Light Scubapro Phad 8

Mind you, I know why Scubapro elected not to supply the lamp with handle fitted. What looked to be a simple job took me a good half-hour, simply because I couldn't get the little bolt supplied to mesh with a captive nut and clamp the handle tightly round the body of the lamp. The labour cost of factory assembly would have added a substantial amount to an already-high price.
It's part of the system Scubapro calls its "module torch" and as such, I guess, it comes from the same source in Belgium.
The lamphead unscrews from one end, and the Delrin lamp body contains the batteries in a chassis within it. This chassis is accessed via a hard-to-unscrew cap at the other end.
The battery chamber is protected by a double O-ring seal, while the front end has three
O-rings in line. The end-cap also has what looks like an over-pressure valve to allow any gases given off by the batteries to escape harmlessly.
The Phad 8 is around 25cm in length, too long to fit into a BC pocket. I tucked it into my waistband, after threading a lanyard (not included) through its end cap and clipping it off.

Power Source
Eight double-A batteries give a total o 12V to fire up the lamphead. My lamp came with proprietary alkaline cells, but I guess you could as easily substitute rechargeable ni-mh batteries. A new set of batteries should be good for three hours of light. Because it is modular, the Phad 8 lamp will also work with the four-battery pack in the smaller Phad 4.

Light Source
Enclosed in a flood-proof aluminium lamphead, the latest high-output P7 LED is controlled by a microprocessor. This provides perfect battery management by avoiding total discharge and a soft start-up. You get a little less light before the lamp has warmed up properly, but in the end you get more light, and for longer than with a typical resistor LED.This technology, called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), means that you can also have an LED with a dimming and SOS function.
This approach also prevents overheating, so you can use the Phad 8 safely in air as well as under water.

Switching
I never liked the idea of tightening the lamphead to switch it on, because unscrewing
it too far to switch it off will result in a flood. However, with a flood-proof head, which incidentally includes all the electronics, the only part to get damaged is the batteries, so you can simply rinse out the torch, replace the batteries and learn from your mistake.
The Phad 8 also has sequential switching, so turning it off and back on will give a reduced output dimmed to half-power, and finally a continuously flashing SOS signal. With all the electronics sealed in the lamphead, the body is merely an ABS plastic tube, so even a flood caused by poor O-ring maintenance should not do lasting damage.

Beam
After being warmed for a few seconds, the Phad 8 produced a very useful beam of light. There was no hotspot as such, simply a well-focused and very even patch of light that penetrated the water well and was not too cold for comfort. I don't think you'd ever need a lamp brighter than this one.

COMPARABLE LIGHTS TO CONSIDER:
Dive Rite LED 500, £350
Fa&Mi Power LED 60, £342
GreenForce Flexi Funstar, £189

SPECS
PRICE £359
LAMP P7 LED
BURNTIME 3hr
DEPTH RATING 200m
BATTERIES 8 AA
WEIGHT IN AIR 680gm
CONTACT www.scubapro.com
DIVER GUIDE