[review] Wurkkos DL40 diving light

I am a diver (and a fly fishing addict). The first rule in (both) these endeavors is to have everything strapped to your vest (or your “BCD” in diving- same thing). There is too much going on (over or under) water to test fate and a wrist strapped light isn’t an option diving. You indeed have a lot of hoses and stuff that has to be clear for safe use— so the light needs to be tethered and stowed out of the way until you are “down”.

We used my SD02 last December on a night dive. I borrowed my fly fishing tether to connect the light where if it got loose (and it did)- it dangled until you got hold of it. I probably would have lost that light without it being tethered to my BCD that dive. Just dropping out of the boat involves some stress on gear and you often have to “adjust” things after dropping in.

Oh, and the SD02 also has ONE (wide) tail notch which allows for a larger clip- a good thing for diving as I can see using a thicker tether and clip that my fly rig I borrowed has. Thankfully, it held the light and I didn’t have a hard “yank”. But I do recall coming out of the water and having the light dangling as it didn’t stay stowed under my BCD when I took it off to climb the boat latter.

Easier to grip. Lotta people don’t like sody-pop can lights for that reason. Mmm, yeah, okay, I can see that. I don’t mind either format.

It’s as waterproof as Hell, though.

Double O-rings everywhere. (My Q8’s single painfully-thin rubberband has this nasty tendency to stick out like a tongue, mocking me, that I have to tighten the head ¼-turn at a time while repeatedly tucking that “tongue” back in.)

Plus, no through-hole for any further potential water-ingress.

Nice “club-friendly” format like an old-timey Mag.

True, no niceties like the Q8’s UI, but it’s simplicity itself. If you’re underwater and trying to escape the Octopus People, you don’t want to light it up in moonlight then get into battery-check mode. Just click-click-click to whatever brightness you want.

Yeh, probably why a lot of those lights have that hourglass shape, too. Could wrap a thicker tether around the middle and not have it slide off.

My dive master on that dive had a simple, small light. He used it to point stuff out and to my surprise… he used strobing as a “gather” signal. Wow… strobing HAS a use after-all :stuck_out_tongue:

A lot of diving is hand signal based for communication under water. But when it’s dark and visibility drops to nothing (at least if not in a light’s beam)… strobing REALLY is a useful feature . Even with 10 or so divers (each with a light— so beams everywhere coming from a group spread out maybe 50-75 yards.)… we ALL easily saw that strobe.

This was especially good as another dive group “dropped” into our dive when we were about done. So with about 20 divers suddenly in the same locale, we 10 divers knew where our dive master was and were able to group-up (without confusion) for our accent.

Cool little tools and BTW that light went down to about 80 ft. And had zero leaks- another great Sofirn ligh!

Funny point on the hourglass design… reminded me of my days on the ranches I grew up on in Texas and New Mexico. When learning about saddle ediqate (at about 14 years old when working on horses became a serious endeavor)… you had to “strap” everything onto the saddle somewhere. Sounds simple in theory, but when you did it wrong you learned the hard way. You’d often lose it, or have it flailing about, or even have it under your crotch at the worst of times! It was truly an art in and of itself to figure out the “pack” for whatever time/trip you had ahead of you for the day. And the shape of whatever you were packing definitely helped so one tie could hold it.

I remember rounding up 2k sheep off about 5000 acre pastures in NM back then. You definately learned to pack a light load for that long, fast run. The last “pressing” of the sheep could have you doing 180 degree jumping turns with everything flailing about and no time to stop and pick anything up. Had to keep the pressure on the herd and stop for nothing until you got the sheep through that final gate into the pen (with much cursing involved). Of course, the next day was more work (shearing, or marking the animals), but we were usually glad to get off the horse and use our own legs :smiley:

I have the DL40 and I love it. Let me first say that I took even Wurkkos’ non-diving lights under water for extended periods of time and they held up 100%. The DL40 is in my opinion the better Sofirn SP36 - the very same light color and pattern, a bit bigger reflector and the awesomeness of a baton-style light. If you can do without the deeper functions of Anduril and a million blinky modes you might prefer the DL40. It is just so much better to handle for longer periods of time. The movement of the very prominent magnetic switch is enjoyable in its mechanic nature. The build is massive but not overly heavy. This is the light I would take on a trip near the water. It covers land and sea use perfectly.

In fact I plan to take my Kayak to one of our beautiful rivers and stay overnight:

I will take 1x high powered light with good runtime and I dont see any better option than the DL40.

Here is my review:

Outdoorshots at 8:50

BTW Wurkkos also has the WK20 in warm white which is more than nice underwater. I have two of those on my camera rig and the light color is just…mhm…

Awesome, thanks for sharing!

Oh, and did I mention that the DL40 is one of the lights I would hand to anyone and never worry that their lack of deep flashlight expertise might plunge them into some sort of desparation? A mechanical lockout that looks like the light stopped working. Or a blinky mode that just seems to happen and causes them a seizure before the can blink. The DL40 is a light that you can use when under stress and without your usual motor skills. There is a lot to be said about simple, rugged lights…

Markus, excellent video review. Thanks for posting it here. I got a kick out of your t-shirt. I work down the road from Corona, CA. Although I know your reference was toward the Corona virus, still cool to see you with that shirt; Small world.

Yup, there is something special about carrying a solid flashlight. It’s like a chunk of steel that shoots out massive light. I could build a man cave around this thing. LOL

Thank you! I ordered that T-shirt before the lock-down here in Austria. It got more expensive a few days later. I like that it refers to a place in California. I’d love to go to CA this year as well but my job in the medical won’t allow, it is not reasonable.

Aha, I did miss that one. Interesting underwater critters, too! Didn’t expect to see a cuttlefish. :laughing:

Yeh, got one, awesome light!

Yep, I mentioned that the UI is “simplicity itself”, and it is. No crazy modes to get trapped in, just on/off and modes. Only thing simpler would be a 1-mode on/off-only light.

Hello, can you please tell me what is the outer diameter and thickness of the rubber rings on the Wurkkos DL40 flashlight tube? Thank you.

DL70 is $50 now. Is it any better?

Yoiks… I’d have to find it.

That might be the one I let someone “borrow” a coupla years ago. I know it was a diving light, but forgot which one.

I’d just pop one off and measure it as best I could.

Unno. “Better” is relative.

Are the Wurkkos 26650 batteries good for the Wurkkos DL40 or other Wurkkos flashlights? Is it better to replace them with Liitokala batteries with a neodymium magnet between them for contact?

Owned a Wurkkos DL70 for a short period of time. IMHO there is nothing wrong with those batteries.
Personally I would not use a magnet in/around a DL40/DL70 because the switch is operated by a magnet.

Fooey. I use the Sofirn/Wurkkos cells on the daily. Nothing wrong with them. They’ve held up as far as capacity, etc., and I haven’t had any major problems with 'em.

Using hotrod cells is fine if you like to play the numbers game, ie, run 'em hotter for like 2% more light that no one could tell any visual difference even doing an a/b test, let alone trying to tell any difference by swapping cells.

Thank you, but are Wurkkos batteries protected? I saw a video on YouTube where one person said they are protected. I can order batteries from Panasonic made in Japan (green ones), without protection, but although they say 5000mAh, in fact tests showed ~5500mAh. Which ones would be better? Thank you.