Review: Thrunite TH20 Headlamp - XP-L - 1xAA/14500

Funny as I was thinking about a month or two ago how I rarely read about the “tint lottery” these days. In my recollection I used to read about the tint lottery so more often about, what 5 to 8 years ago?

From Low 1.6 lumens to High 230 lumens? What just happened to the Medium…?

What a horrible mode spacing…

Variable, almost infinite output between low and high.

Oh. My bad. I skipped reading the review when I saw the specs.

This really got my interest. I’m considering getting one.

Same here. Was surprised with this feature for this price. Check out a video on youtube, I think it’s pretty sweet.

The light has pretty much infinitely variable levels due to the ramping feature. Like I said, the user interface is pretty nice. If you get one with a good emitter you'll be happy with it for a AA light.

I got two neutral ones. Both Gross green. So I modded with Nichia 219B and diffusion film. Much better.

Just got mine in Neutral tint. My ~7 year old Zebralight H501 at 80 pure flood lumens was starting to show its age. Still a great light, but its old school XRE Q5 is a bit lacking.

Amazing how technology has advanced. TH20 is impressive, so much light from a single eneloop. I think I got lucky on the tint lotto. My only other light thats neutral (5000K) is an older Fenix LD25. My TH20 tint is very close to that at the 250L setting. Every Cree LED after the XRE I have found to have a pronounced tint shift when under driven. So I am willing to bet when my 14500 cells get here and I can drive the XPL harder, the TH20 will whiten up at the brighter settings.

Anyone have any impressions using Energizer 1.7V lithiums?

thanks!!

Someone point me to a tutorial and where to get parts to swap this pee green time led with a Nichia 219b!

I described how I swapped the led here:

A 219B, I guess a high CRI one of 4000K/4500K, can be found at Mountain Electronics, i.e. this one:
http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_94&product_id=742
Or look around here:
http://kaidomain.com/c/379.DIY-Flashlight-LED-Emitters

I haven't checked this thread since the week I wrote the review after being criticized so heavily for noting that the emitter was green by the schills of the world. I feel at least a little bit vindicated to know that I am not the only one who received a tint-bin-reject emitter.

ThruNite did not complain about the review at all---in fact, they liked it and have asked me to do several since then, but I really don't have time to do them. I just needed to do at least one "sponsored" review to get it out of my system.

------

Anyhow, I would go with the 4000K 219C 90+ CRI at this point---higher flux bin, lower vF.

Will that be able to go to the max 540 lumens? I thought Nichias don’t have very high output?

Ya for the life of me how does a flashlight screw up the specifications for dimensions so that ALL batteries in the specified type fit.

I truly don’t see how a MFG screws up what must be light design 101.

And as a tint snob one hopes that MFGs will respond to someone other then accounting, but we can keep hoping.

BTW love my H’2 don’t know why the killed it. Put a Nichia in there and its a great reading light.

No. It won’t. I have nothing to measure it either but the nice tint is worth it for me. The nasty green tint wasn’t acceptable.

No. It won’t. I have nothing to measure it either but the nice tint is worth it for me. The nasty green tint wasn’t acceptable.

Apologies for digging up dead discussions, but I am trying to get some clarity on what 14500 cells my TH20 will accept before ordering them.

I found it odd that stephenk reported a 52.7mm long cell fitting when you show a shorter 52.5mm cell protruding from the tube. That didn’t particularly make sense initially, but I may have thought of an explanation.

RMM, were you making your determination of 14500 cells not fitting the TH20 on the basis of the cell protruding from the tube?

That’s a reasonable assumption to make, but I just looked closely at the tail cap of mine to find that there does appear to be a significant amount of recessed space that could accommodate a cell protruding out of the tube. To my eye, it looks like there’s at least 4mm between the bottom of the tail-cap’s threads and the endplate, of which less than 2mm would be taken up by the spring when fully compressed.

Unfortunately I don’t have any cells that protrude from the tube to test it, but the design of my tailcap and tube interface certainly looks like there’s space to accommodate some protrusion.

I’m wondering if maybe you overlooked that aspect of the tailcap and assumed a protruding cell meant it doesn’t fit without trying to seal the tailcap? Or maybe they re-designed the tailcap to accommodate longer 14500 cells and you have an older version?

Thanks for any thoughts you can share

I believe that there are probably some small variations in the tube + driver overall lengths. Even a few tenths of a millimeter make a difference. It is completely possible that other copies of the same headlamp would fit the same batteries that didn't fit in my light.

The cells did not function in the light. The way that the tailcap and body threads are anodized the tailcap needs to bottom out completely to make a good connection, so it can't be loose and still function correctly.

The tail cap is anodised, so has to be fully screwed on to work (I slightly unscrew it to lock out the light when not in use). I’ve been using the TH20 NW for over a year with the 52.7mm Keeppower 840mAh protected with no issues. Still one of my favourite headlamps.

Interesting, thanks for the feedback guys. I am still a bit puzzled though, so I have a few follow-up questions.

stephenk, does your 52.7mm cell protrude beyond the tube of your headlamp?

RMM, does your tailcap look like this?

Apologies for the shitty picture, but as you can hopefully see, mine has the non-anodized rim that is raised from the endplate of the tailcap (with the wire base of the spring tucked into that space). So with the tailcap fully seated so that the non-anodized rim touches the non-anodized rear of the tube to make a proper connection, and the spring fully compressed, there should still be a recessed space in the tailcap at least the width of that non-anodized rim in the tailcap.

So it looks like mine should be able to accommodate a cell that protrudes at least a 1mm beyond the tube, by my eye. Does that make sense?

Yes, mine looks like that as well.