Are corded lights a thing of the past?

[tbone1004]

My can light head flooded and I bought a cheap big blue 4800 handheld.
I have done only a few dives with it and I’m researching which can light to purchase as I don’t like the cordless.
There were things I liked about my razor can light but the companies quality control is horrid.

Underwater Light Dude, no one does it better than @Bobby and you'll be amazed if you get the LD-40 for a real 4000 lumen looks like.

 

[rddvet]

Underwater Light Dude, no one does it better than @Bobby and you'll be amazed if you get the LD-40 for a real 4000 lumen looks like.

Agree with tbone. LD40 is pretty amazing. It lights up a cave like no other light.
One thing to keep in mind there are some negatives. Eventhough the LD40 is a narrower beam it still will backscatter more than other lights. All it takes is moving your hand to the right position to combat it. Secondly, when diving with someone with a more hid-esque light (in particular the halcyon focus 2), they may comment that it can be difficult to understand signals. It's something they will get used to, but I've had multiple focus users comment that due to the wide bright beam they had to pay extra attention.
None of those are deal breakers. Just wanted to point out a couple of the compromises. They're worth it though

 

[J-Vo]

I have the LD36 and I learned fairly quick that I have to put it on low when I'm leading. A buddy of mine just got the LD40 and hasn't quite figured that part out yet.

 

[mdwalter]

Makes sense. Even on the mainline in some of those caves, the line runs way above the floor, and I wouldn't want to have to go down there off the line to try to retrieve a dropped light.

Wow, everyone seems to be really worried about dropping their primary light in a cave. In 22 years of diving, I've only ever dropped one cordless light, and that was in the dead of winter when I was wearing 5mm mittens with the light in a soft goodman handle that held the light in a sleeve. The light slipped out of the sleeve and tumbled into deep silt about 60 feet below me in open water. Even though the light was on at the time, I could not see exactly where it went and never did locate it.

However, my point is that that was a once in a couple decades event precipitated by severely unfavorable conditions. I cannot recall anything even like a close call to dropping a light in the cave where I have no gloves in warm water and a dark environment where it will be easy to see where the light goes because if it was in my hand it would also have already been turned on.

Also, if you are side mounting (as several who have mentioned their worry of dropping a light in the cave are prone to do) would you not want to mount your primary on your helmet (in which case the cordless is much simpler)? I see this as akin to why dry cavers now laugh at others who still have head lamps tied to belt mounted battery packs (state of the art 10 or 20 years ago).

Now, as for comfort/weight on the hand, that seems a valid reason for preferring a can light. Brightness would be another, but my experience has been that there are cordless lights that are bright enough and I have seen lights of both types that I consider too bright (that seem to leave me snow blind when another member of the team or myself shine it too close to wherever I am looking). But maybe that's just me.

 

[tbone1004]

Wow, everyone seems to be really worried about dropping their primary light in a cave. In 22 years of diving, I've only ever dropped one cordless light, and that was in the dead of winter when I was wearing 5mm mittens with the light in a soft goodman handle that held the light in a sleeve. The light slipped out of the sleeve and tumbled into deep silt about 60 feet below me in open water. Even though the light was on at the time, I could not see exactly where it went and never did locate it.

However, my point is that that was a once in a couple decades event precipitated by severely unfavorable conditions. I cannot recall anything even like a close call to dropping a light in the cave where I have no gloves in warm water and a dark environment where it will be easy to see where the light goes because if it was in my hand it would also have already been turned on.

Also, if you are side mounting (as several who have mentioned their worry of dropping a light in the cave are prone to do) would you not want to mount your primary on your helmet (in which case the cordless is much simpler)? I see this as akin to why dry cavers now laugh at others who still have head lamps tied to belt mounted battery packs (state of the art 10 or 20 years ago).

Now, as for comfort/weight on the hand, that seems a valid reason for preferring a can light. Brightness would be another, but my experience has been that there are cordless lights that are bright enough and I have seen lights of both types that I consider too bright (that seem to leave me snow blind when another member of the team or myself shine it too close to wherever I am looking). But maybe that's just me.

