Hi SD fans, and welcome back. I have been out and about diving in the past month or so,
which has given me the opportunity to get wet with some of the new products that have
been coming to market recently. In this video, I will be taking the Tecline TecLight for a spin,
and as you will see, this Polish brand, which emerged from humble beginnings,
is proving to have all the hallmarks of being a major player thanks to their ever-expanding
range of durable, high-quality dive kit. This month’s videos are sponsored by Seiko,
who have been producing quality dive watches since 1965, and we can still see many of their
innovations still in use today. Before we dive into the review,
a big shout-out to the latest member of the Scuba Diver Magazine Army on YouTube,
Eddy Brown the second. Thanks for the support, buddy, great to have you onboard.
I have dived with and used many different types of dive light over the past couple of decades,
and they’ve all had their pros and cons, but I have to say that the Tecline TecLight is
one of the best all-round I have seen in a long time, for various reasons.
What I particularly liked was the practicality and ease of use of the head unit. Rather than
being a lamp head plonked on top of a separate Goodman handle, which is all too often the case,
the TecLight has a sleek unit which incorporates the light head itself and the Goodman handle.
This sits comfortably on the back of your hand, and the handle can be adjusted
quickly and easily for a good fit regardless of whether you are diving bare-handed,
in neoprene gloves, or even in drygloves. There is also a circular hole titled DPV,
which left me a little dumbfounded, but on questioning Tecline, it is designed so that
you can slip the lamp head off your left hand and slot your right thumb into this hole to securely
hold the light while your left hand is occupied – say you are checking your gas supply.
Turning on the light, and cycling through the different modes,
is simplicity itself – there is a large push button on the back of the lamp head which is easy
to operate whatever exposure protection you have on your hands. One push turns it on,
and then each push cycles to the next mode. Press and hold and the light goes off.
The different modes are also a stand out from the crowd. Rather than just having low,
medium and high settings from the same LED(s), the TecLight has what Tecline call
three operating modes – communication, video, and combined (communication and video).
What this means is that when in communication mode, the central XML2 CREE spotlight is on,
which has a beam angle of 6 degrees and pumps out 1,300 lumen. This has a burn time of seven hours,
and it penetrated into the gloom of a typical British quarry with ease. Obviously, a bright,
narrow beam such as this is ideal for attracting your buddy’s attention, hence the mode title.
In video mode, the seven XPG2 CREE LEDs that are arrayed around the outside of the main lens
come into play, and pump out 2,600 lumens with a 120 degree spread. This effectively
gives a soft halo with a light temperature of 6,500K, which is perfect for lighting
up video and still photography subjects without any hotspots. The burn time in
this mode is two hours and 30 minutes. Finally, there is the combined mode,
which as the name suggests, brings both the communication and videos modes into play at the
same time. So you have the 120 degree halo beam of 2,600 lumens from the seven outside LEDs, as well
as the 6 degree spotlight at 1,300 lumens from the central XML2 LED. This mode has a burn time
of one hour and fifty minutes. This combo mode was excellent in sometimes murky UK conditions.
Recharging time for the Tecline battery pack is two hours and thirty minutes.
However, it is worth noting that the TecLight is fully compatible with the Ammonite System
batteries if you decided you need extended burn time across all three modes, or wanted to combine
using the light with a heated undersuit. The Tecline TecLight is made from anodised
aluminium and Delrin, and has a durable, quality feel to it. It is depth-rated to 150m,
but has been tested to 200m, which is more than enough for the vast majority of tech divers.
The TecLight is also travel-friendly. It weighs in at only 1kg for both the lamp head and the
battery, and as 75 watt-hour Lithium-Ion batteries are commonly accepted by commercial
airlines as hand luggage, it can venture off on your next foreign jaunt without taking
too much valuable luggage space. There is also a dedicated sidemount set-up for
the TekLight, which has a 1.5-metre cable instead of the stand 1.2-metre cable. However, while this
may be the ideal rig for sidemount diving, fellow tester Richard was diving in sidemount
and was using a standard TecLight without any major issues caused by the slightly shorter cable,
so it is feasible to use the ‘normal’ model for all kinds of diving.
So that’s the Tecline TecLight. What is your take on this innovative umbilical torch?
Leave your comments below, and if you have a question, fire away – if we can’t answer,
maybe someone in our community will be able to. Remember, if you enjoyed this video,
be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and ring that notification bell
so you know when we put up a new video. Don’t forget to check out our expanding
range of Scuba Diver merch, which you will find sitting just below all of our videos.
And if you want to be like Eddy, join up to the Scuba Diver Magazine Army for just £2.99
a month – you’ll be helping fund exclusive new material on the channel, as well as getting a
host of benefits, including member-only podcasts, funky marine-related loyalty badges next to your
name in comments, custom emojis, photos and status updates, and priority reply to comments.
As always, stay safe – and if you are going diving, enjoy!