New to Night diving, and I have some questions

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For night dives in clear water, the Salvo 12W LED is very nice, and compact too. If you look into it, ask for the rigid Goodman handle and plan on putting a hose clamp on it to keep the head from popping out.
 
I have the 12watt LED Rebel from Salvo and it throws plenty of light. In addition the 5 hour burn time and compact size mzke it great to travel with. But for the traveling I've done so far my Princeton Tec shockwave has been more than adequate and it would be alot easier to lose or have the airline baggage idiots mess up a 50 dollar light than my Salvo which retails for 700 plus! I didn't pay near that much but I don't know if I'd get the same deal on a replacement. And again if you are just bug hunting, general OW night diving, even in stuff with 10 feet of vis just how much light will you really need. If you're doing less than 50 dives a year where you'll need it why spend more than a couple hundred on lights? I just picked up a new backup LED from Dorcy. Aluminum body, smaller than my pelican saber lights and while the pelicans are around 70 lumens with good batts this is rated at 180! Retails for around 60 bucks. I think it would make a nice little primary for the average OW diver.
 
TSandM Thanks for bring me up to speed on on back plates and wings. Now about cam bands, would they go around the canister battery pack and attach to what? I will look into backplate set ups. What are you and your husband currently using. And why?

farsidefan1 you brought up some good points that made me think. How do you carry your dive light when you travel. In your carry on? or check in? What case do you keep it in?

rongoodman can you explain a little more on what you mean about putting a hose clamp on the Goodman handle to keep the head from popping out?

JimLap Thanks for bringing up some really good points but I'm leaning more towards a LID due to being able to focus the light.

Thanks everyone for the help and bring up some really good points. I'm going to look into a modular BC. The light right now I am leaning towards is a salvo 10 watt HID. I like the fact that on the Havoc models you can adjust the focus of the light. Another questions that i didnt bring up before. What do you store do your lights in when you're not diving. And when you travel do you throw them in a case? What is the best way to clean your lite after a dive? (almost forgot that one). Once again thanks for all the help.
 
The 12W LEDs aren't screwed onto the handle, the material of the housing isn't thick enough. It fits into a 'C' shaped clamp and is held by friction, but is prone to pop out. You can secure it with a hose clamp--if you get one, PM me and I'll get you the details.
 
If you mount the canister on the cambands, you unlace them, thread the canister onto the side without the buckle, and relace them.

My husband and I are using backplate setups. Mine is a chimaera that I bought from my mentor -- an Oxycheq plate and a DSS 30 lb horseshoe wing. My husband's setup is a DSS plate and 30 lb torus wing.

I'm sure, living where you do, that if you wanted to hook up with someone in SoCal to try a backplate rig, it wouldn't be difficult to arrange.
 
rongoodman thanks for the help

TSandM I understand how the cambands works, but where does the canister mount on your dive equipment? On your tank your BC? WOW you really think someone would be that genorus. I don't know a lot of people in the dive coumunity. Thanks for all the help.
 
This is a really good read, especially for the ones like me looking for practical real life information. Thankss :)
 
THIS picture shows how a canister light is mounted on the right hand waist strap of a backplate system. I don't have any pictures or know of any offhand to show how somebody would mount the canister on the cambands of a regular BC. As I said, using a can light with a standard BC either requires buying a light with a different kind of canister, or some kind of workaround for mounting, because they're built to go on harnesses.

And stussy, regarding lending gear -- I've found that divers as a group are some of the most amazingly generous people I've ever met in my life.
 
I carry them in mk checked luggage. I have 2 primary lights which use 8 c batteries. If weight is a major concern (in other words if I'm going to be on a puddle jumper with radical restrictions then I don't bring batteries and buy them on site (and give them to the DM when I leave). My secondary lights are also in my checked baggage in my BC pocket. They use 4 AA batteries and I follow the same procedure. Don't have batteries in your lights while you travel, bad things can happpen! If you try to carry on batteries some overzealous airline employees go a bit nuts enforcing battery restrictions even though they are not meant to apply to normal batteries. They didn't understand the "memo". Yes for those counting I carry 4 lights on trips- I love night diving and like the sound of redundancy. Of course I usually end up loaning my second set to my buddy if my wife isn't up for the night dive and I need to recruit or go solo.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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