Primary Light Question

[antattack]

Lights have really come a long way in the last five years. Have canister lights become a heavy, expensive anachronism for most divers?

It used to be that to get two hours of burn time with a 500-1000 lumen light, you needed a big battery housed in a canister to power heat producing HID lamps. That kit came with a cable that required interesting cable routing and perhaps offset trim weights.

These days, there are quite a few physically smaller lights that can achieve the lighting and burn time goals without the cable and weight.

I'm not a cave diver, but I am a wreck diver and about to take training for Technical diving using doubles (The PADI Tech ladder) My instructor requires that I train with my primary light. So...

What do you think? Can a diver like me skip a canister light and just carry two or three bigblue/lightnmotion lights? They come with a goodman handle. Of course, I'll check with my instructor, but what is your opinion?

 

[PfcAJ]

I think there is a critical advantage to can lights: the lighthead is attached to you. Dropping your primary (and not being able to recover it) would be bad.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I recently purchased a $90 backup light from Dive Rite In Scuba (DRIS). This video shows ... at about the 1-minute mark ... me diving with that light in my left hand and my 21W Salvo HID canister light in my right. The dive is on a wreck in a lake, at about 80 ffw, in about 20 feet of visibility. Judge the results for yourself.

Lake WA Landing Craft & PBM Mariner on Vimeo

One of my students purchased this same light, and made a goodman handle for it. He's making another one for me.

While my concern for the light would be primarily burn time and durability ... I haven't had it long enough to make accurate asessments yet ... the output is clearly adequate to use as a primary.

LED technology has made some huge advances over the past couple of years ... and while output has gone up, price has gone down. I see no reason why divers shouldn't take advantage of that.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[antattack]

That light is bright!

PfcAJ's point is well taken, but there's no reason not to clip lights to a D-Ring. Instead of carrying a primary and a spare, when using LED lights, you can simply carry three or four lights for redundancy and burn time. And lose a cable.

I may just rent a "primary" light for my tech class, and skip owning one.

 

[Teamcasa]

I too like the DRIS 1000 lumen light. As for the dropping it issue, a simple wrist lanyard solves that problem. I see zero reason to buy a can light anymore other than the same reason I bought an IPad. (To prove I can afford it )

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

For long tech dives burn time is a critical function of the light. It's unlikely you are going to get long burn times with high output from a single or double cell unit found in typical back up lights. If you depend on the light for the dive you will be best served by long burn times. Another thing to consider is does the backup light accept rechargables or are you going to replace $20 worth of batteries every dive?

The can light isn't going anywhere. If you are serious about tech diving you will own a few of them.

 

[Teamcasa]

...The can light isn't going anywhere. If you are serious about tech diving you will own a few of them.

Phew, good thing I'm not serious about tech diving..

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Phew, good thing I'm not serious about tech diving..

There's hope for you yet

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For long tech dives burn time is a critical function of the light. It's unlikely you are going to get long burn times with high output from a single or double cell unit found in typical back up lights. If you depend on the light for the dive you will be best served by long burn times. Another thing to consider is does the backup light accept rechargables or are you going to replace $20 worth of batteries every dive?

The can light isn't going anywhere. If you are serious about tech diving you will own a few of them.

I currently own three can lights ... and I'm going to be testing how well this DRIS light works with rechargeables this week. Got some 3000 mAH reghargeable C-cells for that purpose yesterday, in fact. I'm told that with rechargeables, the intensity will drop off over time. How much time, and how much intensity has yet to be determined. But I can see buying a few of these for students to use on low-vis dives. Helluva lot cheaper than can lights, and every bit as functional for signaling.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

I'm a big fan of lithium rechargables for my EDC lights. My backups run on CR123's but it's likely I could throw in an 18650 but I haven't simply for the fact that the 123's have a longer shelf life when unused. The downside is they don't dim when the batteries are nearly depleted. The drop off is pretty steep.

I'd be interested to know what the step down is on the DRIS. I find it hard to believe that it burns at 1000 lumen for very long before stepping down to a lesser setting.