Are these OTR M3 runtimes normal?

Hello Everyone,

I have been lurking on the forums for a while and recently purchased my first real light, an on the road M3. I usually use the light on the second lowest setting which the specification claims outputs ~110 lumens. Since the manufacturer claims that the light can run for 60 hours on its lowest setting I assumed (even with the naturally exaggerated claims) that I would at least be able to get 5 hours out of the second lowest setting. However upon testing the light with the provided 16340 (I ordered the full pack with the charger and battery) I get less than two hours on the second setting. Is this normal, or is it possible that I have a defective light/battery? Any help would be much appreciated.

Welcome to BLF!

Is that the yellow 700mAh cell?

Yeah, it’s the yellow OTR cell that comes with the M3. I have charged it twice and done runtime tests achieving about 2 hours each time.

Two hours is what the manufacturer claims:

Ah, not sure how I missed that! Thanks for the quick response. I didn’t realize that runtime would be so low at 150 lumens :(. From what I’m reading it seems like similar runtimes at 100 LM can be gotten out of a single AA. Given the availability and price of those maybe I should have opted for an AA light (though I quite like the warm tint of the 5C M3). If my goal is maximizing runtime at ~100 lumens (ideally with a warm ~4000K tint) what kind of battery light should I be looking at?

The M3’s battery has 700mAh*3.7V=2.59Wh of energy, while a AA Eneloop has 2,000mAh*1.2V=2.4Wh of energy, so there isn’t much between the two battery types.

Thrunite’s Archer 1A V3 has a 75 lumen mode rated at 5 hours of run time, so maybe look into that light in neutral white?
http://www.thrunite.com/thrunite-archer-1a-v3/

Edit: Or the Archer 2A V3 for 11 rated hours at 75 lumens with 2 AAs:

Measured a yellow On The Road 16340 cell stating 700mAh and seeing 721mAh on th screen now
But I see it is sorted alerady, yay to BLF!

the 5C tint of this light is my favorite tint of all!

Thanks for the suggestions. One of the main reasons I picked this light was because of the tint. I can’t stand white lights. Unfortunately most budget lights that I’ve seen beam shots of (even the thrunite “neutral white” ones) tend to be on the whiter side :(. If anyone has suggestions for cheap warm AA lights I would love to hear them :slight_smile: (I already have an Astrolux A01).