Technology
Built for Lifetime
The TillyTec system is so designed and built that it is robust and durable. There are no buttons, relays, switches or holes in the battery canister. As there are no wires to connect up or soldered fittings to break, the system is therefore really 'fool proof'.
All of the lights are simply turned on by rotating the light head and even if you rotate it to far the triple O-ring seals protect the head from being flooded.
For the travelling diver, our lighting systems have the advantage that it can be completely disassembled and packed in the dive bag. The normally fragile light heads do not need to be carried as hand luggage to protect them.
The newest on the TillyTec light system is especially the development of the new MPL® battery packs.
MPL® stands for Modular Power Lightsystem and is designed for unlimited modularity. It is possible to change not only to different light heads but to different canister configurations too. The canister can be upgraded by the user to a battery pack with more capacity and power.
Replacement batteries can be fitted in seconds and it is as simple as changing the batteries in a normal alkaline battery torch.
A further development in TillyTec Systems is to upgrade the light heads too. It is possible to upgrade a halogen light head to an LED light head, or an LED light head with less power can be upgraded to an LED light head with much more power.
All main lights can be configured as torch with handle or umbilical and can be changed swiftly and easily from one to the other system by the user.
We fully guarantee that we can service all TillyTec components.
Electronics or not?
The question whether a good diving light must have electronics or not is not so simple to answer. There are reasons that speak for electronics and there are exactly so many reasons on doing it without electronics. There are manufacturers who claim that it can achieve an even brightness and a long burning time only with electronics. This is wrong. Although it is correct, that in the past, when only halogen bulbs were available to use electronics because, very easy fluctuations of the accumulator let the halogen bulbs look very dark. Therefore, we should know that a 12 volts halogen bulb used by 11 volts power is already much darker than used at 12 volts power. There is the impression that the halogen bulb would already have lost 30% and more on intensity, because it is getting darker even if the accumulator still has to be described as full with 11 volts power. However, this lies generally at halogen bulbs, because the degree of effectiveness falls off very strongly even if the accumulator only has lost a little of its tension ( from 12 Volts to 11 Volts ).
However, this is with LED lights totally different!! The less power a LED must process, the higher the degree of effectiveness is. This means, that light fluctuations of a LED by change of the accumulator are not visible with the human eye at all. We take the same example as above. The accumulator has first 12 volts. The LED gets 1.2 amps on power. The accumulator is falling to 11 volts now. The LED gets only 0.9 amps on power now. The halogen bulb would get darker considerably visibly in this place. Not so the LED, whose degree of effectiveness increases now. The light loss is measurable, but for the human eye not visibly !!
For the human eye the LED light still shines just brightly.
Advantages of electronics
With electronics an even brightness of the illuminant (halogen bulb) is reached over a long burning time.
With electronics the accumulator can get specific turned off at the end of the burning time or let e.g. the illuminant flashing.
With electronics different luminosity intensities can be adjusted, so-called dimming steps are possible. E.g. 66% or 33% of the brightness then make a longer burning time possible.
Disadvantages of electronics
Electronics, even if they are still so good cannot calculate the capacities of an accumulator. This means the exact burning time cannot be calculated exactly with electronics.
This turns out that electronics switch the accumulator off, where the accumulator is not empty yet at all. The problem is well known to many divers of dive lights with electronics that the capacity of the accumulator is full, but electronics nevertheless switches the light off actually after a few minutes. Is the dive light then switched off and on, the light is burning the usual burning time again. Electronics are sensitive for errors and mistakes.
Every car driver knows that our cars today are crammed full with electronics and are permanently left because of any electronic problems. Evens luxury cars are not safe in front of that. This can be looked up in the annual tests of the various car magazines any time that models of the top car brands are not really the best straight top places in the breakdown statistics. Vehicles that have only the absolute most necessary electronics on board are found here for many years at the top ranking.
