UTD LED Lights

[vancouverdiver]

Hi there,
I'm looking to replace my old can light. I'm looking at the UTD LED lights. I'm not familar with them, and I believe they are fairly new. Does anyone have them, and what is your experience with them for durability, battery power, and of course, lumens for night diving. The 50W 5000 lumen explorer, 10 hour burn time, for $800 sounds pretty competitive.

I'm familar with the Halycon lights, and my dive buddies also have Salvo/light monkey lights. How does the UTD lights compare?

 

[lucca brassi]

I think that are clones of some former production of divig lights at NiteRider Technical Lighting

I think that they are not comparable very much .

 

[Kevrumbo]

I've got the 24W LED Head that I will use on my upcoming Truk Trip as a back-up/stowed in pocket/auxiliary light, used with an EO corded Li-Ion UTD battery that's initially supplying a wetsuit heater. (I'll also be utilizing a regular Halcyon canister LED as the primary/main light during the dive as well).

After flooding a Dive Rite conventional latched-lid canister light last month on a Hawaii trip, I like the idea of UTD's sealed battery design --recharging the battery only through the EO cord connection. However, the durability/MTBF of that EO connection and its "wet" connectability feature is a concern. . .

 

[vancouverdiver]

Kevrumbo, so you haven't used them yet? Please let me know what you think of them, and have a great trip!

 

[SanDiegoSidemount]

I am saving up for a UTD Vision system. I've seen it in action, the system is awesome and very reasonably priced for what you get. I can't wait to get one of these, along with a splitter to run one of their suit heaters from the same canister.

I've actually been diving a lot lately with the UTD "backup" lights: I own three of them. They are all Goodman-mountable. The 3w lights are awesome, very compact and a great value. The longer 1000 lumen one is actually brighter than a lot of canister primaries!

 

[Kevrumbo]

Kevrumbo, so you haven't used them yet? Please let me know what you think of them, and have a great trip!

In Palau for all last week: Used the light head with the shock cord loops to attach to my hand/wrist; nice small size with good light beam width (still doesn't have the "punch" or laser beam effect of a 18W HID of course), but good enough for recreational and wreck diving.

Cord length is about a another foot longer than my standard canister light; had to stuff excess length in my waist belt. No problems with the wet EO plug --easily switched between light head & wetsuit heater. Only minor annoyance besides the cord length is the charger not showing a "green light" charge complete indication --it always stays lit "red" even after the alloted charge time is complete (and battery measuires 12.67Vdc for full charge). Have not burn tested the battery yet, but it does provide around 4 hours of heat for the wetsuit heater (Power Z-pro 100 battery).

 

[vancouverdiver]

Thanks guys. Halycon had an upgrade program, so I upgraded my 18W HID to 21W HID. Very nice light, very bright. The only comment is the ballast is not small like in LED lights.

 

[Goat_Tower]

The only comment is the ballast is not small like in LED lights.

I'm fairly certain that LEDs have constant draw and don't need a ballast.