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The MR16 bulbs do not require a catalyst, There are lots of commercial dive lights and video lights on the market without them. I did hear of an explosion of a homemade cave diving light years ago. Think it used "wet" nicads(tm) and the explosion was attributed to gas getting into the light head and being sparked by a faulty switch. Blew the sealed beam bulb out the front. If you charge the light with the cannister open this should not be a concern. It is possible to get H2 in the closed battery pack or even the light head (during use) if a cell reverses strongly (nicad only) or I suppose in the case of a short circuit with any battery. There have been serious cases of Tekna scooters exploding and they now use a hefty catalyst system. I think ventilation is the key and charge my lights out of the housing and blow into the scooter when opening and before closing (if you think this is dumb, just pretend it is for good luck :). BTW- MR16 bulbs are not expensive, I have found them at Home Depot for around 10 dollars- just be sure you are getting the tightest beam possible, they mostly have the wide beam ones. PSC Lamps has been good about sending me catalogs and prices are good. The catalog just has part numbers but they were good about answering question over the phone. 800-772-5276 or 716-385-3540 PS BTW Home made devices usually end up costing more than the commercial ones by the time you get the bugs worked out and destroy a few things, but if you want to do it for the joy of creation, more power to you.. Paul (Helpful Heloise) Smith On Tue, 22 Aug 1995, Roger Lacasse wrote: > Well here it is, my first post to the techdiver list. > I'm far from being a teckie (sp?) myself but I do have a few questions that > I hope can be answered by someone here: > I'm building my own version of the "super" flash lights using MR16 type > light bulbs. Now I was discussing with a salesperson about light bulbs. > He mentionned that the MR16 bulbs he was selling were expensive because > of the catalytic convert that came with them. He also told me that I > should put another one in the battery pack that I'm making. He was basically > saying that I was risking and explosion if I did not do that. > I'm planning to use lead-Gel sealed cell batteries for my lamp. They > would be stored in a sealed container seperate from the light bulb > (a la Dive Rite). I know that there's hydrogen and oxygen involved when > you operate a battery but I never thought that it could explode under > "normal" usage conditions (except if one would keep the container sealed > while overcharging them, of course).
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