Electronics are not fail-safe. A few drops of salt water in the diving light are enough and it's all over with the light. Electronics are usually installed in order to sell the customer an alleged ADDITIONAL VALUE or to achieve a higher price for his product. Of course it is nice to have a car, which has ABS, EDS, AHK, EBS, and who knows what else is in it - but honestly, does the car drive easier? Or more beautiful? Or less noisy with all these electronics? Maximal it drives safer, but only if the electronics work.
TillyTec build their diving lights wherever possible without electronics. True to the slogan: where there is nothing in, that can't go broke. TillyTec lights have been designed so, that even when a flooding occurs that they still have the full burn time and that they are still safe!
Do the TillyTec lights shine darker or burn shorter without the use of electronics? Clearly NO!
In comparison with other comparable models TillyTec shine brighter and often much longer!
On the subject of a long burn time with electronics:
The German magazine “Dive-inside” did a light test which is probably to be regarded as UNIQUE. For the first time a magazine has the Lux values measured of the Torches and published. Furthermore, the burning time information from the manufacturers was checked very carefully.
TillyTec has e.g. in this test for the TT2 + LED 750 indicated a burn time of 240 minutes.
In fact, that does not stop there. "Dive-Inside" has measured more than 6 hours burning time. But still at this time the light is still not “burned out”.
The TillyTec light was still burning even after 12 hours!!
Why is that?
Because of the missing electronics!!
Test report can be downloaded here, but sorry, it is only in German language. Important is the graph on the bottom right on every page. This shows you the burning time and brightness in Lux.
Conclusion:
Good dive lights can be built very well without electronics. The advantage is a very robust construction, which also has a very long burn time.
You just need to know how to do it and some MANUFACTURERS HAVE NOT UNDERSTAND THIS TILL TODAY.
HID and Halogen Lights:
The HID light head utilizes a High Intensity Discharge bulb which has many advantages compared to halogen bulbs, and to be fair, a few disadvantages.
HID bulbs no longer have a filament as used in a halogen bulb. The light emanates from an arc struck between two metal contacts, and complex electronics enable the arc to glow in a xenon gas environment.
It should be noted that confusion is possible when describing xenon bulbs. Halogen bulbs also utilize xenon, and within the automobile industry HID lights are commonly known as Xenon lights. Whilst in both systems xenon is used as the gas, there is however a substantial difference in that the arc of an HID produces a light 4 to 6 times more powerful than a halogen filament.
One advantage of HID bulbs is that they have long burn times, sometimes up to 5000 hours, whereas a standard halogen bulb may last about 2000 hours. But both are not comparable to a LED with 50 000 hours burning time. Xenon halogen bulbs as used in most diving torches have an even shorter life, maybe as little as 50 to 100 hours! Furthermore, as an HID bulb no longer has a filament, there is no filament to break and cause bulb failure if the light head is impacted.
By far the biggest advantage of HID technology is the greater light power produced from a higher color temperature. The arc of an HID can reach between 4500 and 6200 degrees Kelvin, whereas the filament in a halogen bulb can only reach 3800 degrees Kelvin even when applying an over voltage to the bulb (also called overdriving the bulb), which will shorten its life drastically.
In comparison to the yellow light from halogen bulbs, the light from an HID is blue-white or cool-white like daylight, which is why they are sometimes referred to as 'daylight bulbs'. As a result, the light from a 45 Watt HID bulb is comparable to that from a 175 Watt halogen bulb, and a 10 Watt HID is equivalent to a 50 Watt halogen.
The main disadvantage of HID is the price. As the technique is still new, the technology and manufacturing processes are expensive, particularly as an HID bulb needs about 25,000 Volts to strike the arc, but then only 60 to 80 Volts to maintain it, requiring complex electronic circuitry. Dive torches also need to be compact, placing another constraint on the build.
It is commonly reported that HID lights should not be switched on and off repeatedly. The HID bulbs in most lights cannot withstand short switching cycles.
Most manufacturer stated that the bulb can be switched on and off about 450 times and with $100 to $230 each bulb, replacing broken bulbs is expensive!
