Metalsub HID200 (50 Watt HID) Canister Lights are now on sale in the US and Canada.

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Tamas:
The 10' reflector would be just as good to signal with if the person knows how to signal properly.......
Perhaps we should meet up so that you can show me how to signal properly.

Been there done that. A 10 degree beam is usable for signaling but it really sucks compared to a 6 degree.

A huge cone of light is much less preferable to the "light saber" quality of the 6-degree.

A spot from a 6 degree reflector will have 60% of the diameter, and thus 36% of the area, of the spot from a 10 degree reflector. It really is a dramatic difference.
 
My 2c,

I have used my Halcyon 18w HID for a while now. And can tell....at a short distance with a wide beam.....have no problem bringing up my dive buddy's attention, even if he is backwards..just cross the beam on front of him. But, I have been in situations where I have to adjust my beam if the diver is far and poor visibility. Always a good thing to have adjustable head !!

Ed
 
Tampico_ED:
My 2c,

I have used my Halcyon 18w HID for a while now. And can tell....at a short distance with a wide beam.....have no problem bringing up my dive buddy's attention, even if he is backwards..just cross the beam on front of him. But, I have been in situations where I have to adjust my beam if the diver is far and poor visibility. Always a good thing to have adjustable head !!

Ed


Metalsub HID lights get a great review from the British dive magazine "DIVER"

Please note that US retail prices are much cheaper than the UK's do to the fact that 17.5% Sales Tax is included in the UK £ prices.

I have also fixed some false information in the article. (my added text shows up in green)

http://www.divernet.com/equipment/1005divertests.shtml
1005tests_oct05_06.jpg

1005tests_oct05_07.jpg


MetalSub HID125
METALSUB LIGHTING IS NOT CHEAP. £758 is a lot of anyone's money to spend on an underwater lamp. That's what the HID125 with ni-cad battery pack and charger will set you back, and there are more expensive options. However, like most things designed for the military, it is built to meet a specification, not down to a price.

I suspect that many of you will enjoy reading about it as something to drool over, just as we read about expensive cameras, cars, and consumer electronics.

First of all, let's forget about everything else and look at how you mount the battery-pack onto your tank. There's a tasty-looking bit of machining that can be threaded through a BC tank camband or used with stainless-steel bands. Nicely inset rubber strips provide a grippy interface.

The rectangular battery pack is made using hexagonal-ended bolts throughout, and it mates with the tank-mount with a satisfying "clunk". It is held in place by a sprung lock.

The cable for the lamphead is connected by a watertight bayonet connection with its own sealing O-ring. Disconnect the lamphead and substitute the lead for the charger.

Well thought-out
The 50W HID lamphead is as big as some complete torches. It is very well thought-out, and even has its own little stainless-steel shackle. You switch it on by sliding a large detent back, and then rotating the large collar at the cable-end of the lamphead clockwise. It is rotated a small amount until the detent clicks back into a locked position. You then allow the HID to warm up to full power.

We don't recommend switching an HID light on and off, especially under water. Its life depends on how often it is fired up rather than on how long it burns, which is why it is locked "on". (Switch on and off many times on a dive does NOT significantly reduce bulb life.)

A set of coloured LEDs at the back of the lamphead give information about the state of charge of the battery. Green lights up when more than 50% of burntime remains. An orange LED indicates that 50-20% of burntime remains. Red shows when there is only 20-10% of battery charge remaining, and the (LED)light blinks when the battery is down to 10% or less.

The battery-pack itself is finished in the same Teflon-coated anodising as the rest of the kit. It looks as if it should come with an M16 rifle with night-sights attached. It looks strong enough to entrust to a nervous teenage squaddie who might not see nursing his equipment through arduous conditions as very high on his list of priorities.

Shrivelling stars
The battery substituted for 4kg(the battery pack and lamp only wiegh 2kg underwater) of lead on my belt, and this proved very comfortable, but only after I decided to mount it centrally on my tank to stop myself being trimmed roundto one side. Under water at night the HID125 proved to be a veritable light-sabre. In fact it turned a night dive into day dive.

