Choosing a DIR-compatible light, probably canister, tight beam, mostly for PNW diving

[kr2y5]

I am starting yet another thread, since my needs are a little more specific.

I already have a 3000 lumens non-canister video light on a Goodman handle with a wonderfully uniform wide beam that kicks ass when reef diving in clear waters, but does not seem to work too well for local PNW diving, and probably will not work for some upcoming GUE training, because the beam is probably too wide for signaling and creates a significant amount of backscatter in low-visibility conditions, not to mention that I tend to sometimes blind people around me with it.

I am looking for something to complement the above.

I had a dream, in which I was using a light system with a single canister with E/O cords, and multiple light heads with tighter and wider beams, LED or HID, and I could attach all these light heads to the same canister depending on the dive. I could even use a shorter or a longer cord, as needed. In my dream, I used the same, single canister, for 10 consecutive years, and just bought additional light heads whenever my needs changed, sometimes even from different manufacturers... and it would all just work.

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with Light Monkey 32W LED light or can recommend something else given the above parameters... I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have.

 

[tbone1004]

I'd seriously consider UWLD.... I like them better than the LM's that I've dove, they can be had with E/O cords, you can swap everything from a tighter beam 1500 lumen head up to the big daddy 3500 lumen head, and still have the video head option. They have intensity settings on the head so you can turn them down for murky water to reduce backscatter and the build quality and customer service is superb.

Compare | Underwater Light Dude
Comparison shows it against the 35W HID from Light Monkey, and it holds its own quite nicely

 

[Imla]

Check out the new Halcyon Focus. Freshly released cannister light that you can both use as a videolight, and focus the beam to use as communications. It is basically gorgeous. (It also comes with e/o cord) Halcyon Focus and Flare | Halcyon

 

[decompression]

I really like the light monkey lights although that was in the cenotes of Mexico. For west coast my old Diverite canister still works great. However, all the new LED lights (archon et al) and the UTD light series are excellent for cost/lumens. If I don't need long burn times I love not having a canister and cord. For regular dives a $50 led from divegearexpress is great for Signaling as are a handful of the archon lights. Are you doing fundies rec or tec pass?

 

[kr2y5]

Thanks very much for the replies. One big question I still have is, how all these lights will behave in relatively low-visibility conditions. The promotional videos and comparisons on the web are mostly in crystal clear water in the Florida caves, that is not really representative of my diving here in the PNW. Are some of these LEDs better than others at penetrating water with suspended particles, and better than a HID light that can be had for the same price? I have to admit I'm slightly biased against any company that refuses to openly share information, when I hear "we refuse to state lumens rating because lumens is a wrong way to think about it", that just rubs me the wrong way. But, maybe it's a great light indeed... I want to be open minded.

 

[MikeRD03]

In low vis conditions it is an advantage not to have too much spill light, so reflector lights are out here (backscatter). This leaves plastic lenses light like the UWLD and Halcyon Focus with its special light system. The Hacyon has the advantage to have dim spill light with wide angel and a narrow corona that is missing normally with the plasic lens lights.
Last but not least brightness (lux) is well serving for penetration, but only in a well formed, very sharp focused beam!

 

[tbone1004]

UWLD doesn't advertise LUX, they don't do that because lumens is the only accurate way to compare lights, LUX is not easily measured and since the industry doesn't have a standard test box for them, and even if they did you can skew the results with different light head sizes there is no point in using lux. If you ever get to FL, ask Bobby to see his lux box and he will put any light in his lux box and get the readings, but again because the beam pattern, minute angle, and a slew of other variables impact the reading wildly, it's just not a great way to compare lights.

Lumen is the only number that matters, watts don't matter because it is just the amount of power it consumes, so as soon as you go from one bulb system to another watts don't matter.

So, that being said, for what you want, there are two things to consider. You can go to a laser pointer like HID which is good for signalling, but not good for much of anything else, or you can go for a beam pattern that is tight but has a useful light gradient instead of a true hotspot. It's personal preference, but you don't need HID for PNW diving, you need a light with variable light settings so you can adjust the brightness based on the amount of backscatter in the water

 

[decidedlyodd]

I can't say much about interchangeable lighting systems, but I can say that I know lots of people (myself included) diving the 21W Light Monkey can lights in LED and HID versions in the Pacific Northwest.

I've been very happy with my 21W LED. The HID is a bit brighter and more focused, but the LED works great for me. When I bought the light the dealer accidentally ordered the HID. I was surprised by how much larger and delicate the HID light head is.

I'm sure the newer 26W and 32W LED lights are even brighter, but they're not strictly necessary for local conditions.

 

[MikeRD03]

I am sorry to say this, tbone, but there is a lot of false information in your posting. It is wrong to say that LUX can't be easily measured but Lumen. And to say there is no Standard is also wrong!

Lux is the Maximum Brightness at a certain point at a certain distance. Standard of measurement is 1m to be comparable. Double distance means quarter of brightness (surface is a square function). Measurement is very easy done with a Luxmeter, that is very inexpensive.
Lumen is much harder to measure, but also standardized. Problem here the measurement instruments are very expensive and I do not know only ONE manufacturer to own one. So most of them just copy the datasheet of the LED they are using. Some of them are adding some phantasy number even to that. So most Lumen ratings are real crap.

Since Lux is much "cheaper" to measure and easy to check this rating is mostly accurate. Light manufactures not rating their lights seams not to like to be compared. Evil to him who evil thinks.
And to say only Lumen matters, is crap, too. Lumen only tells the amount of light the torch is leaving, but is tells nothing about of its distribution. Lux is important here, as is gives you an idea how well the light is bundled. This is important in bad vis environments, cause penetration is directly dependent on Lux (max brightness).

Btw, I am lucky to own a self made Lumen meter and I measured a lot of different lights in the past years. So I know a lot about the Lumen fairy tales of diving lights. What can be roughly said is, that plastic lens lights tend to have quite bad over all efficiencies cause of their light system. Regarding my measurements typical efficiency is around 60%. Plus front glas losses most light are around 50% efficiency of even below (!) worst case I've seen was 35% efficiency.
The reflector is much better here. Is comes with a 80-95% efficiency, so overall rating is likely to be around 70-80%m which is very good.

Keep all this im mind, when reading "ratings" next time. ;-)

 

[tbone1004]

I'm not saying lux isn't a valuable number, but it isn't really all that important to this category. The problem is industry standardization in the measuring tubes, without a way to fix the light head into the meter, it is very difficult to accurately measure the lux, and it favors lights with hotspots. Lumens measures total light output and factors in the corona and spill over as well as the hot spot, so since I don't want a laser pointer, I'd rather know the lumen output and the beam angle with most of the light going equally across that beam angle, which allows me to estimate how intense the spot is going to be. To use Bobby's example, 4000lm light with 120* angle is equivalent in penetrating power and intensity as a 2000lm light with a 60*angle