LED Lights:
In the last few years LED technology has developed rapidly. We use high intensity LEDs in our lights, which are 100 to 150 times more powerful than the commonly used 5 mm LEDs that are integrated in your car keys.
The color temperature of high intensity LEDs can reach between 2800 and 10000 degrees Kelvin. When incorporated with our specially developed reflector and lens, our LED torches are as bright as and better than equivalent HID torches.
BUT, the biggest advantage of LEDs is that they have an extremely long lifetime -approx. 50,000 to 100,000 hours -and they are practically indestructible!
Battery Technology
NiCd
NiCd is for many years on the market and was the only available accumulator technology for a long time. The advantages were the very long storage life of a NiCd fully charged accumulator and the low self-discharge resulting from it and the cold insensitiveness of the NiCd. The disadvantages are the memory-effect of the NiCd, means if the NiCd accumulator was not fully unloaded the accumulator will lose its capacity. This means for the diver that the burning time gets shorter drastically through this. NiCd will be forbidden according to the EU right. This regulation is in operation in some EU countries already for some years because it contains cadmium. For this reason other accumulator technologies have already sent the NiCd accumulator in pension.
NiMh
The advantages of NiMh are that the capacity of the accumulator is much higher than on the NiCd and the memory-effect is no longer available. Disadvantages are the high current ability and the self-discharge. If NiMh accumulators are charged by high electricity, then they lose life time very fast. Furthermore if NiMh accumulators are not used for a longer time they must be reloaded every 12 weeks. This effect increases at very warm temperatures of over 30 degrees. NiMh has let itself be seen as a very good accumulator technology if the accumulator is not demanded on high electricity.
Li-Co and Li-Ion
Lithium accumulators have conquered the world. The cells get still smaller, easier and stronger. But caution; where there is light, there is always shade too. Some light manufacturers just imagined quick to install new lithium accumulators and all problems are solved. Unfortunately, this is not so. Particularly LiCo or Li-Ion accumulators have quite considerable dangers using into dive lights. LiCo, Li-Ion and also Li-Polymers can explode because of containing cobalt. E.g. temperatures above 70-80 degree or water ingress can cause an explosion. Of course protection circuits are provided. But the past shows clearly that quite a number of laptop computers have worldwide burned down, mobile telephone accumulators and also diving lights are exploded, despite this protection circuit. Who likes to dive with a bomb in the hand? Who would like to convince himself, how explosive such accumulators can get, then you should look around on Youtube. Keyword Li-Po battery
LiMn
Lithium manganese accumulators are a further development of the lithium accumulators which is based on cobalt with the known "explosive" qualities. LiMn are very sure and cannot explode any more. Unfortunately, however LiMn also has its small disadvantages. The LiMn has a problem with the storage. LiMn should be stored with 50% of the capacity, the cell otherwise suffers an early death. There is actually no charging technology till now, which makes it possible to charge only 50% of the capacity. Some manufacturers had already to recognize that their LiMn accumulators were quasi stored to death, because it is quite no matter whether the LiMn is in use or not. The storage prepares the LiMn accumulator to its death.
LiFe ( LiFePO4 or better Lithium Ferrit/Lithium Iron short LiFe )
This type of battery is a further development and does not have disadvantages of the LiCo and LiMn any more. LiFe can neither explode nor has any problem with the storage. LiFe accumulators are high electricity capable. LiFe accumulators are incredibly fast charging capable and can be charged to 80% capacity within approx. 15 minutes. LiFe accumulators are insensitive against deep discharging, cold and can completely be used without protection circuits. The sum of these advantages has led worldwide large companies to install LiFe accumulators into e.g. electric vehicles. LiFe accumulators are the best possible accumulators at the moment we have at the disposal. LiFe batteries are used in all TillyTec dive lights.
Here briefly the advantages of LiFe, speaking for the installation in our dive lights:
- very long storage possible; up to 12 months without loss of performance
- very short charging time between 59 and 120 minutes
- with 3-4 times longer lifetime than NiMH batteries
- storage in every condition possible
- no explosion is possible