Ask Joe & Larry

What is an HID Light?

HID stands for High-Intensity Discharge. You've probably seen a HID light before.. They are those really white bright lights that the new Lexus have - or other equally expensive cars. They use them because they cut through the night and give you unparalleled visibility.

Divers have recently been looking for a HID dive light.. but the only way you could get one was with very expensive canister lights - or by driving your Lexus into the lake.

Now, however, Underwater Kinetics has come out with a hand held HID light called a Light Cannon. This is a 25 watt light.. but since it uses the HID technology - it only uses battery power like a 10 watt light would! This gives you longer time with a brighter light.

Just saying it is brighter, however, would be doing this new light an injustice. The other real advantage is that the light is much whiter than any other normal dive lights. This gives us two benefits; The beam pierces through the darkness farther - and also, the colors are more vivid when viewed with this light. It's color temperature (that is how the whiteness of lights are measured) is closer to the same as the sun than any other light. It has a 6000 degree K color temperature and 450 lumens.

The bulb is also much tougher than the conventional bulbs because there is no filament to burn out. Normal bulbs have a burn life of approximately 25 hours.. the HID - 1000 hours.

There are other safety features built into this light like a locking on-off switch and a thermostat shutdown circuit for overheating. It also has a fuse protected, polarized battery chamber and isolated electronics.

Really the only draw back to this light is your buddies will be pissed off at you for having a better light than them.. and it costs a bit more than other lights.. but when you look at the brightness and bulb life - it's not hard to justify.


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