Bad experience with Intova

[MORGAN]

...I also love 7-11 hot dogs

Mmmm! Nothing like a dirty water hot dog from a gas station or convenience store - especially at 3 AM when they've been cooking for a long, long, long time. I can taste them now - succulent and wholesome, made of only the finest calf lungs and hog esophaguses!
(Esophagi?)

I'm a purist - I just put mustard on mine.

Mike

[RN]

Between me and my wife we have 6 Intovas and have never had a problem with them. But I do have bicycle inner tube around all of them because I heard about the switch falling out. A simple solution that didn't cost anything since I use inner tube to secure them to my harness anyway.

[stairman]

Gee Stairman, I seem to recall you flaming me a year or so ago because I posted I had a bad experience with a particular manufacturer's product and service. I won't do that to you.

I dont remember doing that Me. I thought a while before posting my dislike for the product. Maybe a bunch of spare switches would have helped.... I guess not.

[IowaCaveDiver]

between my girlfriend and I we have 5 of them and all of them seem to flip on and off occasionally while diving... I usally just smack it on my hand it it comes back on... i tried one of the dive rite LED primarys a while back and it would cut on and off.. eventually failing alltogether and i seemed to be turned off to LED technology. Great for backups, but I still use an HID primary.... anyone else having the problem with the lights cutting on and off? I have the hold version on the intova... although I just got one back from being warrantied, but I havn't checked to see if it is different.

-Matt

[Webmaster]

If it's turning on and off during the dive you must be tripping the switch. Try covering it with some bicycle innertube or something.

The new ones with the pushbutton look nice, but there's no way I believe the published burn time at that draw with 3 AAA's. There's no way it could run at full brightness for very long.

I think it was Pirhana diving that had a similar light with 6 AAA's that might actually get some run time.

BTW - hot dogs are just a carrier for onions and mustard.

[rchrds]

I also have four of the older Intovas- I have to say that they are more reliable than my tottering old HIDs which I no longer use, and the burn time was great (CR123s) Not to mention I have a nice supply of CR123s from elsewhere anyway...

I did have an issue with the magnetic switches- Chrissy managed to knock both the switches out of hers. (Big surprise.) I sent them an email, they sent me new switches. No problems since then. I think I may have had it happen one other time, but Edd swapped mine out immediately, no questions asked. So yea, the switches, not so fantastic, but I have never had it happen on a dive- and I don't have problems with them turning themselves on either, but I wear them under my arm DIR style. I love the length and the brightness and have done some extraordinarily long swims out of a cave on them after my HID died at max penetration. (10K+)
(and yes, bad scooter batts and bad HID lights were involved, and it did take two Intovas to exit.)

I would buy the same emitter/battery combination over and over again as a backup light.

[FW]

Not to mention I have a nice supply of CR123s from elsewhere anyway....

"Consumables?"

[Puttzer]

I have heard good things about their backup lights and bought one. I opened up the package and couldnt figure how to turn it on. Come to find out the switch was missing. Took it back and got another one and opened it up right there and pushed on the switch while saying "mine didnt have one of these" and the piece of crap fell off in the floor. I realize in a pinch I could activate it with a magnet and from the looks of it that pinch occurs too often for my likeing.

I bought one a few months back and it failed the second time I turned it on. Never ever made it to the water.

As I recall: isn't this light made in China?

[Intova]

Really sorry to hear of your problem. If you contact us we will give you a new revised light. We had a real problem with switches initially and have corrected it. We do not get this issue with newer production units. Our lights are really good except for this issue. We have developed a new til switch that utilizes a magnetic metal push button. It also allows full and 30 % power along with a strobe feature. Lights are a relatively new area for us and we are working hard to make them the best value on the market. Stay tuned as we have some exciting new models coming out soon.

[mwhities]

The only "issue" (not really) I had with my Intovas was the eyelet at the end of it where I added the snap bolt twisted off. I didn't know it did. JB Weld fixed that... I just almost lost it in Mexico. Luckly it twisted in the rinse tank back onshore.

Otherwise, great light and my usual dive buddy has a set and my brother-in-law and nephew both have one.

Michael