Light recommendations

[wKkaY]

Dive Right advertises 4 hours on high and 6 hours on medium, but we've both gotten 5.5 hours out of them on high (20,000 lux). If we are planning a 6 hour dive however we'll normally click them down to medium (13000 lux) in small passages where the extra light isn't needed. On medium, they are still slightly brighter than our prior 12W /1200 lumen light Monkey corded can lights.

Hi DA, I was thinking of getting the LM 12W but was shocked to hear that the LX20 @ medium outshines it. Do you have the "V2" version of the 12W launched in mid-2017, or the earlier one?

Also, how tight are their hotspots?

If you could take a photo of their beam against a wall I would be most indebted, as I can only buy them online and can't see them in person.

 

[Fruitographer]

I just spoke with my buddy and he has a can light from a guy out in the Pacific Northwest that converts a Mag light into an LED can light. They cost $495 and my buddy absolutely loves his. There's a website that doesn't have much information about the product but you can find some information in some threads here and there. If you really prefer a can light, Dusty's Lights would be a good option.

 

[JohnnyC]

I've heard ok things about Dusty's Lights, have only seen one in the wild once. It was alright, but nothing exceptional. It certainly is inexpensive though, although not more than many quality used lights. I much prefer my UWLD and my LM HID to what I saw, but if I was on a budget and wasn't planning on using it to extremes it would be an attractive option.

I have a LM 12W cordless for open water rec diving, but for any real technical diving I would never consider a cordless light, and especially one with a light sock that I can't pull off easily. Light discipline is a thing, task loading is a thing, the last thing you need to deal with when you're doing a bunch of stuff under duress in an austere environment is losing your best source of information by doing something as asinine as dropping your light.

Flame away, but **** happens, and I'm hedging my bets against the day when everything breaks down at the worst possible moment.

 

[KevinNM]

You don't dive in such a way that a light failure would cause your death, do you?

I agree that it's worth spending money on a good quality light, but it nothing to do with saving your life. It has to do with enjoying cave diving. A team has at a minimum 6 lights, and training to navigate out of the cave without any light.

I heard a story from Jon Bernot about two (unnamed) rebreather divers 10,000 feet back who found they hadn’t checked their backup light batteries recently... it didn’t sound like a fun swim out.

 

[halocline]

I heard a story from Jon Bernot about two (unnamed) rebreather divers 10,000 feet back who found they hadn’t checked their backup light batteries recently... it didn’t sound like a fun swim out.

Exactly my point, they swam out.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Hi DA, I was thinking of getting the LM 12W but was shocked to hear that the LX20 @ medium outshines it. Do you have the "V2" version of the 12W launched in mid-2017, or the earlier one?

Also, how tight are their hotspots?

If you could take a photo of their beam against a wall I would be most indebted, as I can only buy them online and can't see them in person.

I'll see if I can get a comparative picture this evening.

I most definitely have the earlier version - we've had them for several years.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Flame away, but **** happens, and I'm hedging my bets against the day when everything breaks down at the worst possible moment.

A technical diver I know managed to loose his LX20 inside a wreck, so it's a potential issue.

I run a loop of bungee through the hole in the end and insert my arm through it. If it pops out of the hand mount, it's still not going anywhere. But...I still carry a back up primary in a pocket (my old 12W LM LED converted to a handheld).

I also have a pair of Tovatec Fusion 530s as back up lights. Quite frankly they each put out more light than my first primary light, so they'll get me out ok, even on a DPV.

I heard a story from Jon Bernot about two (unnamed) rebreather divers 10,000 feet back who found they hadn’t checked their backup light batteries recently... it didn’t sound like a fun swim out.

That's one of the downsides of better battery technology. If you've got a back up light that will give you 30 hours of burn time, you run the risk of taking it for granted that the batteries have enough charge left to provide adequate burn time.

As traveling divers who come down for a 3 day weekend every month or so and for a week every quarter or so, we have ample time to pack and put the back up light batteries on the charger. It's the local zip code divers who don't have any particle schedule or pre-dive trip check list who run the greatest risk of ignoring their back up light batteries until they die.