When's your class? I'm upgrading my light so I might have one on the market soon.
Taking it now, Ben. Did the pool work this past weekend, and next weekend's in Monterey. Don was kind enough to loan me one for Rob's class. Thanks for the offer, but I'm not in the market for a can light now, as I can't currently afford one. At the rate that LEDs are improving, I figure that I'll buy an LED light that won't _need_ a can to provide adequate burn time. This was my first experience using a can light, and the cord definitely makes drills more complicated, adds failure points and increases the possibility of entanglement. Even if one of GUE's tenets weren't minimalism, it's one of mine; that and simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.
ISTM the only reason to have a battery in a separate can is for longer burn times, when putting that battery on the light head would be inconvenient or tiring; battery cans made sense when all that was available were lead-acid batteries and halogen bulbs, less sense with HID lights and NiMH or Lithium batteries, and little or no sense with LED and NiMH/Lithium batteries except for the most extreme dives.
I have no interest in doing multi-hour cave dives (I want to dive deep wrecks), so I only need about 1.5-2 hour burn time at close to full power (assuming a battery swap between dives); any longer run time and conditions are likely to have changed too much for safety. I can get that now in a 10W (or greater) HID-equivalent LED light with a 6 deg. or tighter beam angle; there are even LED lights (like the MBSub -
http://www.mb-sub.com/fileadmin/user_upload/X1englisch.pdf ) with focusable beams now. Prices are only going to come down and performance go up, so I'm in no hurry to make a purchase. But I know I won't be buying an HID light, as I consider them on the cusp (if not past it) of obsolescence, and they lack the robustness that I want in a light (not to mention they and their bulbs are god-awful expensive).
Thanks again for the offer,
Guy
work. Or as Rob all too frequently put it, 
.
