Xtar D01 Review. 100m waterproof dive light w/ an electrodeless magnetic switch

[RonzoTheGreat]

I'm sorry to chime in once more but needed to share some important information. I went to do the second burn test after charging both batteries and upon putting the batteries into each light, found that neither LED would turn on. I switched the batteries and even tried reversing the polarization but no luck. Also, the red paint on the finger switch has already begun to peel. To reiterate, I received the lights on Saturday, dove them on Sunday, burn tested once yesterday and tried again today. I will be sending these back to the company tomorrow unless Jake wants me to send them to another more suitable person to field test and review (since it was suggested that it was my fault they didn't work properly).

 

[The Chairman]

Damn boy... you're hard on these lights! I am splitting this thread. Gear reviews don't belong in Classifieds.

FWIW, I have tested a number of lights, and about %10 fail on or before the first dive. It's why I carry four.

 

[RonzoTheGreat]

ha ha ... im with you ... i carry a can with two more on my harness and another on the tank ... as for these posts... they were simply honest.

 

[beekeeper5]

Hey Ronzo, can you take a picture of the anatomy of the lights, the batteries you used, and the red paint peeling off?

And do you really carry 4 lights? You must light up like a christmas tree.

 

[linger]

anyone have feedback on the xtar d01 that's been fed an 18650? The little cr123's make a nice back-up option the output charts i've seen suggest an 18650 will provide a flat regulated max output for +90minutes.
My email informs me my new light is en-route ~12hours after I ordered (nicely done!), and I'm hopeful it will arrive in time to join me in Cozumel. I would like a battery heads-up from another user: I'll take a dozen cr123's as back-up for various items, but I'd like any suggestions on if it's worth taking some new 2900mah 18650's? (I know I said the d01 could be back-up, but with the beamshots i've seen I may favour it shore diving as my primary light could be a bit more expensive to run).

 

[gcbryan]

I don't have this light but in reading the reviews there seems to be some misinformation and I'll make this a rather length post for anyone who cares. The batteries used in this light aren't proprietary. Lithium primaries (CR123's) are available most places. Rechargeable li-ions are freely available online and are not proprietary either.

It's a personal preference to choose AAA's or AA's and they may be easier to get in some locations. As far as the superior battery technology that would be the lithium batteries. They have longer shelf life, are much less prone to leak, work much better in cold conditions and being lower internal resistance technology are able to deliver closer to full power constantly than alkaline technology.

The actual results is also dependent of the efficiency of the drivers used but for dive lights in the same or similar price range the drivers are likely to be similar as well.

If all of the lights are hard to turn off then this may well indeed be a design issue. It's probably better to have a light that is hard to turn off however than the reverse. If you have a battery with you somewhere you should always be able to turn a magnetic switch on.

As was mentioned by most everyone I believe you can't really tell much about dive light in a darkened room. So the only comparisons should be while actually diving. Beamshots are difficult as well for the reasons mentioned (exposure settings).

From what I can tell most of the other lights in this category mentioned use Cree XR-E leds and this light I believe uses a Cree XP-G. Therefore the lumen output claimed is consistent with the specifications of this led. The difference between the two Cree leds is that the hotspot is larger with the XP-G. The brightness of that hotspot is slightly less but for most environments the larger size would be a good compromise. The difference is brightness is not that great anyway. With the XP-G the spill would be less (since the hotspot is greater) so this would be beneficial if backscatter is an issue.

If the light is primarily to used to signal your buddy at great distance then the XR-E would have the slight advantage.

The only thing that I see that might concern me with this light as reviewed so far is the switch not turning off and whatever the problem was with one light being brighter than the other.

Regarding turning batteries around as a check...that's not a good thing to do with led based lights. It can burn out the led if the light doesn't have reverse polarity protection. So lights do with additional electronic circuitry, so with a physical barrier but some don't have this protection.

AAA alkaline batteries are some of the least efficient batteries for their size. One 18650 batteries has more power (as I recall) than a C cell alkaline (plus better overall characteristics as noted above). As led capabilities improve something other than alkaline technology needs to be used to take full advantage of that potential.

I anyone else has this light and has gone diving several times with it please post more reviews. Has anyone else had dimming problems or switch problems?

 

[gcbryan]

I don't have this light but in reading the reviews there seems to be some misinformation and I'll make this a rather lengthy post for anyone who cares. The batteries used in this light aren't proprietary. Lithium primaries (CR123's) are available most places. Rechargeable li-ions are freely available online and are not proprietary either.

It's a personal preference to choose AAA's or AA's and they may be easier to get in some locations. As far as the superior battery technology that would be the lithium batteries. They have longer shelf life, are much less prone to leak, work much better in cold conditions and being lower internal resistance technology are able to deliver closer to full power constantly than alkaline technology.

The actual results are also dependent on the efficiency of the drivers used but for dive lights in the same or similar price range the drivers are likely to be similar as well.

If all of the lights are hard to turn off then this may well indeed be a design issue. It's probably better to have a light that is hard to turn off however than the reverse. If you have a battery with you somewhere you should always be able to turn a magnetic switch on.

As was mentioned by most everyone I believe you can't really tell much about dive lights in a darkened room. So the only comparisons should be while actually diving. Beamshots are difficult as well for the reasons mentioned (exposure settings).

From what I can tell most of the other lights in this category mentioned use Cree XR-E leds and this light I believe uses a Cree XP-G. Therefore the lumen output claimed is consistent with the specifications of this led. The difference between the two Cree leds is that the hotspot is larger with the XP-G. The brightness of that hotspot is slightly less but for most environments the larger size would be a good compromise. The difference in brightness is not that great anyway. With the XP-G the spill would be less (since the hotspot is greater) so this would be beneficial if backscatter is an issue.

If the light is primarily used to signal your buddy at great distance then the XR-E would have the slight advantage.

The only thing that I see that might concern me with this light as reviewed so far is the switch not turning off and whatever the problem was with one light being brighter than the other. Otherwise the XP-G is the newer technology, is more efficient (better battery life) and has a greater lumen output.

Regarding turning batteries around as a check...that's not a good thing to do with led based lights. It can burn out the led if the light doesn't have reverse polarity protection. So lights do this with additional electronic circuitry, some with a physical barrier but some don't have this protection at all.

AAA alkaline batteries are some of the least efficient batteries for their size. One 18650 batterie has more power (as I recall) than a C cell alkaline (plus better overall characteristics as noted above). CR123s have the same benefits. As led capabilities improve something other than alkaline technology needs to be used to take full advantage of that potential.

If anyone else has this light and has gone diving several times with it please post more reviews. Has anyone else had dimming problems or switch problems?

I realize that there are good lights out there using AA batteries simply because that's what some customers are asking for so that can be a considered choice by a designer however for the most part my remarks still stand.