Anything mounted on your head bigger than a backup light is very uncomfortable. They are so heavy that it causes the helmets to tilt and it gets very unwieldy. Even on a laser beam type beam pattern it also makes the backscatter quite disorientating and can cause vertigo when going through tight passages. Way better to have it on your hand if there is any reduction in visibility, something dry cavers don't really have to deal with. Their lights are also about an order of magnitude less powerful which means they can be considerably smaller/lighter than ours.

There are a few LX20's and Halcyon Flares sitting stuck in rock piles where they will remain forever since they fell through a crack to an area where they can't be reached. I have picked up no less than a dozen handheld lights off of shipwrecks that were dropped as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love my LX20+, hell I better since I bought 2 of them and have a normal LX20 though @The Chairman has that and may have permanently commandeered it as payment for staying at his house all the time in cave country..... They are certainly more than enough light being comparable to a 18-21w HID in total output, but they certainly can't do what my LD40 can do. I tell students all the time to get 2x backups from @OrcaTorch or @DiveGearExpress and then grab a LX20+ for a primary. It's a relatively small investment compared to a canister and if they are committed to the sport and start doing dives where the LX20+ starts to become marginal, then at that same time they will also likely want something like the LX20+ as a backup primary which is what @grantctobin and I use them for on big dives and they still get used for ocean stuff and what not though I have made modifications to the goodman handle to put a bungee scooter loop on it so they don't chatter and it's clipped to that like a bracelet so it is unlikely to fall off.

 

[The Chairman]

though @The Chairman has that and may have permanently commandeered it as payment for staying at his house all the time in cave country.

I found it again! It was clipped to my rebreather. I hope to have my battery pack printed/finished soon, so I'll be able to use my Light Monkey 21W HID again.

 

[L13]

. . . I have made modifications to the goodman handle to put a bungee scooter loop on it so they don't chatter and it's clipped to that like a bracelet so it is unlikely to fall off.

Could you give more details on this? Maybe pictures?

Thanks!

 

[Lorenzoid]

However, my point is that that was a once in a couple decades event precipitated by severely unfavorable conditions. I cannot recall anything even like a close call to dropping a light in the cave where I have no gloves in warm water and a dark environment where it will be easy to see where the light goes because if it was in my hand it would also have already been turned on.

I am willing to bear with the unwieldiness of a cord for saving a $1000 light from what might be, on average (and I'm probably clumsier than average) a "once in a couple decades" event.

 

[tbone1004]

Could you give more details on this? Maybe pictures?

Thanks!

You add a thin bungee loop to the LX20+ hard goodman, then you clip the back of the light to that bungee. I'm traveling and nowhere near my gear so you'll have to imagine some things but that back bungee loop makes it quite difficult for the goodman handle to "fall off" your hand, but since the Dive Rite lights have the QRM, even with the locking version they can bump out of the goodman if you aren't careful so I always use the rear clip to clip to that bungee. I do the same with the Oxycheq Raider goodman I use for my backup lights.
I really can't stand most soft goodmans except for the Raider for a "glove" style and the UWLD which is very similar but with a hard plate. I admittedly haven't checked to see if the QRM will attach to the UWLD plate but I don't think the screw holes are in the same place. I begrudgingly use the Dive Rite soft goodman when I use it for backup primary duty but when I start the dive with the intention of using this one I use the hard goodman.

I need someone with good 3d design experience to copy the Halcyon folding handle though but that is not my area of expertise unfortunately.... Maybe @Luis H will get real bored this winter in retirement and throw me a bone

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Being that I’m a California diver and we don’t have caves here, there definitely is still a use for corded lights.
I remember lobster diving at night at the Channel Islands using a corded light. After grabbing a bug I hung the light over my left shoulder and it hung down lighting up my work at hand, measuring the bug and getting into the bag. An ex DIR diver and good friend of mine gave it to me, I think it was an 18 watt Halcyon or something? I know the bulbs were big bucks in those HID’s. I couldn’t get it to stop flickering so I gave it to another guy who was into those light more than me and he fixed it.
Anyway, I’ve been using LED hand helds ever since but I’m thinking I may get another corded light soon. I would need a wide beam to light up a larger area for scanning and hunting, it wouldn’t be for signaling.
I do a lot of scallop gathering and sometimes they are back in dark cracks. A corded light would be awesome to use because like motioned earlier, I could drape it over my shoulder when not needed and I wouldn’t have a hand held dangling around on my wrist.
Any suggestions?