Looking for a durable, competent and affordable can light

[TSandM]

I don't think any of the fragile HID bulbs are in use any more. Unless you buy a very old light, you're going to be getting the Brightstar bulb, which you can pound nails with. I am in no way careful with my HID lights, except for avoiding turning them on and off more than necessary. I seem to get four or five years off a bulb. Most of my problems with my lights have had to do with the wires and Anderson connectors, and the soldered connections into the LiIon control circuitry. And as I said, we have had few malfunctions.

Early on, I had a latch rust through (Salvo, LM's predecessor, got a batch of bad stainless latches). I called LM and told them I was leaving on a trip to Indonesia and wanted to take the light with me. They not only sent me a latch (and talked me very carefully through the installation procedure, which consists of screwing the latch on but NOT stripping the threads in the drilled channel in the Delrin, which they were worried I might do) but they FED EXED it at their own expense. On another occasion, I had a light fail a week before a cave diving trip. They came into the shop on Saturday, when they were closed, so that a friend of mine who was in Florida could pick the light up and bring it home to me in time.

I don't know Bobby, but he does seem to have a good reputation. I do know Light Monkey -- since before they were Light Monkey.

 

[Sleepdr]

My first on was a halcyon 10w hid , I bought used for $250.. I would keep an eye on the for sale stuff and craigslist even (buddy got a complete double set "H" for cheap there as well.

That's essentially the route I took on a tight budget, ending up with an old Halcyon test tube 10W HID. It came with one good battery that still has a decent burn time for open water, one battery that was useless, and a couple extra bulbs. For the price paid, I'll probably just convert to an LED head when/if I burn through or break the 3 bulbs in hand.

 

[Redshift]

After replacing two HID bulbs I decided to change the head to LED and got one of these beauties

40w LED Super Spot LH, E/O | Northern Light Scuba

 

[mathauck0814]

+1 for Light Monkey. I have had similar experiences to Lynn's with them shipping things all over the place for me to make sure that I never missed a dive. I prefer LED to HID just because of the way I treat my light. I have the smaller canister lights from Hollis as well for travel/backup to my big LM primary, they can be had for reasonably cheap.

It's hard to give you specific recommendations without knowing your budget, but I'd guess that you could score a top of the line used light for ~$800 and get something on a reasonable compromise from $300-$600 depending how much of a hurry you're in...

 

[Freshie1234]

The first canister light I ever had was a Halcyon 10w I bought used for 250$. This was then resold and I purchased a Dive Rite RX2... which I sold again.... I finally bought a used Salvo 21W, and it is by far the brightest, the best and the most amazing light ever. It has the best beam qualities you could possibly ask for. However, it was much more expensive.

My advice:

Go cheap! Buy a 300$ DRIS can light... you need to get a tech pass first right? you might want to wait a bit before you actually buy a big can light. after all, you will also need to buy more important gear first, like a doubles wing, tanks, etc. so prioritize.

Now after a bit when you have a tech pass, and are getting ready for a cave/tech class... buy a real can light. 750$ is a fair expectation for a good quality used can light. You could probably sell the DRIS can light for 200$. I foresee them maintaining good resale value. You want a Salvo, Light Monkey, Or Halcyon. Those are the best, exploration grade lights. Other lights are good too, but are not as well made IMO.

One OTHER option, which is ill advised, but it is an option: buy an Eos Mini from halcyon. They retail cheap, many world class dives use them for deep tech dives and cave dives. That being said, they are not DIR, don't have as good of beam qualities, and are gone if you drop them

 

[eelnoraa]

If you end goal is cave diving, I disagree about going cheap. You want to buy once and buy nice. By "buy nice", I don't mean buy the brand new most expansive model, but buy something that will carry you through all the foresee training and actual diving.

 

[Bobby]

My budget is limited so I'm looking for something that's value for money. I am planning to buy one to practice with, but eventually want to dive caves with it.

What are the trusted brands for lights?

What kind of burn times, angles, features should I be looking out for?

Thanks!

We recently posted on our FB page regarding "value for the money" or as we refer to it Lumen Hour Cost (LHC). This is about the initial investment to purchase a light, not about the cost of use over the lifetime of the light. Below is what we posted on our FB page, I hope this helps in making your purchase decision.

What is a Lumen Hour?
A Lumen Hour is the most important piece of information in the lighting industry. A Lumen Hour is simply the Lumen output multiplied by the run time of its battery (when discussing battery powered lights). By knowing this number you can now make an informed decision and true comparison of lights on the market. By dividing the cost of light by the Lumen hour you have the Lumen hour cost (LHC) which gives you a starting point to determine the value of the light (s) you are considering purchasing. LHC = Retail Price / (Lumen * Hour run time)
Recently we were informed that our products are highly regarded though a few people consider them expensive. This surprised us as we consider our lights highly competitive on price. Below is a listing of our products with their Lumen hour cost.

$0.12	LD-15-96
$0.10	LD-15-144
$0.11	LD-26-96
$0.09	LD-26-144
$0.15	LD-35-96
$0.11	LD-35-144
$0.14	LD-60V-96
$0.10	LD-60V-144

Our goal is to provide the highest quality, latest technology, and offer the most value for your investment.

All Lumen Hour Cost numbers are using retail pricing.

The Light Dude

 

[lucca brassi]

Such a formula as you put it and proclaimed it can also be misleading and, wrong.

Parts for light are standard and available almost to anyone ( POM, leds , optics , drivers , battery pack )

Parts have declared specifications by factory labs and quality managements ....there is almost no difference or even minimal between all

competitors.

