XTAR WK50 dead soon after arrival.

So for Christmas, I received the WK50, and in under an hour of putting the battery in, it died. (started flickering, flashing, wouldn’t go into lower modes, then it outright died, total run-time less than 5 minutes)

I hadn’t even opened it up to see what I could do to mod it yet.

I made sure it was not the tail-cap switch (simple wire from battery to body), and that was not the problem.

Does anyone have any experience with xtar’s warranty service, or where I should start?

Where did you buy it? The store you bought it from should take care of warranty issues.

You can contact the dealer from whom you purchased it. Also you can contact an XTAR authorized distributor directly:

America go to either www.xtardirect.com or www.xtarusa.com or www.xtar-store.com These are three different distributors.

If not in Connecticut as in "CT" then check this post: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/28759#comment-644424

Best wishes

What batteries?

I got it as a gift, I have no clue what store it originated from. I’ll ask though.

I was using an alkaline at the time.

I haven’t been on BLF in quite a while… I have had driver failures almost exactly as you describe from when the reflector dish shorts out against the LED solder pads. IIRC “reflector short” is what BLF’ers commonly call this. I am merely speculating as to the root cause, although I do think it sounds like a driver or LED failure… not in the switch.

I would contact the retailer for an exchange, or if that doesn’t work Xtar for a repair/replacement.

Some pics of the LED slug in this thread here:
WK50 review