Primary light HID or LED?

[waterfall]

I want to buy a decent primary light for nightdives.Advice please!What does HID stand for and is it really so much better than LED?Do I go for rechargeable(seems more economical long term?)Something reasonably compact not TOO expensive and that's going to last!Cheers.

[Tamas]

I want to buy a decent primary light for nightdives.Advice please!What does HID stand for and is it really so much better than LED?Do I go for rechargeable(seems more economical long term?)Something reasonably compact not TOO expensive and that's going to last!Cheers.

HID stands for High Intensity Discharge - same light type as on BMW, Mercedes and other cars. Gives off a more white (5000k-6300k light) light that can penetrate further and longer thus lighting up the surroundings better. A 10w HID is very close to lightouput of a 35W Halogen.

A good little starter light is the UK Light Cannon 100 this will give you a 10w HID light, also comes with a rechargable battery pack option and is the most affordable entry level HID out there.

[OBXDIVEGUY]

As said earlier, HID is high intensity discharge, LED is light emitting diode. There is no comparison between the two. LEDs give great longevity and durability, but there light output just hasn't caught up with halogens, much less HIDs. LEDs can make decent backup lights though.

[Rick Murchison]

"HID" is "High Intensity Discharge"
"LED" is "Light Emitting Diode"
The state of the art today makes HID the only reasonable alternative to regular filament (halogen etc) bulbs. LED's aren't yet bright enough.
The chief advantages to HID over regular lights are that HIDs give you much more light per watt, so you can get more burn time and/or use smaller batteries, and the light's at a higher "color temperature" - closer to the frequencies of sunlight and so more natural color.
The chief disadvantage to HID is that it's more expensive up front, and the bulbs are way more expensive than halogen.
LED's are probably the wave of the future. The "bulb" is virtually indestructable, you get great color temp and great brilliance per watt. They're maxing out at about 4 watts now; when they hit 10 they'll probably be suitable as a primary light.
A reasonable strategy might be to buy halogen today and wait for tomorrow's LED. But if you want brilliant sun-quality light now, HID is the ticket.
Rick
edit- wow! while I was typing two replies came in... SB is, shall we say, "responsive?"

[mossym]

another option is to buy a halogen now, but get the princeton or te UK. They both are releasing the LED heads that you can buy for the halogen lights. So you can buy a halogen light right now, and in a couple of years when LED hits 10W just buy the head and voila..you have a 10W LED

me? i wouldn't trade my light cannon for anything (except a cannister light)

[micbu]

Hi waterfall,

you live in Europe as I can see, so have a look at www.hid-tec.de there you will find quite effordable 10W and 21W HID lights with rechargeable batteries from Brightstar. A bit more expensive are the lights from UK (Cannon light). Even higher in the price are lights from Treble Light, Kowalski, MB-Sub, Greenforce .......

Greetings, Michael

[Miami_Diver]

my princeton tec LED has 9 wats.very bright . wish i had known about HID before but 9wats of LED are pretty good. at least the brightest in my group.

[DEEPLOU]

my princeton tec LED has 9 wats.very bright . wish i had known about HID before but 9wats of LED are pretty good. at least the brightest in my group.

So far I have had nothing but good feedback on the Princeton Tec LED.

Unfortunately it is still a hand held. Most HID's are canistere (UK light cannon is only HID I know of that is hand held)

Aside from power, PT LED is abt $130, and HID's are abt $600, and those fragile bulbs are $80 to $100.

[Hoosier]

For the budget diver,

1. UK HID Canon is the best.
2. PT Shockwave three eLED
3. UK C8.

You can get the rechargable battery from here

[mtsidford]

Hid is the way to go. Rechargeable is the way to go. Canister is preferred so you can use a goodman handle and minimize the lighthead. The cannon light cannon is bright but bulky. A cansiter will not work on all jacket style bc's. If you use a bp&w I highly recommend the canister style. Not all hid's are created equal. They come in big/small, good enough/super bright, long/short burn time, fragile/durable, narrow beam/wide beam, good penitrating/penitrates through steel like a laser. My vote go with durable, had luck with oms and sar-tek, halcyon have blown a few bulbs on minor hits that oms and sar-tek shrugged off. I still use a oms 10w hid and a 18w Halcyon. The halcyon is the brightest, most penetrating light out there that i've seen to date both 10 and 18w when compared to dive-rite's 21 sar-teks 10 and oms 10. I've owned 2 oms lights up to know and found them to be bulletproof, very very durable in my opinion. The 18w halcyon I own and 10w my buddy owns have each broken bulbs. I'm abusive to my gear and being without my light is bad for me as I love night diving, deep diving and looking into holes. Sid