HID or LED which do you prefer more for cave diving and why ??

[Avs123]

I dive a 21 watt HID as my primary light source in the cave and have had no problems with it just curious to see what kind of lights cave divers prefer and why they prefer one over the other?

[LiteHedded]

21w hid is perfect for me. I haven't seen the uw light dude lights in action. but as of now I have no compelling reason to switch

[DaveP]

LED... Last longer

[rongoodman]

I prefer my 21W HID, but the LM 12W LED in SM configuration is OK.

[a64pilot]

This is one of those threads that a search would find a lot of other similar threads.
As far as not seeing an UWLD light, without having seen one, you can't decide which you like better, LED or HID. I like diving my LM 50W HID, any HID of less power, Bobby's light simply out performs. There are disadvantages to the 50W HID, mostly the car sized battery that is required to supply that kind of power. I lkie the beam focus that I've only seen so far in an HID.

[Avs123]

ive been in the cave with a diver who was using an UWLD and it was for sure a great light i was very impressed im just not sold on LED yet everyone one says they last longer and and can take a beating better than HID im intrested to know how many divers have legitimately broken there HID bulbs themselves from dropping or smashing them im an intro diver so my gear takes a beating and my light just keeps on ticking

[Avs123]

I also think and this is my opinion that the primary purpose for cave lights is for signaling and second purpose is for seeing the cave and in my limited experince thus far in cave diving HID creates a far better concentrated beam for signaling better than LED most LED in my opinion make more of a flood beam and tend to wash out others lights

[DaveP]

My HID bulb broke when I was getting out of the water and my light head swung down about 2' and hit something. I also went through several HID bulbs because they just burned out.

ive been in the cave with a diver who was using an UWLD and it was for sure a great light i was very impressed im just not sold on LED yet everyone one says they last longer and and can take a beating better than HID im intrested to know how many divers have legitimately broken there HID bulbs themselves from dropping or smashing them im an intro diver so my gear takes a beating and my light just keeps on ticking

[Bobby]

This is one of those threads that a search would find a lot of other similar threads.
As far as not seeing an UWLD light, without having seen one, you can't decide which you like better, LED or HID. I like diving my LM 50W HID, any HID of less power, Bobby's light simply out performs. There are disadvantages to the 50W HID, mostly the car sized battery that is required to supply that kind of power. I lkie the beam focus that I've only seen so far in an HID.

I would have agreed with you before we created the LD-35 with 3500 Lumen of light output and only 30 watts of power consumption. 4.5 hours on our tall (144wh) canister and 3 hours on our short (96wh). Brohahaha

[SR]

I am still diving my HID that I bought a long time ago. I always thought I would wait until they made a focusable LED of equal or greater power.
I was offered a test dive of a LD-26 at Manatee. I saw more cave in that one dive than I had seen in the previous 8 dives.
Now I am saving my money for one!