What's your favorite dive light brand?

[3D diver]

DRIS Impact or 1000 lumen

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

My apologies about the salvo reference, the canisters and heads looked to be almost identical and I figured they had contracted the lights out or were rebranding them i.e. the scooters and a few other things.

I've dove them, but still don't like HID's, the LED technology has blown HID's out of the water in overall dive quality. They can't signal like laser beams in murky water, but the overall quality is better. The boot switch is also an inferior design to the piezo switches, same with Li-Po or LiFe batteries over the NiMH. The NiMH is especially irritating if you're doing multiple dives/day since you can't recharge them between dives without screwing the battery pack up.

The Halcyon cans are nice, don't get me wrong, but the UWLD is superior in every way except signalling in the nastiest of the nasty conditions......

Hey, no sweat off my back. I'm not affiliated with the company in any way. Just pointing out that most of what's available is built on what Halcyon accomplished. It seemed like a slight not to include them in the poll. Maybe that's just the state of the market now. BTW, the reason they look almost identical IS the story. Anyhow, it's old news now, probably best forgotten. Forget I mentioned it...

 

[FinnMom]

I suspect this is meaningless without categories. I also suspect that most divers don't have experience with several brands of lights in the same category; even if they did, the numbers of individual lights would be small, giving some chance of their having once owned an ususually sturdy lamp, or a "Monday model".

All that said, I own 2 canister lamps, both MetalSub. I like how much power (2100 lumens for 3-5 hours depending on which battery pak I use) I was abe to buy for less than 700 euros (550 and 650 for the whole kit) and I like how it seems to be darn tough. Several friends have had battery paks (various brands) that flooded and were ruined. I'm not sure that is even possible with a Metalsub.

I don't know of any quality (not Chinese cheapo) canister lamps that wil put such a nice light in your hand for so little money.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

And yes, Halcyon should have been included since they pioneered the modern canister light, of which all others are knock-offs.

If by "knock-offs" you mean better engineered, better built, and much better supported in the case of Salvo/Light Monkey...sure, I guess so. I'm still diving a 21W HID I picked up for $300 on fleabay; it worked fine for a year then flooded because wrecks and cords occasionally mix together in way that causes that.

Long story short, Light Monkey rebuilt the entire light and shipped it back to me in HI for $75. When it needed a new battery shortly thereafter, they sold me a new battery and charger at an excellent price. When after that the old ballast died, they replaced it and made sure everything worked fine and then shipped it back to me, all gratis.

When I finally get around to buying a new light, it's going to be the biggest, baddest HID that Light Monkey makes...only thing holding me back is how damn well the crappy little Salvo 21W they fixed up for me works. We won't even compare the Scout to the LM 3W LED light...that's like putting a middle school wrestler in a MMA cage.

My only gripe is that everyone is still using the same stupid little metal latches for the cans. I really want one that seals using the locking strip method my Genesis scooter has.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I have one of the HOGs that they built. Shortly will be sending it to them to put a different lid on it for sidemount use since I don't see doing any more tech stuff with back mount doubles. I used my Salvo 12 watt rebel LED this past weekend at Gilboa and it was still just fine. I did get to see one of Bobby's lights those in action. One of my students had one. Nice light. If my LED ever died I'd be sorely tempted to get one of them. But I like being able to choose between the HID and the LED depending on the requirements for the dive. And with LM support of both it's very tough to see why I'd need to buy a new one when they could just rebuild my current ones.

If the cards fall in place I may get a Sartek in to try since I now have dealer access to those as well.

 

[tbone1004]

one of the other issues with Halcyon is they are just so absurdly priced I don't know how they sell any of them. $1600 for a 21w HID with a 2 hour NiMH battery? You have to be out of your damn mind to buy one of those. For $100 cheaper you can buy a 21W from Light Monkey with 5 hours burn time on a superior battery technology. Same price also gets you the UWLD 26, which has drastically more light with 6.5hours burn time on high..... Unless you're in some nasty murky water, where the UWLD-15 actually has a 6* beam angle instead of 8 on the UWLD-26 and is comparable to a 21W HID in beam pattern and intensity as well as total light output. Less than $1200 for that, and has 8 hours of burn time on high.....

Compare | Under Water Light Dude
video test for proof

 

[Dr. Lecter]

The problem isn't really the price so much as the lack of performance/quality/service vs. other light manufacturers, but they are spendy. I have heard that Halcyon finally dropped the terrible Welch Allyn bulbs from their HID lights in favor of the superior Brightstar bulbs Salvo/LM had always used, so I guess they're slowly getting better.

 

[deeperhk]

Ano dive light I am using CL2300 Canister light.

 

[Bobby]

one of the other issues with Halcyon is they are just so absurdly priced I don't know how they sell any of them. $1600 for a 21w HID with a 2 hour NiMH battery? You have to be out of your damn mind to buy one of those. For $100 cheaper you can buy a 21W from Light Monkey with 5 hours burn time on a superior battery technology. Same price also gets you the UWLD 26, which has drastically more light with 6.5hours burn time on high..... Unless you're in some nasty murky water, where the UWLD-15 actually has a 6* beam angle instead of 8 on the UWLD-26 and is comparable to a 21W HID in beam pattern and intensity as well as total light output. Less than $1200 for that, and has 8 hours of burn time on high.....

Compare | Under Water Light Dude
video test for proof

Tbone & others, Thanks for the good words.

The LD-15 in the short canister has 5.5 hours of burn time and retails for $995.00.

 

[victorzamora]

And yes, Halcyon should have been included since they pioneered the modern canister light, of which all others are knock-offs.

Really? A buddy was diving in the 70s and had a similar light to the Halcyon one made by himself and a buddy.....just bigger. The only thing holding them back was the technology, both bulb and battery. His brother kept diving, and made smaller and smaller light-heads and canisters.....approaching what he consider "modern" canister lights. I also know for a fact that buddy was far from the first and far from the only diving those style of lights. Halcyon may have been the first commercial producer of what you are now calling "modern canister lights" but they're far from original. They were evolutionary at best, not revolutionary.

Having said that, their lights are pretty nice. I dove one of them in Mx when my test tube broke (before I got my beloved Bobby-light).....but the price was just unjustifiable.

My choice is UWLD. They're bulletproof, put out absurd amounts of light, and are perfect for any conditions I frequently dive in. That, backed by Bobby's customer service make those lights truly a no-brainer for those that can afford/justify the price. They're not cheap, but they're well worth the money.