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My wife has one. She used it for a year or so as her
primary light. She loved it. Its a great little light. VERY bright and
a very tight beam. Easily fits in most BC pockets;
my wife clipped it on her BC.
I see quite a few of them on dive trips being used
by dive masters as well as other divers. Works
great even in bright sunlight when looking up under
ledges.
It does have some draw backs.
It really eats batteries. Gets about 2
hours on duracell type batteries. At 6 at a time, if
you are on a liveaboard or in a remote place, thats a lot
of batteries you have to take if you are using it on
many night dives.
I tried using NiMh batteries but the light exploded underwater
after about 70 minutes into a dive due to excess hydrogen
build up.
We recovered all the parts and the light still works!
Just won't use rechargeables again.
Bulbs on the PCa are a custom bulb from Ikelite.
You can use a standard bulb, if you have to, but you
won't get the same brightness as Ikelite's custom bulb.
If you turn the light on above water for more than a few
minutes the light will get so hot that it will melt the
reflector or front lens.
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My wife recently switched over to the UK SL4 eLED light.
Its LED based so there is no worries about blowing a bulb.
Its a bit bigger/longer and it uses 4 C cells instead of 6 AA.
Its about twice the cost of the PCa but
it gets about 10 hours on set of 4 C batteries. It has
a very white light with a tight narrow beam. Its not
quite as bright as the Ikelite is with fresh batteries but it
definitely lasts a lot longer on a single set of batteries.
SL4 eLED can use rechargeables as the module goes into
a low power/dim mode when batteries get low, which
will reduce the hydrogen buildup (which mostly
starts to occur when batteries get low).
If you can live with the limitations,
I think the PCa is a great little light.
--- bill
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