I carry a backup like the D26 on EVERY dive. They are great to look under ledges and such.
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I'm not a fan of the D26 only because finding quality 26650 batteries is very difficult. I refuse to allow any battery with "fire" in the name in my house or anywhere near anything important, and there aren't a lot of 26650's out there without "fire" in the name.
I'll stick to 18650's and know that i'm using quality cells and sacrifice some burn time. An hour on high is more than enough for most diving and anything that I need significantly more burn time for will use a canister
Follow-up: I tested all 4 of my Soshine 26650 batteries that are about 7 months old. The lowest one still tested over 5100mAh. The highest was about 5250. I am still very happy with these batteries. Especially at $25 for 4.
Soshine 5500mAh 26650 batteries are abundant on eBay. And cheap. Around $25 for 4. Mine have tested around 5300mAh in my Opus charger/tester. I got them at the beginning of last July and they still work just fine.
I just ordered some more today for my new video lights.
4x Soshine 5500mAh 3.7V 26650 Li-ion Rechargeable Battery PCB Protection US G5I3 | eBay
I'll test these when they arrive to make sure they are also good.
I don't know any names either, but considering the way that so much stuff comes out of China with "Genuine CREE", when CREE doesn't seem to be aware of that production, and the way that so many LED lights in general seem to have lives very much shorter than the 50,000 hour norms, I wouldn't be surprised. Of course compared to mattress companies, all the dive light & equipment makers are upright, honest, and trustworthy.(G)
Thomas Dolby if memory serves me correct. ... Yup. Google confirmed it.Wasn't it the Talking Heads who sang "They Blinded Me With Science!" ? Yeah, that's lumens.