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Never Get Lost Diving With This Brilliant Strobe
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Apr 22, 2025
Underwater strobes are essential equipment for technical diving in the tidal waters around the British Isles and I often get asked about them. This video shows why they're important, my thoughts on redundancy and the models that I use. *Details* The strobes shown in this video are: a. Hi-max Technical Dive Strobe - https://divelights.uk/collections/hi-max/products/strobe-one-set b. Shark Pulsar Technical Dive Strobe - https://www.dirdirect.com/products/shark-pulsar-technical-dive-strobe *Highlights* 00:00 Introduction 02:10 My strobes; Hi-max (Nautilus) and Shark 04:18 Fixing strobes to the shotline 04:40 Doh One! Strobe doesn't work 05:46 Doh Two! Taking the wrong strobe *Kit I Use* Note, some of these are affiliate links so help support making my videos: - Gloves are Ansell Alphatec 87-063 - https://amzn.to/4jDHhX4 - Main torch is an Orcatorch D630 - https://amzn.to/4jlT4tA - Backup torch is an Orcatorch D710 - https://amzn.to/4jhddRk - Drysuit is an O-Three Ri200 - https://www.othree.co.uk/drysuit-range/ri-2-100-drysuit/
View Video Transcript
0:01
hi this is Don Robinson and welcome to
0:03
my deep wreck diver Channel I've had
0:05
loads of comments on recent videos about
0:07
underwater strobes so I thought I'd put
0:09
something together showing what I use
0:12
and why I think they're really important
0:14
for the kind of diving that I do which
0:17
is UK tidal waters relatively deep you
0:20
know 60 M plus technical diving it's
0:24
pretty much a given that every diver
0:26
when they go down to the bottom of the
0:28
shotline will stick a stroke on and the
0:31
reason is it helps you to find your way
0:33
back now that sounds fairly
0:36
straightforward and it's something that
0:38
that that people do but it isn't until
0:40
you get to a dive like the one I'm at
0:41
the moment that it really reinforces how
0:44
important that was this is the wreck of
0:46
the baller at which is probably 40 Mi
0:49
off the lizard peninsula in Cornwall
0:51
it's 85 M deep and our it's been Salvage
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and it's absolutely flat really broken
0:58
really difficult to navigate
1:00
and at this point in the dive I was I
1:04
was considerably overdue at being back
1:06
to the shotline and the reason is is
1:08
that I've been I've been looking around
1:10
for the shotline for ages and not being
1:12
able to find it it was just so difficult
1:14
to navigate on the wreck and without
1:17
that single strobe up there I'd never
1:20
have found it I knew I was the last
1:22
diver on this wreck I knew everyone else
1:24
had got back and therefore I knew that
1:26
there was only my strob at the bottom of
1:28
the shotline
1:30
now if this strobe hadn't have been
1:32
there then I'd never have found the
1:34
shotline if that strobe had failed I'd
1:37
never have found the shotline so I'd
1:39
have had to put up my delayed SMB and
1:42
bag off and Float with the current away
1:45
from all the other divers on the lazy
1:47
shot and just pray that the boat was
1:49
able to follow both sets of divers so it
1:52
was a really uh emotional dive for me in
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a really emotional moment and just
1:57
reinforced how important that the
2:00
uh having strobes at the bottom of the
2:01
shotline are and uh you know how
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important it is to have decent ones and
2:05
how important it is to have them that uh
2:08
that work so uh on to what I've got well
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I I use a double strobe and uh the
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reason I use a double strobe is cuz why
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wouldn't you it gives you a whole load
2:17
of redundancy I have two different ones
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as you can see there one by high Max and
2:22
the other one's by shark they both
2:24
attached together on a bit of Bungee and
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that bit of Bungee obviously goes around
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the shotline you can see there's just a
2:30
bit of a Twist grip there to turn them
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on the uh the high Max one just goes One
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Way first of all there's a constant beam
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which I never use and then there's a
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flash the shark one is is a bit
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different uh it's one way is the uh is
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the constant beam and the other way is
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the flashing light if I'm honest I
2:47
prefer the high Max one um just because
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the uh the flash is a bit more uh
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frequent which I think is is useful they
2:55
both use a similar sort of system in
2:56
that you you open them up and they've
2:59
got the same battery inside which is uh
3:01
kind of I don't know what size that is
3:03
um but there's a lot of power in there
3:05
and these strobes um go for quite a long
3:07
time so uh you know that's pure
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chinesium there and uh both these
3:12
strobes I think I got from um somehow or
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you know not Teemu but um AliExpress or
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something like that and uh yeah they're
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both both really good quality um uh you
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know nice and bright they uh they work
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well batter life is good and uh you know
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relatively cheap for what they are I
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guess the only thing i' I'd flag up is
3:35
and you probably see the high Max one
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there is uh is probably getting to the
3:39
end of its life um those rotary magnetic
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switches that they've got are not the
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not the best in the world so um the the
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the the magnets inside rot and
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ultimately it will die um but that's
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just the way these things are and
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actually I'll have had four years use
