Dive light battery preferences

[Ketch12]

This is such a great forum, in large part due to the amount of diving knowledge and experience you guys have. I'm curious about your opinions on battery preferences for dive lights, and I'm mainly thinking about handheld (non-canister) lights. I'm aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the different batteries types (i.e., Alkaline vs CR123 lithium vs internal rechargeable), but I'm curious to what degree they do or do not impact your personal choice of a dive light.

For example, do you personally choose a battery type and then choose among available dive lights, or do you select the best dive light for your needs largely independent of the type of battery. If the former, what specific feature(s) or issue drives your battery choice.

I appreciate your thoughts,

-Mike Ketcham

 

[Diogenesdemar]

For traveling it has got to be #1 -- rechargeable.

I'm a big fan of the Solo (internally rechargeable) lights -- light weight, versatile, and no need to truck several pounds of C-cells across the planet, and I'm convinced that it more than pays for itself in battery savings, not too mention environmentally. A close second favorite is the highly versatile SeaLife LED video light -- it uses 4 AA batteries (rechargeable) -- and it too performs multiple duty as a video light, extra camera light with a strobe, or can be carried as a stand-alone primary or backup light.

All of my family's other lights (including camera strobes and video lights), if not internally rechargeable, take either standard AA or AAA batteries and we always carry and use rechargeables (and a small recharger for those). I do carry a few extra rechargeable batteries, but if something should happen to a few of those you can pretty much be guaranteed to be able to purchase standard AA or AAA batteries just about anywhere on the planet at a reasonable cost -- which is why I avoid products that are not internally rechargeable, or do not operate with AAs or AAAs.

One BTW, I guess now you gotta watch taking any extra batteries (not inside your electronics) in your carry-on luggage. We, just last month, had a handful of our extra rechargeable batteries taken from us by the good folks working TSA in Cozumel -- ouch!

Two BTWs, nearly every light carried by my family whether primary, secondary, tertiary, camera strobe or video light is LED. I recharge frequently and regularly as a precautionary measure, but with LEDs most of our lights could probably last through a week of diving without that, anyway.

 

[lucca brassi]

C size cell for lights (nice size , good capacity , all good backups lights have them (redudancy) , if you trevel simply buy them where you comes and spare cost for baggage )

other size is AA (also go into strobes, camera ...)

 

[Nwcid]

When we got ours I based it on batteries I normally keep on hand. For me this meant AA or CR123's. The AA lights we saw were not as bright as we wanted. The ones with the output we wanted were easily found in "C" but would be the only thing we needed "C" for. Since I keep lots of CR123's on hand for my other lights I went with CR123's.

 

[Hatul]

I use all rechargeables, so my lights use AA, AAA and 18650 Li-Ion cells.

 

[Brewone0to]

If you dive enough, the cost of batteries justifies the purchase of a primary can light.
And as a bonus, in general they put out more/better color light.

 

[ajduplessis]

Any rechargeable high amp hour battery will do fine.

 

[gcbryan]

I used 3 AA for backup and 2 18650 for the primary. To specifically answer your question however I look at the light first and the battery second.

 

[Hatul]

I used 3 AA for backup and 2 18650 for the primary. To specifically answer your question however I look at the light first and the battery second.

Can i ask you specifically which model lights you're using?

 

[Damselfish]

For tropical diving, I want to have a primary with a wider softer beam for night so I can cover more area and not blind fish, and a backup that has a bright narrow beam also useful for peeking into/under things during the day. But since we travel to dive I'm always trying to pare things down, so I pay more attention to batteries (and weight) than I used to. I'm trying to use AA rechargeables as much as possible, in the interest of not buying throwaway batteries, not having to carry spares (though with LED probably don't need them), and having mostly only one type. We already travel with AAs and charger for camera gear anyway.

Our 2 primary lights do both use 4C cells. One is LED, and I've started using AA batteries in C adapters, plenty of capacity for that. The other is a old halogen and haven't tried the AAs in it yet (this light would have accidentally fallen overboard by now but my husband is oddly attached to it.)