There's a lot of information on our website that you guys can read, here are some links to them:
Here's a starter:
http://www.nocturnallights.com/content/view/28/58/
This page gives you the overview of how HIDs compare to Halogens.
Here's a brief pros/cons of each lamp:
HIDs:
Pros
- Produces a lot of light without having to consume a lot of power. Typically a 10w hid produces about 400-450 lumens and a 21w hid produces around 1000-1100 lumens.
- 2 to 3 times more efficent than haolgen bulbs in terms of battery life
- High Color Temperatures (usually around 6500k, which is a white color with a blue tone)
Cons -
- Fragile (espeically the 10w bulb)
- expensive to replace (around $80-100 to replace each 10w bulb)
- takes 5-30 seconds to "warm-up" (Some people find this annoying, especially videographers)
Halogens
Pros-
- Bulbs are cheaper to replace ($3-15 per bulb).
- Some systems allows you to switch bulbs
- Very unlikely to break due to impact
Cons-
- Consumes more power -> requires more battery to achieve same brightness and burntime
LEDs
Pros-
- Super durable and reliable- it usually never turns off due to impact
- Produces a white light (usually around 6000k)
- Super long bulb life - you can almost be sure that you dont' have to ever replace the bulbs
- Low wattage consumption (1w to 9w)
Cons-
- Most LEDs are not bright enough as a primary light for a lot of divers
These are jus the very basic and general pros and cons. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages amongst different manufacturer's designs. Our halogen lights, for example, can be as bright as a 21w HID or a 10w hid, depending on which bulb you want to use. We also offer halogen bulbs in diffrent color temperatures, beam angles, and wattages catering to different divers. You can read more about it on our site.
10W hids are nice and compact, and the prices have been dropping over the last two years, making them more affordable to a lot of divers while 21w hids are still too expensive for a lot of divers. The 21w hid light bulbs are usually more beefy than the 10w hids, which is as thick as a toothpick. I've talked to divers that had to replace their 10w HIDs 3-4 times already, but that's an extreme case.
LEDs have changed in the last couple of years. The cluster LEDs are usually not very bright, they are made of several low powered 1w led bulbs. However, becuase they're realiable and dont' require much power, they make great backup lights. Something like the shockwave which consists of three 3w high powered led bulbs is starting to becomming more popuar, and they produce around 150-175 lumens together.
Depending on the reflectors' design, they're actaully sufficient as a primary dive light if you're not looking for a lot of light. We are comming out with a three 1w led light that runs off 6 AA batteries, i'll make the announcement in the lights forum when that becomes avilable. The quality of the LEDs makes a difference in how bright the lights actaully are. Some high quality 1w leds performs just as well as a 3w led, but they're usually more expensive.
This my $0.02 on the choices that you have out there. Something else to consider is the housing, the design, and the battery. If you guys are interested in our products, let me know what kind of diving you're doing, how much light you need, how many dives and how long your dives are, etc. The neat thing about our system is that we have a line of dive lights with different characteristics and burn times, on top of that you can pop in different bulbs to cater to your specific dives, essentially customizable for each dive. For example, if you are only going for a 30 minute night dive and you want the brightest light possible, our SL50 (msrp $330) will do the job. Your next dive could be 60 minutes long, then you can just pup in a 35w bulb which gives you burn time of up to 80 minutes.
Anyhow, let me know if you guys have any questions. I feel that I've answered most of the questions and I'd hate to turn this thread into an advertisement. If you guys have any questions feel free to ask me, i'll be more than happy to help with your purchasing decision.
