NiteRider dive light?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

jplacson

Guest
Messages
591
Reaction score
0
Location
Philippines
# of dives
100 - 199
Ok, I read a few threads here discussing this brand... but so far, it only covers their older lights...

Does anyone have any experience with their new Sport Diver lights? Are they durable enough for occasional night/cavern use? How do they fare against the normal pistol type 8-C or D cell laterns?

And another question... how come DIR cave/wreck light position is on the hand? Isn't it difficult to perform tasks like writing on a slate or manipulating something if the light is on your hand, and not facing the task at hand? Wouldn't a chest/shoulder mounted pivot light be a better location? It won't blind your buddy either since it will be facing his/her chest or lower torso area and there won't be a cable wrapped around your arm.

Just a thought.
 
RE: Night Rider, I wasent impressed with theas lights I had one untill it flooded with in the first 10-15 times I used it and parts and cleaning it were impossable. I ditched the light and found a much better canaster light that has been with me for the last 3 or 4 years and 200 dives.

Mounting the light head on your hand has several advantages one of wich is for signaling. When travaling in a buddy team it is easy to do a quick signal with the light in your hand instead of looking back to find your buddy. The goodman style handle makes manuplating objects easy under water and can be used with certin types of reels in the same hand leaving one hand unoccupide. Also when using the goodman handle light you dont have to store the light or droupe it to pick up or adjust something.
 
Thanks salty... btw, what canister light did you get? I can't exactly afford the Helios lights of Halcyon... and I just wanted a decent hand mountable light for night/cavern dives... I'm not too fond of the pistol/latern lights since it doesn't leave my hands free.
 
Check out American Underwater Lighting Ill look for there page in a sec. I started out with a standard 50 watt halogen canaster light . With so many people switching to HID they can be found used fo cheep. HID is the best but expensive halogen is the way to start though.


AUL
 
I own a Nite Rider Pro.

First I eBayed the head band and got a hand mount.

A dive or two later it became clear the light is a no-go with alkaline batteries, so I got the rechargeable kit by Nite Rider, which happened to be not working for whatever reason. Returned the kit, bought 5000 mAh NiCad cells on-line and a rapid charger on clearance at a local Radioshack.

After that I’ve been quite pleased with the light. By no means it can compete with an $800 HID, but it does the job. When/If my diving warrants a purchase of an canister HID, I’ll get one, but for now with a ~$210 investment I have a hands-free 14W rechargeable halogen light with about 2 hours burn time.
 
Thanks Lemonade... but it seems that NiteRider lights are very unreliable... there is no official NiteRider dealer in the Philippines, so I will be ordering it from a friend.

I've heard a lot of stories of the canister leaking, switches breaking..etc..etc... all replaced for free... but I don't have the luxury of returning it everytime there's something wrong.

I might just end up with a $70 pistol light. HIDs are just WAY TOO much.

Anyway, most pistol lights are now Xenon so at least that's better than halogens. :)
 
I have an OMS Phantom and like it a lot. It's low profile, easily mounts on a back plate, came with a super tough enclosed light head and a goodman handle. It has been very reliable to date and offers the option of tailoring the brightness (10 to 50 watts) and burn time to the specific situation. I picked it up on E-bay for around $250.
 
I have been using my niterider blackwater 800 for about 30 dives an i like it but I am realy impressed with customer serivce. When I first got the light the charger burnt out and I was going to curacao the next day. I called tech support at 8pm PST. Someone answered, and said he would fedex the package to me at my hotel, next day air. I thought that was realy nice service. I told the guy, just send it to my house. When I got back from my trip the package was there. I was reading the materal and had a question so I called niterider again. The same guy answered. He said, he would send me a new imporved international version for my next trip.
 
Scubamarc, that's my point... NiteRider has good CS, granted...but they seem to have a very high defect ratio!

Almost everyone I've emailed, and read about has reported some kind of defect in the first unit they receive. This may be fine if you live in the US, but I don't... to ship the defective unit to and from...over and over again might cost me more than the unit itself! :O

I'd really like to try out the NiteRider lights since they seem to give the best value for money in the canister light dept... but I can't roll the dice and pray that the unit I receive won't be defective.
 

Back
Top Bottom