Cheeky Little [Light] Monkey

Light Monkey

It is no shock to regular readers, or my twitter-er chums, that I'm a huge fan of dive lights. They have become my new cigarettes, since I gave up the lovely, refreshing, dark, habit 1 year, 6 months, 13 days and 4 hours ago; but who's counting?

Kicking the smoking thing increased my disposable income somewhat; then the dive lights came along. My pride and joy is my rather splendid Halycon EOS primary light. Primary lights are grand, but they need to be backed up by an uber-reliable alternative.



Now, despite being a Halcyon fan boy, when it came to choosing my back ups, I abandoned the big H, in favour of Light Monkey. I know... the horror!




There was reason to my madness; I promise.



I favoured the Light Monkey 2w back up specifically. This was primarily due to its physical size. I'm not a big fella. In truth I'm not very tall, and, if im honest, a bit skinny. As a result I don't like a lot of huge items on my kit, as the real estate available is limited.

Back up lights are usually powered by C cell batteries, often three of them; and the unit is sized accordingly. The Light Monkey 3w is modelled in such a way.


However, the 2w version is diffferent.





The Light Monkey 2w is powered by two CR123 batteries. The CR123's are very wee, as a result the light can be smaller. Brilliant.



I have two ... or rather, had ... I mean I do still ... sort of.

My Light Monkey 2w back up lights

I've been using two of the back up lights for years, in fact, my initial Light Monkey 2w was abused as my UK diving primary light for a bit; but don't tell anyone - I might get kicked out of the Tufty Club!



I hope two things are now abundantly clear:

1. I love dive lights
2. I love my 2w Light Monkey back up lights the most


Now we have that established, imagine my horror when I changed the batteries in one of my lights, only to be greeted by smoke; as opposed to a lovely white LED beam.



I cried.

I cried lots.

It was well dead.



I don't like breaking things, and I don't really like buying the same thing twice; especially if I broke it. It transpired I 'may' (although i honestly don't think i did) have put the fresh batteries in the wrong way, reversed the polarity, and subsequently blew the shit out of the light module.

one ruined LED module

One perfectly good dive light down the toilet.

As one does when anything frustrating happens, I got straight onto Facebook and complained. Usually people just "like" my status when I complain, but not this time; my new best friend Gareth Lock from COGNITAS came to the rescue.


It just so happened, I was complaining the weekend Eurotek (a technical diving exhibition thingy) was taking place. Gareth was at Eurotek giving a presentation on diving incidents. Light Monkey were at Eurotek displaying their fine products.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.




Gareth had a chat with Corey from Light Monkey, explained what happened, showed him a pic via Facebook; and the lovely people they are, Light Monkey offered to replace the light module.


Awesome.


Gareth took the module, and posted it to me a day later. I received the package and found, not only did I receive a brand new module, but also the entire light head; which was great, as the smoke from the 'blow the shit out of your back up light' experience, had kinda ruined the original lens.

Smokey Lens on the right - ruined also

I now have a, practically, brand new 2w Light Monkey back up light.

All fixed!

How's THAT for customer service!?!!

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Corey and Light Monkey for kindly replacing the light head, and to Gareth for acting on my behalf. 

Cheers lads; and safe diving!