Well, my opinion is that many divers getting started preparing for cavern/Intro spend way too much money on a primary light that is way beyond what they will need for their first year of cave diving.
You should be aware that many of the people who will give you advice are far from unbiased. Not that their opinions are invalid, but they are either supporting themselves by selling gear, or get sweet “keyman” pricing for themselves by pumping up certain brands to new divers. ....just an FYI..
So about that light.. I don’t own a light monkey light, but have several dive buddies who do. Here is some general concepts that I think are relevant.
Light monkey, UWLD, and Dive Rite all make excellent products, are US based companies, and seem to do a great job with support, after the sale. People seem to have their preference, but I don’t think you could go wrong with any of them.
you will also see a log of Big Blue lights. They are manufactured offshore, and sold by a distributor out of the Tampa area. Some people really like them, and they seem to be a decent value.
For a prospective cavern/intro student, I would suggest you hold off on buying a $1,000+ light for now. You are months or even years away from really needed a light with 300m burn time. There are some divers who fast track training and get from cavern to advanced cave dives in <6 months, but that is rare and unless you live near divable caves, logistically very difficult.
My recommendation is to prepare for cavern class by purchasing gear on a more conservative budget, that will offer you extended usage down the road. Cavern training requires one Primary light and one backup. At Intro you will need two backups. There are several lights available now that would make a very good “Primary” for a 30-45m cavern dive, and will carry over great as a backup at the next level. Just one example is the Dive Rite CX1. It has easily a 1.5hr burn time on high, and is a great light. It’s also small enough that I carry it as a backup to full cave dives. It makes a very competent “backup primary”. This saved a dive on a recent Mexico trip when a buddy had a primary failure early in a dive. This was a third backup for me, so I could pass it off to a buddy, and still had my min 2 backups, That turned out to be a 170m dive.
another point, is: do you really need a corded “can” light. If you are going the GUE/ DIR route, then probably yes. But that is for training standards, NOT because you really need a 300m+ burn time light. If you do not really need the can light, than you should really consider a handheld “primary”.
Big Blue and Dive Rite are the two most common brands you will see in HH primary lights. I really don’t know much about Big Blue, accept that they seem like an ok value proposition. I have more experience with Dive Rite who makes both the LX20 and HP50. These are both great lights and can easily handle 3hr+ dives. Even longer if you step down from the high setting.
One thing I really like about Dive Rite, is they seem to break away from the concept of forced obsolescence. They are constantly testing new components and improving their designs. My LX20 was purchased with their “first generation” led chip. And for a very decent feel they were willing to upgrade my light to their latest generation chip.
I do own several canister primary lights, including an EX35 (which is a great light too), but I would never recommend that to a brand new cavern student. I use the can light for longer CCR dives, but for most 60-200m cave dives, the HH. LX20 works very well.
save yourself >$500 on the cost of a primary light. Spend that money on training, or a Shearwater.