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out of it maybe 5 years use out of it
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and several hundred Dives so that's uh
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that's a pretty decent trade so uh how
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do you get these things on the on the
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shot well you know once again no no
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particular rocket science here I've got
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that uh that bungee cord on you can see
4:13
there I've got it hanging in my left arm
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this is actually just a single strobe
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but uh this is a really clear piece of
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video so there you go you can see I've
4:19
got got the single strobe it's flashing
4:21
already just wrap that bungee round
4:23
twice and then using the uh the clip on
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I just uh just clip it back onto the bit
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of Bungee and the bungee will hold it
4:31
there on the shotline and it's not going
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to uh it's not going to slip up and uh
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away we go good with the dive so nice
4:37
and straight forward now this uh this
4:39
isn't this is shows one of the problems
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and uh on this video um you can see I've
4:44
got a single strobe I go to turn it on
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and uh it's not working and uh that is
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one of the really good reasons why I now
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dive with a double strobe you can see
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it's it's really faint there so either
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that one's on its way out or there's
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problem with a battery or something like
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that
5:00
uh you can also see I haven't got the
5:01
the white balance right on this video
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which is which is a bit of a pain but
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yeah so uh I've had to had to do this
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dive with uh without a strobe now
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luckily this wreck is uh is quite small
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and easy to navigate myself around so I
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know I'm going to be able to get back
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also looks like the will supply of nets
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on it which is uh which is not great but
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that sometimes
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happens but yeah on a bigger dive like
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that Ballarat dive having strobe that
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didn't work would be uh would be really
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really upsetting so that's why I dive
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with two uh here's another strobe
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related incident at the opposite end of
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the dive though so here I am getting
5:39
back to the shot line it's great you can
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see it's it's really slack there the the
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rope's vertical I'm coming up there's uh
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there's some strobes there you go
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there's double strobe brilliant I think
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that's uh that's mine so I'm going to
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take it off all all good so far now what
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the more astute of you will have noticed
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is that I have a bit of green St green
5:58
tape on the bottom mine and youve
6:00
probably seen the second set of double
6:02
strobes there has got the green tape on
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so so what I've done there is I've taken
6:05
someone else's strobes off luckily I've
6:08
realized and I've put them back on but
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this does sometime H sometimes happen
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people take each other's strobes and
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that's why we all mark them I use I use
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green tape like you can see there that's
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a kind of um a hangover from my days
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when I rock climbed and everybody used
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to stick bits of uh electrical tape on
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all their gear so um and you can see
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there there's a load of other different
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types of strobes on the on that shotline
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so everyone's got their own favorite
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type I'm not saying mine are better than
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anyone else's they're just the ones that
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I happen to use and uh and I like so uh
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I hope you've enjoyed today's uh today's
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video bit shorter than lots of my other
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ones but um you know hopefully it's
6:47
useful if you're interested in strobes
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and uh yeah as always leave us a comment
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let us know what your favorite strobe is
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uh obviously if you've enjoyed the video
6:57
give us a give us a like uh if you
6:59
haven't tell me what you didn't like and
7:02
uh I will uh look forward to seeing you
7:04
on my next video thank you
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