The main difference to us DIY builders that you can buy parts in larger quantities and with lower taxes ... but leave that for moment

In the equation you have denominator value in lumens . You can simply said that this is summa of all led emitters by factories datasheets list

but unfortunately that is completely untrue . You have to evaluate complete light as ONE light source including cooling , driver , lens , optics ,

front glass (must have AR ) ,....bla,bla , bla

PS I want to order from USA some special reflector for diving lamp and for instance producer advised me on coatings i would copy/paste from his email

Rhodium is a very durable electrodeposited coating (can be touched and cleaned), about 76% reflectivity average in the visible spectrum.
Protected Aluminum is not as durable (no touching or cleaning of the optical surface), but will reflect at approximately 90%, UV and Visible applications.
Gold is best for Near IR and IR applications, no touching or cleaning of the optical surface. 90% @ 600NM, 97% @ 1 micron.

and that is special led reflector and have such optical looses.

So another value is denominator value in runtime ... which can manipulated with driver spec and quality of battery pack (also lifetime included , not

mention MTTF.....and similar words ;-)

But i have noticed from yours website some very manipulative values very high lumens and long runtime (have similar pack 145Wh @35W led and driver )

In the numerator you have a retail price which can also be very manipulative.....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To sum it all together ......

- without accurate data and tests are such a conclusion only soap bubble similar these from wall street

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to say something these leds are really damn expensive , because led technology is much much much cheaper as was HID technology at its

beginning . HID technology is complicated and expensive due special materials , high pressures in bulb and high voltages , but LED ...come on...


and nylon protective mesh around cable is not DIR conform

 

[Bobby]

Lucca,
You make rather strong accusations, especially when most of what you say is wrong. We use very little "off the shelf" components and there is a lot of parts in our light that you or others can't source. Our optics we designed and are made for only us. Same with the Piezo switch. There are other optics and Piezo switches on the market however they do not function as ours do. Our battery pack is our own design and not openly sourced. The firmware in our drivers is our own and we also add components to the driver to improve performance. I could go on however that should make the point.

Also you say we are "manipulative". Our specifications are conservative and always have been. It is rather simple math to see that our run times are conservative compared to the battery pack watt hour rating. As for the LED's we have access to an LED that not available for most to get yet. Simply I worked in the corporate lighting industry for a long time and have good contacts and relationships allowing us early access to the newest technology. You might be better served at least paying closer attention to our specifications before you call me out. Our LD-35 produces 3500 Lumen at 30 watts, it is not a 35 watt light.

The formula that I posted is not misleading or wrong, in fact it is a base line that is commonly used many different ways in the lighting industry. I simply applied it to battery powered dive lights. Feel free to apply it to other manufacturers and come up with an example of where it is misleading or wrong and we can then have a conversation. Until then you are the one that is being misleading and manipulative.

We are a small company that started out as a DIY builder. We have always worked hard to have real numbers and use calculations that allowed people to know what they are getting. We pushed to use Lumen output instead of watt consumption which is quickly becoming the standard now. The actual output of the luminaire will be affected by some of the things you mentioned. However the reality is that there is no standard for measuring Lux so having comparable numbers between manufacturers is not possible. At least with Lumen there is a base line with an established format for measurement that is used industry wide.

What in the heck does our protective mesh have to do with any of this and exactly what makes it not conform to DIR? We don't advertise our lights as DIR conforming however I know a good amount of DIR divers that are rather impressed and happy with their UW Light Dude purchase and have no issue with our cover. Seems more like you have a personal bone to pick with me which I don't know why as I don't believe we have ever met or know each other.

 

[mathauck0814]

Lucca,
You make rather strong accusations, especially when most of what you say is wrong. We use very little "off the shelf" components and there is a lot of parts in our light that you or others can't source. Our optics we designed and are made for only us. Same with the Piezo switch. There are other optics and Piezo switches on the market however they do not function as ours do. Our battery pack is our own design and not openly sourced. The firmware in our drivers is our own and we also add components to the driver to improve performance. I could go on however that should make the point.

Also you say we are "manipulative". Our specifications are conservative and always have been. It is rather simple math to see that our run times are conservative compared to the battery pack watt hour rating. As for the LED's we have access to an LED that not available for most to get yet. Simply I worked in the corporate lighting industry for a long time and have good contacts and relationships allowing us early access to the newest technology. You might be better served at least paying closer attention to our specifications before you call me out. Our LD-35 produces 3500 Lumen at 30 watts, it is not a 35 watt light.

The formula that I posted is not misleading or wrong, in fact it is a base line that is commonly used many different ways in the lighting industry. I simply applied it to battery powered dive lights. Feel free to apply it to other manufacturers and come up with an example of where it is misleading or wrong and we can then have a conversation. Until then you are the one that is being misleading and manipulative.

We are a small company that started out as a DIY builder. We have always worked hard to have real numbers and use calculations that allowed people to know what they are getting. We pushed to use Lumen output instead of watt consumption which is quickly becoming the standard now. The actual output of the luminaire will be affected by some of the things you mentioned. However the reality is that there is no standard for measuring Lux so having comparable numbers between manufacturers is not possible. At least with Lumen there is a base line with an established format for measurement that is used industry wide.

What in the heck does our protective mesh have to do with any of this and exactly what makes it not conform to DIR? We don't advertise our lights as DIR conforming however I know a good amount of DIR divers that are rather impressed and happy with their UW Light Dude purchase and have no issue with our cover. Seems more like you have a personal bone to pick with me which I don't know why as I don't believe we have ever met or know each other.

No dog in this fight other than to counter your assertions that cost is a primary driver of light technology consideration. Perhaps being defensive isn't the best way to bring people to your side of the equation. Do what LM/Salvo did and let your product & service speak for itself.