Featherstars and basketstars shrivelled up long before I came anywhere near them. Other divers tended to shrivel up too, because the beams of their own lights became puny by comparison. It was shock and awe all round, and the light is a cool 6000K, so it penetrates water well.

I lent the Metalsub lamp to a couple of other divers for different night dives, and both came back afterwards with big grins. One said he'd never been able to light up a whole reef during a night dive before.

All this, and I only ever charged it the once! I believed it when I was told that it was good for more than four and a half hours' burn-time on one battery charge.

Of course, this made it very useful during day dives, too. It was so bright, you could actually see it light up red soft corals and sponges, even when they were bathed in daylight filtered blue through the water.

If the HID125 is too dim for you, there is also the bigger HID 200. It's switchable between 25W and 50W, (The HID200 has 3 power levels, 28W, 35W, and 50W) wattequivalent to 200W of conventional light, for £512, Raybans not included.

Switched on the same way as its slightly smaller brother, after sufficient time (around five seconds) you have the option of sliding the detent back again and of rotating the collar by 90¡. This will deliver reduced power that extends burntime dramatically. You have to rotate the collar back all the way to turn the lamp off. Alas, this is a two-handed job.

The HID125 24W (equivalent to conventional 100W lamp-head) costs £411. Battery-packs with the Quick-Release system are available from £255. A charger costs £92.


+ Military spec
+ 'Shock and awe' performance

- Military price
 
quick question:
how negative is each model underwater? in metric or imperial doesn't matter since we can all do conversion in our heads.
 
lord1234:
quick question:
how negative is each model underwater? in metric or imperial doesn't matter since we can all do conversion in our heads.


Hello,

The lights themselves are 100g (3 Ounces) underwater so they feel very light in the hand or on a Goodman handle, the 9 Ah Battery Pack is 2.9 kg above water and 1.7 kg under water. Of course that just mean you need less lead :D
 
The intensity needed from a dive light is largely dependant on the environment. I own a Sartek 10 watt adjustable beam HID.

In a cave with good visibility my light is plenty, in this environment it is more important to have all of the lights on the team be relatively matched in intensity. In a cave since the only light is what you have brought your eyes will adjust.

In the open ocean such as Southern California or Virginia Beach where visibility is in the 20 to 50 foot range and sunlight reaches to varying degrees of depth a brighter light is more of an advantage. In this environment my 10 watt Sartek is just not enough light for signaling. In this environment a narrow spot high intensity light would have significant advantages and would be my choice. A high intensity narrow beam would have an easier time cutting through the particulates in the water.

On a night dive on a pretty coral reef in Hawaii, the Carribean, or Florida coast where visibility is better than 50 to 75 feet my 10 watt Sartek on "spotlight" or narrow beam is too much light, I end up blinding all of the creatures I came down to see. In this environment I flood out the beam to a wide even field. It is not good for signaling but the advantages of the wide field and less intense light beam are worth it.

The type of signaling that is done by a light in a cave is to rotate the beam in a circle, this is the same as giving the "OK" sign with your hands. The hoped for response is to return the same circular motion. A rapid side to side motion is intended to get the attention of the other team members, this implies some problem that requires the immediate attention of the other diver(s) in your team. One other useful thing is to simply see the light from your team member(s), this helps you stay in close proximity without needing to look over your shoulder to see just how close you are. This is also useful to tell if the team mate has moved from behind you on your right to your left, or a shift up or down in the cave. Just seeing where the light from your team mates comes from can be of great help, and is an important tool if that light suddenly stops since you will have some indication where to start looking for your team mate.

You have indicated that a reflector change is how you change the beam angle, this does not present a problem to me, since I rarely change the beam angle in the water, but I do change it for the environment. A narrow angle reflector in the 5 degree range would be my choice in the daylight off of the Southern California coast. A medium angle such as 10 degrees would probably be fine in a cave in Florida, this would be narrow enough to signal but wide enough to allow ones eyes to adjust from the hot spot to the less intense areas surrounding the beam. A 30 degree spread with a diffuser would be my choice for the pretty coral reefs on a night dive, but even with a wide beam and diffuser it would probably still be too much light.

Mark Vlahos
 
So what happened to the USA sales? The web site is no longer valid...I guess I was a little late for the show.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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