TobyFish(Offline)

Hi

I've been looking at the Salvo hand-held light. I wonder if it might not be a perfectly good alternative to a can-light for my style of diving. I don't cave, and I don't dive for much more than an hour.

Seems like the handheld can give me the burn-time and light output I need (10 wat hid, 135 minutes burn). It can be mounted on a goodman handle, and clipped in the same place as a standard head (is it much bigger than a 21watt head with ballast?).

Also seems like not having the can and umbilical removes some hassle and some nominal failure points.

So is there a reason why this light would not be DIR for these kind of dives?

Toby

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Digger(Offline)

It seems to me the only thing you lose is the option of ditching a light in a shit and fan situation. If it hits hard, I like to be able to signal a mate then throw the light away and get on with dealing with the problem. With an umbilical you just retrieve the light when you've done pissing about with problems, with a handheld you just threw your primary light into the abyss/silt.

Obviously I wouldn't do this in a tight area or when I'm 6" above a wreck, but then I'm usually 3 feet away from it so I can comfortably throw it away if I want.

Digs.

TobyFish(Offline)

Good points Digger. I would say though that a light canister is not the ideal ditchable weight. You have to undo your harness to get it off, and of course it's worth much more than it's weight in lead. To me it's only used as ditchable weight because you're already carrying it. Better surely to use cheap weights for this purpose if you have the choice.

The idea of using the umbilical to tether the lamp is a new one to me but makes a lot of sense. In the case of the handheld, this could be accomplished with a tether to the harness. It could even be a bit shorter than the umbilical so you could chuck it in even tighter situations.

Throwing away the light was part of what attracted me to the handheld but in a different way. Affording a can-light is one thing. affording a replacement is another. The hand-held is a whole lot cheaper than an equivalent can-light from the same manufacturer (although admittedly compared to a proteus, it's not super-cheap).

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Digger(Offline)

The Pro 3 is a nice and neat torch that I like a lot. Sorry Mr Niknaks. But it is. It's about the only nice H torch IMO (we won't go there again) but it is a nice torch. I would buy a Pro 3 over a handheld anything.

Of course the other option is to buy a really cheap handheld and then keep saving up for the umbilical and get a bigger torch later on down the line. It all depends if you're doing dives where you need a big torch right now. When cash was tight I used to dive with 2 Ikelite PC lites and not much else. We seem to have become obsessed with massive amounts of light, but actually on most dives in the UK in anything like reasonable conditions quite a cheap light is perfectly fine.

I have used my Tektite backups as primary lights on quite a few dives, half way down Chepstow, deep dives last year, and to be honest if I got my helmet out again I'd happily dive with two of those, one each side. But I think we all know helmets aren't on your shopping list

Digs.

Digger(Offline)

Not sure if you misread the ditching them bit, I don't mean ditching the canister at all. I wouldn't do that unless it was really really really bad, and even then I'd have had to broken my wing, suit and have no SMBs or liftbags left. That's just never going to happen, and if I did survive, then I'd probably die of Chlamydia the next week, in a Final Destination stylee.

Digs.

jamesp(Offline)

I find that diving without a can light makes managing the long hose a bit more of an issue. Without the can to tuck the hose under, you have to tuck it into your belt or under your knife sheath. I have never like either of these options to much. I just don't like the way the hose sits. I am just stuck in my old ways I guess.

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g-west(Offline)

For Rec Diving with a 5 feet hose it would be fine.

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jamesp(Offline)

A 5 ft hose is not a good fit for a number of us 7 ft is preferable

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Mike(Offline)

How tall are you?

Although I (1,90 m) prefer the 7" hose the 5" on the open water rig suits well.
The reason I prefer the longer hose is just that I don't like to change hoses between rec and wreck diving.

jm2p

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Igor Beades(Offline)

Hi Toby,

I think just the opposite. In many years of diving you will probably never ever need to detach the ballast. Even using a proper rigged double 15, in case of a wing crack at the middle of the dive with a dry suit you would not need to detach.

Even needing to detach, the work involved would be the same than detaching a belt... even in that case, you can pass it to your buddy and save it.

If you go for the Salvo umbilical, can open the canister, drop the contaminant battery and save the lamp and the can

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