single 18650 + XHP70: nitecore TM03

+1

That was funny!

for the most part yes, attention getter. but it also act as a self defense tool for me. and since this light has a secondary switch for easy access for instant strobe, i see this as a good self defense light.
i train in the full contact combat art called krav maga, and they teach us how to fight with a flashlight.
and the strobe actually helps a bit. at first, we thought just a blast on turbo mode would do the exact same thing, but no, strobe was more effective. its more disorienting that a constant bright light.

I got my Tiny Monster today. Really like the overall look, something about a mega deep reflector just works for me. :slight_smile:

No pocket clip, no lanyard. The picture on the box shows a pocket clip on the light, oh well. No papers either, which is odd, as I know for a fact that Nitecore puts a brochure of their line-up in the package and has a warranty card as well as a User Manual. I know this because I just got the Nitecore MH20GT yesterday. :wink:

At any rate, really like the light, got the cell charging, will look into opening it up and defeating the proprietary measures after Iā€™ve gotten some readings from it in box stock form. Looks like the battery tube/head is all one piece, so the access will have to come from up top through the bezel.

Will let ya know how all that goesā€¦

Freshly charged TM03 cell, lightbox says thisā€¦

55.65 Lumens
662.4
1593.9
3091.2

Now to solder the proprietary top cap onto an Efest 3500mAh cell. :wink: (this proprietary bit taken off the Panasonic PF I bought before the light got here.)

Thanks for the measurements. Assuming the reflector/lens is 83% efficient, that is 3724 LED lumens. Estimating from djozzā€™s graph, that is about 5A through the emitter. Is this the most powerful 6V boost circuit in a stock flashlight?

Ever once in a while, a leading manufacturer gets it. They listen. Sometimes they even do it without a bunch of hoopla or fanfare. Nitecore is one of those companies. They have been quietly listening in the background and then they put it to work.

And when I see this, inside a light, I get it. And I put it back together and leave it alone. :smiley:

Cree XHP-70 on a proprietary strip of copper, soldered to a thick copper threaded heat sink and powered by 14ga wires. WoooooHoooo! :smiley: The copper sink looks to be about a quarter inch thick. Love it!

My Efest 3500 18650 is a success, 3129.15 lumens with as much run time as can be had from a single 18650 cell. Booya!

nice

can you explain your cell mod?

+1 Iā€™m interested in your cell mod too please!!!

I bought a Nitecore TM03 proprietary cell while waiting for the TM03 to arrive. With all the speculation I just had to unwrap it and see what they did to make it proprietary. There is a circuit board they put on top of the cell, a Panasonic PF, that has a ground ring around the button top. The ground ring has two copper strips running the length of the cell and welded to the bottom of the cell. Then there is a metal disc with yet another copper strip on top of an insulation disc (cardboard) at the end of the cell covering the previous two copper strips. This last ground strip comes back up to the circuit board on top, soldered to the board independent of the main ground leads.

Removing all this from the PF cell I soldered it onto a new Efest 3500mAh dark purple cell that is rated as 10A continuous, 20A pulse, or essentially slightly better current capability than the PF cell and some 600mAh more capacity (PF is 2900mAh) Then I rewrapped the combination with covers given with cell purchases from IMRbatteries.com in Houston. Works just like the factory cell but with a better cell inside. :slight_smile:

(Iā€™ll use the PF cell elsewhere.)

I intended to see what could be done about bypassing this proprietary set-up and allowing use of a normal cell, but when I saw how well made the light was inside I simply put it back together. Probably later Iā€™ll remove the insides and figure out what to do to use normal cells. I donā€™t really worry about having the protection circuit and thatā€™s mainly all that circuit board adds.

Is the code still available please?

I should have checked to see if that white goo in the threads of the copper sink is thermal paste or adhesive, but I didnā€™t. Of course I have that to do, right? lol

By chance, did you measure lumens on strobe mode stock form? Iā€™m impressed with the stock nitecore battery. So a efest cell only gave less than a 100 lumen gain.

I donā€™t measure strobe because itā€™s always going to be wrong. The meter will try to average the output and show a much lower number than what the actual flash was.

The Efest cell gave a little boost but 600mAh capacity, which was the point. I could have used a 3000mAh cell for more lumens but chose capacity over output.

Iā€™ll try the stock cell with strobe and see what it says, I donā€™t put much faith in itā€™s accuracy though. (Letā€™s face it, on most of our direct drivers the light is pulsed with PWM using full Turbo power to create a low mode, we only see low output, right? The pulse is full Turbo power, which is why this DD isnā€™t considered efficient.)

As usual, strobe showed a wildly fluctuating meter reading with the highest number I saw at 486 lumens. This only means that the combination of off time and on time averaged 486 lumens, like a PWM mode.

ok thanks, i got all similiar readings.
i forget, were you gonna try in experiment other mods to this light? like change the driver?

looks nice, but those short run times donā€™t serve much purpose other than a short-term emergency momentary light.

short time momentary light is a quite unfair assessment. Whereā€™d the 30 hours low mode go? The medium mode is no slouch either. Based on my calculation, itā€™s putting out more than 700 lumens, and at 2 hours mark itā€™s still putting out way more than 50% light

Picture thisā€¦ sound asleep, 3AM, something bumps inside the house and you wake up, eyes wide open! Slight rustling sounds approach, you grab the TM-03 from the bedside table and even as you flick it on in Turbo a prowler dressed in all black peeps around the door jamb. BAM! 3100 lumens in his dark adjusted eyes! Heā€™s busted! You hear crashing noises as he makes his flight out the way he came and dogs bark in the neighborhood as he tears away. Couple of seconds of high output at your fingertips and a bad scene averted. Now, what are you gonna do with the other 9 minutes and 57 seconds of Turbo? :stuck_out_tongue: Worth chasing him, ainā€™t it? :smiley:

The wife stirsā€¦ whatā€™s going on honey? Oh nothing dear, go back to sleep, Iā€™m taking the Tiny Monster out for a walkā€¦. :stuck_out_tongue:

I probably should have phrased it better. its run times on the lower modes are good, its just referring to the higher modes. its indeed a great light, but as we know how much extra drain on cells it is to boost voltages up to the requirements of 6 volt emitters like the XHP70 takes. seeing the light has a larger head than the body, if it were designed with a larger body to accept 26650 cells along with 18650 would increase the run times a bit more. Probably due to i am used to needing hours of run times for the jobs i use them for with good outputs.

Since the disc around the positive is ground, would it be possible to make it work on turbo with a normal cell by shorting the two negative contacts on the head? The one that connects the tube and the one that detects the battery.

Btw Dale, how long is turbo before any visual drop?