XTAR NEW D26 1600 Diving flashlight

a review brought to you by Scuba\Freediver enjoying night and day diving doing lots of spearfishing and photography so don't expect lots of numbers in this review
For the last two years xtar d26 1000 lumens was my perfect light. it had the perfect balance between power and runtime but there were times when I wished for more power...

Once the pumped d26 version was released it seemed logical to get my hands on one!!
The new d26 has Cree XHP35-HI D4 LED which gives 1600 lumen with 2:30 hours runtime





The first thing you notice when you hold the flashlight is the attractive blue ring with the same quality build and size as the previous popular d26.. as for people aren't familiar with the d26 here are quickspecs:


• Magnetic Press Switch & Battery Indicator
• 55° lighting beam
• Dual-layer Anti-corrosive material
• Waterproof IPX8 (Underwater 100 meters)
• Gold printed & Dual springs
• Reverse polarity protection, Intelligent temperature control
• Tripod screw hole (could be used in diving handle or photography)
• 26650 5200mAh Battery

The other thing you notice beside the attractive ring is the button switch as they removed the old rotatory lock... which honestly gave me hard time when spearfishing (missed many shots) as sometimes the lock engages by its self after rubbing against your body or other equipment… they put a new way to lock ur flash, so it doesn't turn on accidentally in you gear bag which will happen more than you think 😉. press the switch 4 seconds to lock and press switch 3 times fast to unlock...

when you turn on the flash to play with (on land) its 1600 led will generate more heat faster than previous model you will see that the light indicator will turn red after few mints... apparently they included some sort of temperature control by reducing power which is helpful when u need to use your light before jumping in water in night diving..


Here is some photos comparing the 3 Xtar Models i own.. D26 1600, D26 100, D08 2000









I took two photos of both d26 lightning side by side to give a general idea on their power difference...






you can clearly notice the new 1600 (Left) Is brighter more focused with cooler tone.
while in the second photo I captured only the focus beam (Center) of both flashes to give you more idea of their lighting



My Final thoughts
if you're free diver\spearfishing you will love the 1600 lumen in day diving to light holes more efficiently and from farther distance.. and if you're driving at night it will help you a lot to see deeper or in murky water but be careful with the run time it's just 2:30 hours so consider alternate lighting modes and use the lower 650lm mode to get more time.
if you're Scuba\technical diver you will just love this light it's just perfect as main or backup light.


Package content..



Hope this review will be helpful to fellow divers out there.. and i'll try to make diving video comparison with various diving conditions...

Howdy,

I'm new here but active on ScubaBoard under the same user name.

I have been a long time, big fan of the original Xtar D26 Whale light, so I bought a D26 1600 as soon as they came out and wanted to pass along my experience.

If you search for xtar d26 1600 on SB, you will find a 6 page thread on this light.

It is definitely brighter and tighter than the Whale. That is great. I think the new push button with the electronic lock versus a mechanical lock is also a big improvement.

But, I and some other folks over on SB have run into 2 serious issues with our lights.

1) The light seems to have significant discharge if left turned off, with the battery in it.

2) The red "low battery" LED indicator seems to come on when the battery is barely discharged any at all. And, once the battery has been used for more than a few minutes, it seems that the light won't even turn on anymore. The red LED just flashes a few times and that's it.

These are problems I have had myself, as well as others reporting similar issues. I have a pile of Soshine 26650 batteries that I use with my lights as well as an Opus battery tester/charger and an Xtar Dragon tester/charger. The results I have gotten have been with several different batteries all of which test good and show fully charged on both my testers. In other words, the problems are not coming from using bad batteries.

I reached out to Xtar about my issues a couple of months ago. They acknowledged both issues and said that they had a new and improved spring, which I believe was supposed to fix the self-discharge issue. And they told me they already had a new design for the circuit board in the light that they were putting into new production.

They offered to send me an updated spring, but I want a light that has both issues fixed. They asked me to send them this light back and then they would send me a new one.

I went to USPS today and was quoted USD$23 to ship this light back to China. That makes no sense, to me, to spend that much money to return a defective light that only cost $75 (when I bought it - it appears they've gone up since then). So, I have emailed Xtar back and explained the situation. Now I'm waiting to see what they will do. Hopefully, they will just send me a new light and the new light will work like it should - as reliably as the Whale does. I have 2 of those and they have been solid as a rock for something like 2 years or so now.

In the meantime, caveat emptor. It's a great light - when it works. But, do your research before you decide to spend the money on one. Hopefully, their updates have really fixed it and current production is solid. And, hopefully, I will get to experience that for myself!

A follow-up.

Xtar sent me a new D26 1600 to replace my original. I conducted some tests on it over the last day and I feel like the light is fixed in all respects. I am looking forward to diving it now.

[FONT=&quot]The light sat for roughly 24 hours with a battery (a Soshine 26650, rated for 5500mAh and tested to be 5200 - 5300) in it. The battery was still fully charged (I checked the voltage).[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I put it in a bowl of water and left it turned on in Turbo mode (its brightest setting).[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]After 1 hour, it still appeared just as bright. The LED was green. I turned it off for a minute or so and then turned it back on. Same brightness. LED still green.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]After 1.5 hours, the light didn't seem as bright as earlier, but it was still bright. And, it's really hard to say if the light was less bright or if the room had gotten brighter. I didn't really do anything to try and quantify the brightness. LED was still green.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]After 2 hours, the LED was still green. It only seemed like it was around 1/2 as bright as original. I turned the light off for about 2 minutes then turned it back on. It turned on, but the LED immediately went to solid red.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]After 2:15, the LED was still solid red and the light was still only about 1/2 brightness. I turned it off, thinking "experiment over". But, when I pressed the button to turn it off (accomplished by press-and-hold for about 2 seconds), I noticed that the light got really bright when I pressed the button. I turned it back on and it appeared to be back at full brightness. The LED started flashing red. I put it back in the water. It turned itself off after another 2 minutes or so.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]My conclusion is that when the battery gets low, the light doesn't just get dim - I believe it switches itself to a lower brightness setting automatically (accomplished by a normal press-and-release on the power button). But, the brighter settings are still available, if you want it and don't mind killing the battery that much more quickly.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Getting over 2 hours of burn time with the light running in its full 1600 lumen mode is way more than adequate for my needs.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Oh, and one other thing I noticed while playing with it: The first version worked slightly different for locking and unlocking the light. I think the directions for the first version say that, to unlock it, you press the power button 3 times quickly. With this one, to unlock it you just press and hold the power button for a few seconds. To lock it, the light has to be on and then you press and hold the power button until it turns off, you keep holding it for a few more seconds, and the LED will flash like 3 times or something. Once it's locked, you can't turned it on except by unlocking it as described.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I'm not sure I like this way of unlocking. My purpose in locking it is to ensure it doesn't turn on by accident and run down the battery when I'm not using it. I was pretty confident that a locked light would not accidentally get 3 quick presses. It seems a lot more feasible that it would get one long accidental press.[/FONT]