Busted one at little River when it fell off the truck. Broke one at JB in class while performing a lights out drill. Best I can figure, it hit the wall of the chimney during the ascent. I treat my HIDs like babys now.Originally Posted by Avs123
Safe diving,
Sandy Robinson
Prefer 21W HID due to tight beam.
HID - tight / adjustable beam, sufficient spill, greater punch through the murk.
That's funny - I prefer HID because of the wide beam - I adjust it to be as wide as possible. I haven't seen an LED that is as wide. (When I see one I'll probably switch for the durability.)
Whoever said money can't buy love never bought a puppy.
Bobby is about to release a 6000lm video light. Talk about a WIDE beam!!
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I'm looking for a halogen light, what is all this talk of LED.
I have a couple of halogen lights complete with SLA batteries. LOL
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My HID fell off the wall at little River, and broke the bulb, I switched to LED after that.
You will love the UWLD lights, especially the bigger ones.
I dive a LM 21 W HID. I recently bought the lightly used uwlitedude 26-144 (or whatever the numbers are) that was on this forum. Here's my thoughts. The UW light beats the lightmonkey on size. I love how compact it is. I received the original goodman. Used it with the elastic band. Apparently this one of the originals because all of the edges are crazy sharp, and frankly I hated it. It seemed so poorly made compared to the light that it greatly detracted from the light. It looked made in someone's kitchen. At edd's this weekend I bought the new upgraded handle. It's got round edges, a nice neoprene protector and is the quality that matches the rest of the light. Now the important stuff. Just like everyone else has said, you can definitely see more cave. The beam is wide and even with no hot spots. It is an excellent light in big clear cave. The one caveat is that wide beam makes signaling slightly more difficult. Not much. But it's not a signal like you get with an hid laser beam.
The silver bullet that kills the light for me is particulate. It sucks in silt. The beam is so strong and wide that in any silty situations it creates a curtain of back scattered light. We dove hole in the wall and kicked up a normal amount of silt with normal fin kicks. No one was silting. There's was just lots of easily disturbed particulate. There were points where with my hid I would have had 40 foot viz but the backcatter dropped it to 5 or 10. My team mate noticed it as well. Yes you can lower it to another setting and it helps tremendously but frankly I don't want to. I want to keep my light on high and just dive.
One other thing I did notice is that the piezo is great for turning the light on and off. Trying to negotiate different settings, not so much. You are supposed to hold the piezo for one second and release and it will change the setting. It took many tries for each change. It really is annoying and detracts from the light.
Don't get me wrong the UW light dude light is amazing and puts out more light than anything I've used. It's very well made and sturdy.
So what's my ruling in the hid/led fight. I'm keeping both. My LM hid is my go to light for all conditions. It may be bulkier and more intrusive than the UW light dude, but I know I will like it in any situation. The UW lite dude will be my go to light when I know I'm going to be in crystal clear cave. It will absolutely light more cave than the LM.
The big factor is price. If I didn't have a can light and were trying the two all weekend as a pre-buy trial, I would go with the LM. It is better for all conditions and very significantly cheaper.
I almost forgot. For sm the UW light dude light did give me about two more inches of cord than my LM which was nice, but my LM has the normal can head not the sm head. I don't know if it would be different with the sm lid.
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