Tm 9k disappointment

Who thinks that the Nitecore tm9k should have a exchangeable battery? I don’t understand why the most vital and fragile part of flashlights is proprietary with so many lights. Without this I would definitely get the tm9k, but the proprietary battery is impossible to trust. ?? Thoughts ??

"Proprietary" is a four letter word in my book.

If possible, I avoid products that have unnecessarily proprietary components.

I agree. It might be a great light, but if I can’t easily pop in another cell, I won’t trust it for any kind of serious use.

I get to post yet again on this issue, because there is a new topic for this issue. Yay!

Recent quote from me from one of the several other several threads where this is being discussed:

"The question then becomes: Why do manufacturers market lights with built in batteries, when they know that a segment of the flashlight world will be alienated by that?

Is it a marketing or technical reason? The masses who want to charge in-light, without having to handle the battery? Or maybe to have less electrical resistance at the battery contact points? Or a combination of these two reasons?

Maybe they can offer the product both ways, similar to how the Smith and Wesson Shield is available both with or without thumb safety."

Well, anyway, Nitecore stated that the battery needs to have soldered connections, due to very high amp draw, in order to achieve max spec lumens.

Also, even though Nitecore markets tactical lights to professional people, too many people select the wrong cell.

My thought: After two years, when the warranty expires, I can seek the services of a professional flashlight expert who can jailbreak and replace the cell.

My favorite supplier ordered this light for me, no word yet on when it is materializing.

Recent quote from Nitecore: "Yes, of course when the specifications first came to us in the marketing department, naturally our first question was, why did they not make the battery replaceable/removable for alternative charging methods? The reasoning behind it was that after lots of test, the only way to achieve the >9000 lumen mark with a single 21700 is to basically solder the battery ends to the leads of the flashlight. (No flimsy spring connectors in the TM9K) This way you have a thick enough/strong enough connection that can basically handle the high current draw required to power the >9000 turbo."

Recent quote from me: "9,500 lumens, 1.47 inch head diameter, 218grams, 7.69 oz: Omg, How? What?

Nitecore TM9K 9 x XP-L single 21700."

Basically, the gist of it is that Nitecore did not want to do the R&D for very high power contacts, and take the risks of people using aftermarket cells that are not up to the task.

That 1st one is justifiable(not liking it still), but that 2nd one is just darn stupid.

If they were really concerned about this, they would’ve used a more capable cell in the 1st place, rather than using a 10A cell in a device that can pull north of 30A.

They used a 10 amp cell? Is that even safe??

Yes, which is why Nitecore only allows for very short turbo bursts.

Hence why Apple phones will never be in this house.

Okay. Well I think it is mostly bull. Soldering doesn’t improve electro conductivity, it just keeps the conection from failing. And if it is soldered with normal zinc, it will indeed melt at 30 amps, so not sure how that’s even physically possible.

I can say the tripple output of my X80GT is awesome, 27 thousand guaranteed lumens with some units at over 32000 is very nice, mine eats its batteries and I only use the Acebeam cells as anything else, even the root sony vtc6 are garbage and won’t work. I read about a sony vtc6 grouping of 4 that had 2 cells break in the x80gt.

However I still require exchanging of batteries. Even the 21700 will die or be killable within a half hour of use if you intermittently use max output. This means changing for 3 hours for every 30 minutes of use.

But the size of this flashlight is smaller than having tailcap. More and more flashlights are getting rid of tailcap due to the threading causing the cap to be wider than nessicar as well as connection issues with the cell from a lose tailcap that’s over-anodized and can not be tightened.

I’d like to see them offer at least a 8k version that costs more money if nessicary and comes with their original solution to the problem.

YEARS AGO: Nitecore released the tm03, a tiny proprietary-cell light that had a secret protected cell that ran the light at over 2000 lumens off a 18650, a competative light even today. WHY NOT DO THE SAME THING, THAT. That is my question.
Just do the tm03 in 21700 form with the big huge battery.

I’ve done the math. It shouldn’t be that hard to get 9000 or at least 8000 OTF lumens with the NEW: 3Volt xhp50.2 from CREE, after all the 3 volts makes it easy to run 9 led at the 1000 lumens from basically 30 amps times 3.0 volts, which is about 90 watts. At 180 lumens per watt, what CREE advertised for the light for November 2019 advertisements, that’s 180x90 or less than 16200 lumens.

Which is actually nearly double that, but from amperage sink (true voltage 4.2 boosting down to 3.0, but then that amps causing 30% less power) you lose a lot maybe 30, that’s 10000, also minus the optics for 5, so 9500, and other losses.

It shouldn’t be this hard to reach 8 or 9,000. The new xhp50.2 with 3 volts solves the previous voltage sink issues which resulted in more like a 50% loss in power from boosting voltage up from 3.0 to 6.0.

I’d like to see other companies compete here. Even 18650 lights should get 4k from the new LED.

Interesting topic. I think we all felt the same way when the cell phone manufacturers started going to non-removable batteries. It’s common place now and I don’t miss the removable batteries. I am retired LE and was issued a Pelican flashlight. Of course the pelican was nowhere near as powerful as the TM9K but I never had the need to replace the Battery/flashlight in the 4-5 years that I used it. I will most likely purchase the TM9K. One of the things that is attractive about the light is the convenience of not having to remove the batteries and separately charge them.

It 100% does, electrocal conductivity is completely affected by the cross sectional area of the conductor.
When you have a spring or rounded bump contacting the flat end of a battery you get a fraction of a square mm of contact.
Which is why people who do high current mods often put a large flat piece of copper on the end of their springs, usually lapped.

The two posts above this post are very interesting, pointing out the advantages of non-removable batteries. I have tons of flashlights with removable batteries, I get to take them out, individually charge them, individually see what their volts and amps are, all the good groovy stuff. However there are a few advantages of having non-removable batteries. I was just playing with my TM9K last night, and I really like the light a lot. It is different, it is a stand out in the field, I applaud nightcore for coming out with it. I hope that nightcore sold more than a few of them to a lot of happy people. I have tons of lights that have lots of amp draw, where voltage drop is critical, with the rounded spring contacts on the terminals on the batteries, and I had previously posed the question about rounded contacts having very little surface area for contact, but I never got cogent replies to those questions.

I believe it has a solid 1.5mm pin directly “discharge welded”(not soldered) to the positive terminal that goes straight up into the circuit board, then soldered into the circuit board. Then a plate or ring is welded to the negative terminal and then it’s welded to the housing which in turn, the housing is directly soldered to the circuit board’s negative….

But yeah, it’s a bummer… I was about to purchase before I discovered the non-remove able battery. :frowning:

ya i usually try to avoid things that are only proprietary. i dont like things that dont play nice with others. once u get sucked into their ecosystem, rip wallet