By chance, did you measure lumens on strobe mode stock form? I’m impressed with the stock nitecore battery. So a efest cell only gave less than a 100 lumen gain.
I don’t measure strobe because it’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.
I’ll try the stock cell with strobe and see what it says, I don’t put much faith in it’s accuracy though. (Let’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 isn’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 don’t serve much purpose other than a short-term emergency momentary light.
short time momentary light is a quite unfair assessment. Where’d the 30 hours low mode go? The medium mode is no slouch either. Based on my calculation, it’s putting out more than 700 lumens, and at 2 hours mark it’s still putting out way more than 50% light
Picture this… 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! He’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? 
Worth chasing him, ain’t it? 
The wife stirs… what’s going on honey? Oh nothing dear, go back to sleep, I’m taking the Tiny Monster out for a walk….
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?
Haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.
I found that the battery tube/head is one piece, so to get access to those little ground flanges the copper heat sink has to be removed thus exposing the driver and contact board. Want to play with it some before I do all that, just in case, well, you know, I could forget how to put it back together or something.
Took the TM03 for a walk Thursday night, walking the trash down to the road for pick-up. When I set out I started to use High mode then realized it would be a decent test for Turbo as it’s about a 10 minute walk. Well, within the first 3 minutes the head was getting quite hot, really too hot to hold with fingers on the finned area but ok if backing off. I kept it on Turbo the entire trip down there and back (it’s about half a mile round trip) I stopped and shined it on the barn 600 yds away, searched the fields for rabbits or foxes or whatever, and all in all it worked pretty well. By about 6 or 7 minutes the head was no longer scorching hot but still very warm to almost hot (my fingers, all the soldering and what not, can’t be sure it wouldn’t have been burning someone else ya know? Like, I hold wires in my fingers when I solder leads onto drivers…)
I am pretty sure it dimmed down with cell voltage loss but I never saw it “step down” at all. So if it purposely dimmed I didn’t notice it. The hot spot coverage is large, ample spill, really decent light to go walking with but not much of a spot or search light.
When I got inside the cell measured 3.89V. This was the factory one with the 2900mAh PF cell inside.
I can only reason by this that the High level would have easily run considerably longer without as much of the heat issue. I’m a little more impressed with it now on the beam and output production, really like it’s build overall and quality.
Winner, but I’m still much more in favor of the smaller throwier MH20GT. 
Would have been nice if the TM03 had a pocket clip on it as pictured on the box it came in.
And I wonder why I got no warranty card or Nitecore manual/advertising? There was nothing in the box but the light itself.
G'Day Dale, 
I sourced a Nitecore TM03 for my brother to take overseas. It included the battery, O-ring, Holster, Warranty card, & User Manual (english). But no pocket clip.
Btw, I have noticed that often Nitecore lights sourced from China as soon as they are released, don't include a User Manual or include one in Chinese.
Best Regards,
George
I got a brown box with a Nitecore yellow label on it, picturing the TM03 with a pocket clip. Inside was a fitted foam insert that held the light. Nothing else. No extra o-ring, no papers zip. I removed the foam insert and nothing under it in the box. Seems weird, never seen a Nitecore come without all the accessory stuff like what you got.
Sorry, I did get the holster. The battery was inside the light.
Slightly smaller lights like the MH20GT and PC12GT have come in a yellow box with a hanging top for putting on a display rack (as did the Caveman and EC4), with all the paperwork and stuff. I got the TM36Lite in a big brown box labeled similarly, it didn’t come with a pocket clip either.
Totally off topic but… Dale, how do you like the MH20GT? would you consider to EDC it over your modded lights?
I DO EDC it. Not over my modded lights but in addition to.
I like the style, the UI, the beam profile. As far as that goes though, to be totally honest, I’m pretty sure the Manker Godmes does about the same thing in a smaller package. Or an X5 for that matter, in a tail clicky instead of side e-switch. In the few days that I’ve had it though, it’s been the longer range light in my pocket as compared to my Ti Quad 219C and Texas Poker.
The one I got has a fairly blue-white XP-L HI in it though and that’s the one thing I’m not really liking. Looked at it today and thought about putting a 3A in it but haven’t so far, trying to keep in mind that I have few if any ANSI rated lights to compare to and this one measures out in my lightbox almost exactly according the specs. (in Turbo, not so much in the middle modes)
I found some interesting info om Nitecore website:
How can we find out what is the light color temperature of this TM03CRI ?
Pictures, anyone?
Had to take it pretty much completely apart to get at the XHP-70 to slice it.
sittin on copper…nice!
can we see beamshots with it sliced? i bet it was worth it? unless the tint turned a horrid green or yellow?
great pictures Dale!
thanks