens of hours of operation, the body of the flashlight was slightly warm to the touch. In order to prevent the LED on the surface from overheating when the flashlight is turned on, the driver we developed has a semiconductor thermostat - a microcircuit that measures the temperature and, if the set temperature is exceeded, turns off the flashlight. Accordingly, the LED stops shining, the lamp temperature drops, the microcircuit catches this and allows the driver to turn on again.

Our powerful underwater light, which can be installed both on our SmartDive ROVs and on other devices has beam angle of 95°. The maximum luminous flux power can be optionally selected: either 2500 or 5000 lm, the light temperature of the device is 5000 K. Also in our ROVs it is possible to remotely adjust the power of the lamps by selecting one of ten brightness levels.

We are currently working on an underwater searchlight, consisting of four SmartDive lights, capable of illuminating large underwater structures and objects.

If you want to order our underwater light or LED driver, please let us know!