Sidemount canister light

[gearhound]

We've never had issues with signalling buddies in a cave. I'm of the thinking that, if you're have a problems signalling your buddy (assuming you're following proper buddy protocol) with the spots on the high powered Light Monkey or Hollis LEDS, you don't need a new light…you need a new buddy. Obviously they're not situationally aware.
The form factor of an LED with it's smaller heads is much nicer. And if you're thinking of helmet mounting the light, the Light Monkey and Hollis are easy to do.

 

[Dive-aholic]

What brand?

TillyTec

---------- Post added November 25th, 2013 at 10:28 PM ----------

We've never had issues with signalling buddies in a cave. I'm of the thinking that, if you're have a problems signalling your buddy (assuming you're following proper buddy protocol) with the spots on the high powered Light Monkey or Hollis LEDS, you don't need a new light…you need a new buddy. Obviously they're not situationally aware.
The form factor of an LED with it's smaller heads is much nicer. And if you're thinking of helmet mounting the light, the Light Monkey and Hollis are easy to do.

This may be so. There are several posts on CDF about people having difficulty noticing their dive buddy signaling them. My dive buddies all dive either TillyTec lights or HIDs so I haven't really experienced it much. I have had students with lights that are not very focused and it does take more awareness to see the light.

 

[DarkAbyss]

Hi, I'm taking my Cavern + Intro to cave in SM configuration this winter and I'm looking for a suitable can light.

I've been recommended the Dive Rite RX10 w/ SM lid and this is my first choice at the moment.

But my LDS sells Hollis LED 25W, and I can't find the cord lenght specs. Is anyone diving SM with a LED 25W w/ SM lid? Is the power cord longer than a standard BM can light cause I don't want to get "a little arm" because of this.

Also, if anyone have general recommendations on the two models (DR / Hollis) used in SM configuration? Thanks

I can measure the cord on my Hollis LED 25 if You like. As mentioned, it has a nice hotspot (8 deg beam) with just enough spill to illuminate the surroundings if in a cave.

 

[Bobby]

TillyTec

---------- Post added November 25th, 2013 at 10:28 PM ----------



This may be so. There are several posts on CDF about people having difficulty noticing their dive buddy signaling them. My dive buddies all dive either TillyTec lights or HIDs so I haven't really experienced it much. I have had students with lights that are not very focused and it does take more awareness to see the light.

Rob,
It would have been good for you to disclose that you are a TillyTec dealer while you were trying make it look like that is the only brand that is good for signalling.

We are also a manufacturer of LED technical lights for full disclosure. Our cord lengths are 45" from gland to gland for both our side gland and top gland styles. The vast majority of divers have found this length to be ideal. As Rob said it does depend on where you mount the canister and a few have had us lengthen their cords for this reason.

Bobby

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 4

 

[canadianoid]

Rob,
It would have been good for you to disclose that you are a TillyTec dealer while you were trying make it look like that is the only brand that is good for signalling.

See his signature?

 

[Bobby]

See his signature?

My bad, I was on my pad & now realize it doesn't show signatures.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[tracydr]

I have the MB Sub VB 50 can light. It's quite focused for an LED, too. I don't have the sidemount configuration but I think that's available.

 

[theskull]

I love DiveRite brand gear, but their lights tend to have issues in my buddies' experience. Hollis is a great choice, but the current best choice IMO is the UnderwaterLightDude lights.

And there are several options for mounting the canister. Although butt-mounting is very popular, few of my buddies do so. I still use the standard waist mount, tucked far back on the right side. My wife clips hers to the D-rings on the right side between body and wing. These both work very well, keep the canister and light from becoming entaglements, and protect the hardware.

theskull

 

[DaleHawerchuck]

Thank you guys for your advices. Finally, DiveRite lamps aren't avalaible at my LDS.

I didn't hear about the ULDude lamps before posting on this forum, and they seem quite good. But as I said I really wanted to go with something avalaible at my LDS. I already bought lamps on the internet before and had problems with them. It was then a pain in the a** to get support, being on the other side of the border seems to complicate everything...

I finally went for the new UTD 50W. I didn't consider it at first cause on their site they're only showing it in backmount configuration (no sidemount lid), UTD DIR-oriented philosophy saying all equipment should be scalable and standardized between configurations. But they're also selling their lamps with a sidemount 90 lid. I didn't find reviews on these light systems, and I'm wondering why they're not more popular:

- 50W lamp is rated at 5000 lumens, with a burntime of 10 hrs on the Z100 battery pack.
- batteries are very low profile and don't need to be opened for recharging, as they charge via the E/O connector.
- I paid mine about 850$, a price you normally pay for entry levels cave lighting systems

So even if there's not a lot of reviews, I'm going with the UTD. If I have trouble I got it from my LDS so support will be easier to get..

 

[Bobby]

Dale,
First, I am not trying to sell you a light. We are dive light manufacturers so we are always interested in what others are doing. When you posted I decided to take a look. The numbers that they are posting are fairly off. Bottom line is that if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. We stay very current on what is available in the market and we do our own engineering and design. What this means is that we don't rely on an engineering firm to put together components for us as most other manufacturers do. We put the latest and best components together ourselves and keep our products current. Presently the Lumen to Watt ratio is topped out around 135 Lumen per watt.

UTD is claiming 500 Lumen per watt on their 50w Explorer model. They also claim 10+ hours of burn time with a battery pack of 11.1v @ 8.8Ah which gives you a watt hour rating of 97.68Wh. If the battery pack, pcb for the battery, driver, & LED pcb ran 100% efficient (which they never and can't do) then you would get 9.76 hours of run time. If we were to rate the run time it would be at 9 hours.

The pictures of their lights are difficult to know if we are dealing with a single LED or multiple LED's. Most would connect 50w with being 50 watts which would be in line with Lumen to watt capabilities. That would give you 5 LED's each running at 10w which would equal 50 watts. This is going to make the math even worse as the draw on the battery would give you less than two hours. Throw in that the voltage requirement would be above the battery packs capability and they would have to use a boost driver instead of a buck driver which is less efficient. I would have to guess that less than 1.5 hours would be the burn time if the light output is constant.

This brings in the last thing that some manufacturers do to pump up their numbers. They don't use a constant output driver which will decrease the light output as the battery drains. This allows them to give a great burn time number without informing the customer that 10 minutes into their dive the output of the light will drop by 25% and go down rather quickly from there.

We don't look to bash other manufacturers however when over the top claims are made by one it brings down those that work hard at putting out conservative and realistic numbers.

It is rather interesting that they have the 24w Expedition rated at 900 Lumen and 10 Watts then can jump to 5000 Lumen with the same watt rating. The burn time rating is also at 10 hours for the 24w Expedition which also does not make sense.

Some simple formula's that are laws of physics

Total Lumen output / Total Watt consumption = Lumen per watt (what is capable will change as LED technology improves. Presently 100 Lumen per watt is normal and 135 Lumen per watt can be done)

Voltage X Amperage = Watts
Voltage X Amp Hours = Watt Hours
Watt hours / Total Watt consumption = burn time in a perfect world (actual will be less)

There is a formula called a half life rating for battery cells. The formula is fairly complex as there are a number of factors that go into it. The battery topology, average use of the battery rating, the C rate of discharge, and few others. What is important is that to give a reasonable burn time for any light it is our opinion that a half life burn time should be used, not 100% efficiency. The reason is that anyone buying a dive light wants to know what a reasonable expectation of burn time should be even if the light is a year or two old. Not what it should do if it were to run at 100% efficiency for the first time.

Bobby