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PhantomZ

PhantomZ

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Sep 17, 2004
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49N 123W Eh~
i'm starting my first open water course in 7 days and i'm looking for a dive light for later use when i take my advance course with my gf. i just saw this link from an earlier post and was wondering if anyone has one or tested/played with one before and can give me more detials about it. i'm looking at the light saber models,

http://www.nite-diver.com/products.html

the light is pretty pricy but the looks and size is what i like. i know about the UK lights but they are pretty bukly. i might just end up getting the UK 4AA (cause i'm on a Tight budget!) for the both of us since we're just begginer divers but i want something with more power. maybe i'll just have to sell my other lights to pay for a light saber...

if anyone can give me some advice on what light to buy for diving that would great. this of course will be my first dive light and i would like it to last for some time. HID i heard/read is better for penetrating water because of the light spectrum, but if you think that something else is better or just as good without spending a Ton of $$ please feel free to post your experiences and advice.
thanks for looking, :)
 
The UK Light Cannon 100 is an excellent light to go diving with or so says my uncle (He goes diving a lot, and I let him barrow it last time he went. In short, he just bought it from me:) )
 
If the light saber is putting out 600 lumens, I doubt there are many consumer type diving flashlights that come anywhere close to that.

If you are going for budget ones, I think the Princeton Tec Surge is better than the UK4AA. http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/princetontec_surge.htm . With a throw of 90+ m(on dry land) and about 120 lumens as compared to UK4AAs 50+ m throw/ 30 lumen output. They are about the same size.

The PT Surge is claimed to go 500 ft down. It takes 8AAs but can run on 4 AAs too (and its still plenty bright, in fact I can't see much difference visually) with shortened runtime/brightness.

comes in black, yellow, red or blue and usually sells for like $25-30, but you can find a red or blue one at $15 - $19. Just use Yahoo! Shopping tab search and type "princeton tec surge" . And click the "price" link which displays the cheapest first.
 
The Light Canon puts out a true 450 lumens. The Light Saber has an overrated output. It's true, the 12v 10w Welch Allyn Solarc system will put out 600 lumens, but thats not what comes out of the light (of course you lose light to reflector inneficiency etc). It would be closer to 500-550 lumens out the front. I personally wouldn't pay $140 more then the light cannon for 50-100 more lumens.
 
thanks guys,

the Princeton Tec Surge looks to be what fits my budget. now the hard part right now is to find a place that sells both green and blue colours (cause those are our favorite colours). if i cant then i guess i'll just go with 2 yellows from brightguys.
 
If I rembr rite, brightguy's PT surge's go for abt $27.50. You can get 2 Surges for that price. Of coz, if ya willing to pay to specifically get yellow ones, go ahead :) Dun think I've seen green....

But at least you can be sure you're getting the updated stock from brightguy. I'm not sure if the Surge's from other retailers are from the old, problematic batch. But even if they are, you can prob get them exchanged. More importantly is they don't fail when you are in the middle of your dive.
 
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I am a diver and I have tried a few lights and found that most diving lights on sale all have a very narrow beam with almost no sidespill as is the PT surge suggested here ( the PT Surge also has a short runtime ).
This kind of beam is not all that useful during a night dive. it will throw but you will only see about a foot in diameter of the sea floor. this can disorient you and become lost.
I would suggest a flashlight with a powerful hotspot and a wide smooth sidespill.

I would suggest a barbolight U-09 found here http://www.barbolight.com/english/englishtecnicau.htm since i think it has the perfect beam, it has good throw and wide sidespill, the white LED colour also travels farther in water. the 3C form factor is perfect and it is extremely durable. burntime is also very good, about 2 hours with Alks and double with the rechagable pack. the price is a bit hefty but you will not regret it. you could buy it without the rechargable pack at first and add the pack at a later date. I think 3rd_shift was plannin on doing a group buy.
 
Wait.
Get some dives under your belt, do an advanced class, do a few night dives with borrowed or rented lights.
Big bright lights don't do much good if the viz is five feet.
I started diving in 1971, lived on a beach in Baja for a year and became an instructor in 74. I use a little light during the day to point things out and a cheap light at night if I'm doing a class.
If I'm night diving for fun it's done in the spring and my light is rarely on. I let the critters in the water do the lighting.
 
LEDcandle,
Thanks for the info. I did do a search for them and the ones without batteries are $14.99. I guess yellow fine, I don’t have to get our favourite colours.

Amonra,
I love the design of the barbolight U-09. the LH has only one 3w and with the power of three 3w I’m drooling already just thinking about it. but I’m worried about twisting the cap for on off while underwater. after looking at my CC bill and finding out the price of the light i stopped drooling.......

Mike Painter,
I guess you’re right. I can hold off buying my own light till I get more experience or at least till i sell some of my stuff in the B/S/T, check it out, i might add more stuff! though... I could use the $$ to pay off my CC bills.........
 
I dont understand your concern about twisting the cap on/off underwater. I do it all the time. in fact it is designed for that kind of use. beside double o-rings ensure nothing will ever go inside. i understand about the price shock but it's worth every cent, everyone that owns one will agree.
It is a good idea to wait a bit, but at 14.99 a PT Surge wont kill your cc and it's always better to have your own rather than borrow/rent, besides you could use it as back up after getting a bigger better light ( U-09 :)
 
The UK LC100 (Light Canon) is quite a nice light, but it can be quirky and needs more care than a standard dive light. It's also a bit pricey for someone on a budget (cheap for HID though). If you drop it and break the lamp the price of a new lamp will make you cry (the price of the lamp alone will almost get you a complete C8 eLED dive light).

Take a look at the UK C8 eLED light. Not terribly expensive, easy on batteries, quite bright - especially in the water where its white light penetrates better than Halogen/Xenon incandescent lights (similar to HID in this respect, though not as bright). It's also very durable and easy to care for.
 
i saw the link on the dive-rite lights on my web searches, they are all so expensive. the barbolight and the nite-diver light saber is the size and type that i would like to have. i've held a UK 8C before and it seems kinda bulky cause the divers i've seen that have those light also have them hanging down on their suit after getting out of the waters and i dont really want to have it like that. i'm not a very big guy and the extra 30 pounds of weights along with the 8C UK light might kill me when i get out of sea water.
thanks everyone for your help :) hopefully i can save up more and not worry about the price on a light i want to buy.
 
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