Review of XTAR MOON RC2

Then you need an appropriate tool to open it:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abudgetlightforum.com+hkj+mallet

the trick would be to open it and be able to put it back in one piece AND working.
I usually don’t hold back against my vice, a belt tool and a heatgun… but for aluminium.

I just had a terrible experience with plastic, and I’m not gonna risk it soon probably.

Son of a gun.
I moved the light halfway during the test of the runtime at high level.
I let the test finish, but the curve resulting is odd and ugly.
Now all the batteries are charging again, and by this evening I should get the new results.

However, the light is well regulated and when the high mode ends, the battery is empty. If you try to turn the light on, you get a brief flash.

looks good to me.

> when the high mode ends, the battery is empty.

So it must be a NiMH cell?

No, they say it is a 18650 2200mAh.
for all levels, when the lights drop to 0 the battery is empty and you can’t turn the light on (you get a flash).

Well, let’s hope not. That’s not the way to treat li-ions.

Maybe they mean when it won’t light up, it’s reached the cutoff and the driver has over-discharge protection.

Or maybe they mean the cell has n over-discharge protection circuit.

Or maybe …. not.

I guess we won’t know ’til someone cracks it open.

Someone will, eventually. Xtar isn’t stupid about battery protection.

Although a non-replaceable battery in a sealed throwaway light, doesn’t impress me.

But hey, I’m not their target customer.

During these runtime I found another things I don’t like about this light… It doesn’t charge fastly at all.
My XTAR usb meter says the draw is around 0.2is Amps, even with a 2.4 Amps smart charger.

“In today’s world more harm may be done by well-intentioned people trying to do good, who are unaware of the unintended consequences of their actions, than by people actually trying to cause harm.” (Peter Coleman).
So XTAR did everything it could to make sure that the well-intentioned people who use this light are not hurting others or are not hurt themselves. A mayor component that could cause damage is the battery. If I worked at XTAR, I would make sure that it was not over-charged, over-discharged, etc. I certainly would keep the charging current down to a minimum that would still result in an acceptable (better: workable) duration. Hence the not over dimensioned battery of 2,200 mAh. You want the light to be fully charged when the sun sets.
BTW: I like the review :slight_smile:

Thanks.
a 0.5A charge would be enough conservative (all recent 18650 can be charged at 1A) and fast enough.

The light still rocks.
I used attached to my shirt to lit a wall to drill holes in it.

I bought 2 of these for my brothers new barn. No electric yet and 2 of these put out a lot of light. Pretty nice lil camp/utility light and fairly cheap.

I personally own two RC2, both the gray one and the blue one. I gave one to my nephew.
Mostly, I use mine in bedroom. I love reading while lying down but the celling light really burns my eyes. RC2 is perfect for solving this problem. I prefer the low mode most. Its brightness is just right for reading with kindle before sleeping.

Hi guys, I just bought an xtar moon. I must say that it is an excellent light overall! Very nice neutral white tint. Good quality built and easy to use UI, but i found the UI setting quite awkward, It goes like this, I start with Mid > High > Mid> Low > Moonlight> Off. :open_mouth: , but still tolerable for me. Anyway, this is a must buy! :smiley:

looks good other than no removable battery.a 1a charge rate is what i would have chosen though.any modern 18650 should be fine with that.and i use stock 4056 boards in my modded lights with no issue even with laptop pulls.i want it to recover fast when i get an opportunity to plug in.even hf pucks with the oddball prismatic laptop cell are doing fine on ones i built 3 years ago.
those get stuck inside a equipment cabinet of a cnc i am repairing,run several hours,and plugged in in the truck afterwards.repeat sometimes 3 times a day with an hour or 2 in between.
a 200ma rate would suck!

I really hope in the near future they make an updated version of this with removable/replaceable battery. :smiley:

Like the new Nitecore LR30 :+1:

A job for bigclive on YouTube.

Just got one, was curious, watched the charging current of the built-in charger at initial charge. Started really low while it checked the cell, then gradually went up to 1 amp where it stayed for most of the charging, and near the end as the cell got full it gradually dropped the current to about 150 ma. Seemed just right; pretty good circuit. Useful little bug.