This is a subject matter (diving and lights of course) that I do find interesting and do have a decent amount of experience with since I’m into diving and fortunate to live where deeper ocean diving is possible on a daily basis if I so chose (and I so chose for quite a while)
Ecig, I don’t personally regard the W200 as being anything but rock solid. Some people have had a few problems which is the case with anything from DX and probably with anything in general.
Some of the people who had problems with the W200 did so after taking it apart. It’s not designed for that. The way the front is put together works well but if you pop the o-ring out and scratch it and then put everything back together it could leak.
That’s not a problem with the design of the light. I have two of them and did take one apart to play around with (modifying).
Although it’s possible that someone could have gotten a bad one. Most of the issues of that light leaking only came after everyone starting buying that light to modify. I think most of the issues were caused by trying to modify it. The o-ring in question in that case is a press fit from the front on top of the front glass lens. It’s what keeps it in. It’s a different design from most lights.
Foy, that looks like a good light. There are several designs out there that look like a good light and they may be. They only way that I consider them to be good for diving is if a lot of divers bought them and went diving with them over a period of time and there was no major problem with leaking.
There aren’t many reviews of most lights since the model that I have. Since there aren’t many (in some cases any) reviews when there are leaks it’s hard to know if it’s a common problem or just an isolated one.
If these lights were being made by the usual dive light manufacturers I’d assume a good looking design was probably a good dive light.
That’s not the case however. The people making these lights aren’t divers and don’t really know anything about diving.
The guy who originally designed the light that you have is a diver however he didn’t manufacture that light so …who knows?
There are several models of that light however in various configurations. For my purposes it’s not a backup light (too bulky) and unless it can take two 18650 it doesn’t have enough power for two consecutive dives (which is common).
I don’t know why he designed it with all those cooling fins with their sharp edges. He was more interested in cave diving and may have also wanted them to burn brightly while out of the water as well (I don’t know for sure).
Ecig, regarding diving headlamps…ugh!
I absolutely hate it when a dive buddy wears any kind of light on his head to the point of just not preferring to dive with people like that.
Every time someone like that looks my way that means his light is shining in my face! The same goes from people who decide to wear a flashing strobe on their tank or somewhere on their body to supposedly help someone locate them!
It’s annoying!
Oh, regarding extra o-rings for the Magicshine light…it comes with several extras. Some people were talking about getting something harder than the silicone ones that come with it.
I don’t think that’s necessary. If you want to do it fine but I have hundreds of dives on mine with no problem.
You know how this goes…people like to mess with/change whatever it is that they buy. Sometime/often they cause the problem that they are complaining about.
I think there are plenty of examples of that right here at BLF.
I’m not immune either.