Are corded lights a thing of the past?

[LordHavoc]

I was browsing the internet for cave lights and was also chatting to a buddy who is doing her cave course. Can light is expensive. I thought they will be the better option. My buddy told me no no. Those are ancient now. Everyone uses cordless. You can buy two Dive Rite LX-20 for the price of one EX-35. If you carry the addtional in your pocket, when a light faolure happens you can put it on goodman handle. With corded expensive EX-35, if light goes out it is done.

Which light should I do? Two LX20 carried together or one ex 30 with a longer burn time?

 

[Marie13]

I had a LX20, but kept diving with buddies with can lights.they were much brighter. Found the EX35 for 25% off on Black Friday last year. I’m much happier with the EX35. F you have the cash to get the can light, go for it.

 

[Lorenzoid]

There are two considerations I'm aware of. First, even with improvements in battery technology, you may or may not find the battery on your hand to be uncomfortably heavy/bulky. This is becoming less of an issue. The second consideration is that some people actually prefer having the cord as a way to prevent their expensive light from falling into the abyss. In caves where the floor is right beneath you, this is not an issue (though I suppose a light dropped into a lot of silt could be).

 

[Marie13]

There are two considerations I'm aware of. First, even with improvements in battery technology, you may or may not find the battery on your hand to be uncomfortably heavy/bulky. This is becoming less of an issue. The second consideration is that some people actually prefer having the cord as a way to prevent their expensive light from falling into the abyss. In caves where the floor is right beneath you, this is not an issue (though I suppose a light dropped into a lot of silt could be).

Thanks for mentioning the heavy light issue. Forgot to include that in my post. I have small hands and the LX20 was sort of heavy for me. Had to prop my right elbow on my right tank to support my hand with LX20. That’s not an issue with my can light.

 

[Wibble]

Most definitely not. An umbilical torch is attached to you so if you drop it, Neptune doesn't gain another shiny expensive trinket to adorn his locker.

A stand-alone torch becomes a pain when transferring from hand to hand or clipping off. What if the boltsnap comes adrift when you're at deco?

 

[Marie13]

Most definitely not. An umbilical torch is attached to you so if you drop it, Neptune doesn't gain another shiny expensive trinket to adorn his locker.

A stand-alone torch becomes a pain when transferring from hand to hand or clipping off. What if the boltsnap comes adrift when you're at deco?

This is the cave diving subforum. Don’t have to worry so much about your light if you’re doing deco on a log!

 

[Lorenzoid]

This is the cave diving subforum. Don’t have to worry so much about your light if you’re doing deco on a log!

And I was about to make a crack about "Neptune" not ruling over caves (sea caves maybe), but Wikipedia informs me Neptune's dominion was not exclusively saltwater.

 

[tbone1004]

I was browsing the internet for cave lights and was also chatting to a buddy who is doing her cave course. Can light is expensive. I thought they will be the better option. My buddy told me no no. Those are ancient now. Everyone uses cordless. You can buy two Dive Rite LX-20 for the price of one EX-35. If you carry the addtional in your pocket, when a light faolure happens you can put it on goodman handle. With corded expensive EX-35, if light goes out it is done.

Which light should I do? Two LX20 carried together or one ex 30 with a longer burn time?

Here's the deal, and it's real simple.
Handheld lights are good enough for tourist cave diving. I will freely admit to using my LX20+ as a primary light or even a BX2 when I'm doing shorter dives because they're just easy. It is quite bright, very capable, and inexpensive, hard to beat. It has similar output to a 21w HID from years past and it burns for a tick over 2 hours. Since the max dive time for the vast majority of cave dives and cave divers is around 1.5hrs it's perfect for that. You hear the comments about "everyone uses cordless" but that's because none of them are doing anything other than tourist cave diving and there are very few of us regularly doing long dives.

What none of the handheld lights can do is touch the output of something like the EX35 or any of the lights from @Bobby who's newest bad-ass light is capable of a true 4,000 lumens out the front. You can't get that in a handheld for any length of time no matter how much lying that companies like Big Blue will do about their lights. They also can't get the weight down to anything reasonable on your hand if you are sensitive to things like that and if you're doing long dives it does add up.

If I were you I would get the LX20+ and a pair of normal backup lights. If at such time you need something like a heated vest, big video light, longer dives, or you decided that having a tiny light head that doesn't weigh anything is really nice then you'll end up buying a LD-40 and the LX20+ will become a backup primary in your pocket. You'll use it now and again for shorter dives, but it's there.

 

[billgraham]

The ULD light I bought is very, very impressive. I'm not good with model numbers but it's the medium sized one with a 4 hour burn time, which is more than sufficient for my needs. It's tough as nails and scary bright --I'm seeing new stuff in familiar places. I demo'd a bunch of handheld ones and they are certainly fine but the comment about them being a bit heavy is not wrong. Also, I could see myself dropping one down into a crack where I can't reach it!

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Can lights with cords won't vanish anytime soon. Not if divers like me continue to exist. I'm waiting to go to a Verizon store at 11 A.M. to replace my Kyocera DuraXV flip phone with a 4G version. I have 3 primary lights with cords. The most important consideration for a primary light with a cord is service after the sale.

Cordless lights would have been better when I lived in the Bahamas. Without our photo pro friend who was great with fixing dive lights, my girlfriend and I would have been in trouble. It took several lights to make sure we had at least one working primary for cave diving.

Lights without cords are preferred by many divers. They are more affordable and don't have the biggest failure point on a primary - the light cord. They make great spare back-ups. If you don't require the burn time and beam punch afforded by higher-end canister lights, you might be happier with a cordless. They also eliminate any light cord/long hose entanglements.

The fact that you are asking the question tells me that a cordless light might be an option for you. Your cave diving (or tech diving) hasn't taken you to the point where you know exactly what you want and why.