Will
I'm finally getting around to posting this here.
My buddy and I dove a wreck in the St Lawrence last week. Inside the wreck, there was some junk in the water, but viz with the lights was a good 20 feet. Without lights, it was pretty much completely black. My buddy dives with an HID canister light. I don't know the wattage, but when he bought it, he was told it was the "equivalent of a 50w halogen". In the wreck, his beam penetrated the murk a bit greater distance than mine, but not much. My colour was warmer than his by a long shot. His is quite blue. As far as beam spread, they were very similar at about 10 -15 feet away.
All your work on the new glands and the waterproofing has paid off. Everything has stayed clean and dry over half a dozen dives.
All in all, a very successful project, in my view.
As we discussed following the dive, our next project should be to reduce the size and weight of my canister. I am currently carrying 2 x 12v/7ah batteries. For halogen, this may have been good, but with the small draw of the led you made for me, this is serious overkill. As I have some almost-new 12v/2.2 ah batteries, I would like to go with a small canister to house one of them. For longer dive days, I could always switch them out at the site between dives.
