TESTCENTRE
A torch to get you noticed
Pandora Lab K1 Rescue Dive Light
COMPANY: DIVING DISTRIBUTION PRICE: £ 199.95 EMAIL: INFO @ DIVINGDISTRIBUTION. COM WEB: WWW. PANDORA-LAB. COM
Established in 2016, Pandora-Lab is a Korean company, manufacturing and supplying a range of products from O-rings and spools to gauges and dive lights. It’ s an example of the latter that found itself at SCUBA’ s Test Centre courtesy of UK dealers, Diving Distribution. The K Series of lights is available in a variety of models featuring interchangeable handles, heads and extension cables.
The K1 Rescue is an interesting proposition; at its heart lies a simple but effective emergency signalling method, but more on that later. While advances in technology have made it possible for dive lights to offer a multitude of features in a single compact form, the KI has a fairly standard specification
in comparison with some of the all singing, all dancing models available.
The CREE U4 LED’ s 1,400 Lumen output is more than enough for the average diver’ s needs; during our test, the duration exceeded the five hours of burn time specified. The beam’ s 8-9 degree hotspot has a colour temperature of 5,600K( equivalent to daylight), with an outer halo of approximately half of that.
The K1’ s strength lies in its simplicity. There are no buttons or moving parts to go wrong, and twisting the head clockwise / anticlockwise switches the beam on and off. As a prospective buyer you may well point this out as a potential weakness and a red flag for water ingress. However, Pandora-Lab’ s boffins have ensured that all the company’ s K1 dive light range feature sealed-head construction to maintain integrity. In the event of a flood, simply rinse out the head and battery compartments in fresh water, dry out and the torch is good to go again.
The robust, lightweight aluminium body is rated to 200 metres, weighs in at 222g( excluding its single Li-ion 26650 battery) and is nicely contoured for gloved or ungloved hand to firmly grip. It’ s also amazingly easy to convert the K1 into a canister light via the optional extension cable and hand mount kit.
So now we come to the‘ Rescue’ part of the K1. There’ s nothing particularly hightech about this method of highlighting a missing diver at the surface; in fact it’ s entirely the opposite, but effective nevertheless. Unless you were aware of its function you’ d be forgiven for assuming that the light’ s end cap served only as a lanyard attachment point. It actually conceals a small watertight compartment which can be filled with the small vial of the supplied SMP( Stored Marine Pyrotechnics), a non-toxic powder suitable for use in marine environments. In an emergency situation at the surface, unscrew the cap and the SMP rapidly reacts with the water to produce a bright and highlyvisible green dye. While it wasn’ t good practice to try this out in the open sea for obvious reasons, I did add a little to the water in my kit rinse tank and the result was quite spectacular. While ideal for air searches, any elevated position such as on a headland or high up on a vessel should be able to spot the trail of this rapidly expanding dye.
The K1 Rescue is supplied with a USB charger, spare O-rings, silicon grease, plus that all-important SMP.
SCUBA SAYS
Never worry about a flooded torch again with Pandora-Lab’ s 1400 Lumen K1 Rescue’ s sealed head design.
With a five-hour duration plus a cleverly-designed powered dye signalling system, it won’ t let you down when you need it.
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