Hand Held vs Cannister

[gcbryan]

With higher powered LED's coming out every day along with other battery technologies is it likely that there will be less need for cannister lights?

I'm curious if any of you with cannister lights would have less interest in them if you could get a smaller, high powered hand held that could still be used hands free.

For instance, at the moment you could get a 900 lumen led light powered by rechargeable Ii-on batteries which has a burn time of 2 hours and could be used hands free with a Goodman handle...with no cannister to mess with or to leak. The physical size is close to light head size.

The power and spot coverage and burn time is not quite there yet (in comparison to cannisters) but it seems it's getting close.

What do you think?

 

[The Chad]

Pass. A cannister is great mounted on a backplate, plus w/ a 4hr burn and so many interchangable options (Green Force) who could complain...well there is the price. The handhelds make great back-ups though.

 

[TSandM]

Two hours isn't enough burn time any more.

Peter puts our LED backup lights into a Goodman-type mounting for simple OW diving, where he's only using the light to look into holes and under things. He likes it.

I haven't seen a non-canister light that can provide the sheer amount of illumination that I get from my 21W HID yet. The Oxycheq Raider IV was close, but the beam diameter was much smaller, so the total light output was less. For cave diving, you need the focused beam for communication, but you need the "spill" to enjoy the cave.

 

[gcbryan]

Two hours isn't enough burn time any more.

Peter puts our LED backup lights into a Goodman-type mounting for simple OW diving, where he's only using the light to look into holes and under things. He likes it.

I haven't seen a non-canister light that can provide the sheer amount of illumination that I get from my 21W HID yet. The Oxycheq Raider IV was close, but the beam diameter was much smaller, so the total light output was less. For cave diving, you need the focused beam for communication, but you need the "spill" to enjoy the cave.

Interesting however the Raider IV is only in the 250 lumens range. That's so last year. If you cut the power setting back you can probably get close to 4 hours now with Raider IV kind of lumens. You probaby can't get as focused a beam yet in the higher lumen models...yet.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

4 hours is about the minimum burn-time for cave diving, figuring two 90 minute dives per day with some reserve. Otherwise, the between charge time will require a second light.

 

[foglesre]

Of course if a 90 minute dive is your goal, with the 900 lumen lights mentioned above, buying a $10 spare set of Li-Ion batteries to swap will have you ready for the second dive.

Mine is in the mail from DX. I'm not going to count on it for my upcoming cave diving trip, but I'm certainly going to give it a try...

Bob

 

[Rick Inman]

I haven't seen a non-canister light that can provide the sheer amount of illumination that I get from my 21W HID yet.

But if they ever do... That would be nice. No wire or can to deal with, a Goodman handle only.

Plus, without the wire attached to the diver, we might be finding these new can-less HIDs on the bottom now and then.

The real problem would be the end of the "under-or-over" discussion in the DIR forum.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

Plus, without the wire attached to the diver, we might be finding these new can-less HIDs on the bottom now and then.

<fingers crossed>

 

[D_B]

Yeah, but maybe having the can be smaller, with a burn time of 5+ hours on some very high output, 20+ watt HID equal LED will be possible shortly

 

[Hippocampus]

Well, if you are interested in high powered LED lights without a cannister, check out those: http://titandivegear.com/scula

I have the 10w SCULA version which is comparable to a 10w HID and also burns 4 hours...you can also add different cannisters for longer burn times.