What torch

gmul

Bob,

I also have the 200hid but am not getting replacement bulb prices anything like that. Can you let me know, by pm if needed, where you are getting these.

Thanks,
Gary

Rob Dobson

HiDs *can* be fragile or they can be really very tough. I have owned 4 Salvo's (still have 3 of them) and they get treated *really* badly and never had a bulb go or anything break in over 500 dives with them.

LEDs have more to go wrong and whilst you pretty much can't break a bulb there is plenty of other stuff that can break so I don't really know if the reliability arguments stand up.

In terms of beam if you want distance with a tight beam there is still nothing to really compete with a good HiD (such as the Salvo) although the very top end LEDs such as the 2500 are getting closer.

Burn times - well I get 8.5 hours out of my Rebel 21W 15.2 Li-ion. I can't remember what the LEDs were coming in at when on full power but around that ball park (enough).

One nice feature of LED is the ability drop the power output on some models but I must admit I have never wanted to do that on a dive.

Halogen... I used to have a couple years back but they were never very good. Maybe there are good ones out there but I have never seen one.

scunick

I have a Sartek 10w HID and it has performed flawlessly from new. They are tiny, light, robust focussable and provide awesome light (often referred to as "the finger of god"). That and the price is very competitive.

Cheers

Nick

divetheworld

Perhaps you can qualify that statement.
LED's are solid state devices and have vastly different characteristics that HID. HID's lifespan is as much a factor of how many times you strike the arc as its hours of use. I remember Allyn Welch telling me that you can strike an arc and leave them going for 10,000 hours no problem but stike the arc 1000 times and its dead meat.
An LED can be turned on and off as many times as you want without affecting its overall lifespan and are virtually unaffected by temperature (-40 +120C) or contaminants on their surface.
Some LED's (Luxeon star) require a driver circuit to regulate the current, but HID's require starter circuits to strike the arc and maintain it. In fact HID's have much more to go wrong both in mechanical and electronic terms.

Halogen is a well proven technology, although the colour brightness and energy efficiency are not as good as either HID or LED, its simplicity (on or off) make it much more tolerant to faults and more importantly, easy to repair on site. After all, how would you fix a failed ballast on site?
LED's suffer from not being able to give of sufficient light energy to compete with top flight halogen or HID units. In fact the beam divergence is also difficult to control with reflectors and this leaves them with less concentrated beams than that of any filement or arc device.

A simple conclusion would be;

Type.......Batt life...Colour temp...Penetration...reliability...Brightness
Halogen.........poor..........poor...........excel lent.....v.good.......excellent
HID............excellent....excellent........excel lent.......poor........excellent
LED............excellent....excellent..........goo d.......excellent......good

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Rob Dobson

The point that I was trying to make is that with a typical primary LED light there are several LEDs instead of one bulb, all of which are connected to a power source via regulated electronics and some system to handle heat dissipation. All these things along with the battery, seals and switches can fail. So the fact that the LED may be able to stop an RPG round doesn't necessarily tell the entire story of the lights robustness; they can fail for reasons other than the LED emitter and they have more sophisticated electronics.

My personal experience of diving HiDs is that they are rock solid reliable despite my rough handling of them over several years and hundreds of dives. I once rolled a fully loaded set of Heisers 12's from the back of my 4X4 onto my Salvo head in a concrete car park. Bent the manifold but did not hurt the light. I appreciate that there are fragile HiDs out the (WA bulbs for a start) but I wouldn't tar all of them with that brush so to speak.

I didn't mean to suggest that HiD is more reliable than LED just that I don't believe a good HiD is really that much more prone to failure than the current crop of LEDs. I certainly wouldn't agree with the HiD = Poor / LED = Excellent assessment although I think the rest of your table was bang on the money.

anton610

Hello!!

i bought the tillytec led 1000 and tested it with a halcyon hid 18.

they both have nearly the same power.

my buddy says his halcyon is a little bit brighter, an i say my led 1000 is a little bit brighter.

Next dive we will invent a friend to check whose is brighter.


Regards anton

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"Das Übel kommt nicht von der Technik, sondern von denen, die sie mißbrauchen."

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Ben Field

I have the same and have to agree, buddies have reffered to it as- the light sabre and the welding torch in equal measure. Huge punch for such a small torch.

I have busted the bulb twice and once flooded the light head at 70mtrs but amazingly it survived that one!

I'm sorely tempted but the LED's but the price is currently too much for the small (perceived) benefits, I'll wait for the first crop to reach second hand prices and a couple of years "out there" being abused before I jump ship.

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