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.
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.
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.
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)
My TM03 now has a QO MT-G2. Mostly the swap went well, getting the o-ring back in around the reflector and under the lens has proven impossible. Seems that it swelled after being removed and it just isn’t going back in the way it was.
Well, I really like the MT-G2 and it’s creamy color output. I really don’t like blue-white light, which the XHP-70 was in this particular light. So I guess it just boils down to getting what I want, whether Nitecore offers it up this way or not. It’s still using a single cell, still the proprietary cell, and still making some 2500 lumens. Since we always lose some lumens dropping down to a warm white compared to a blue-white tint, it’s pretty much a wash in the output department. Beam profile might actually be a bit tighter, certainly better looking and easier on the eyes.
Other than that, it gave me something to do other than watching TV.
The MT-G2 has a much more consistent tint through out the angle of emittance from the LED, ( much similar to the Nichia119/219 does) while the XHP70 has some severe tint-shift to yellow then green as the angle gets steeper, much like an XM-L does. (shallow reflectors tend to reflect this yellow/green tints from the sides of the LED more than deep reflectors do, Like the syndrome the original first Olight S20 had, and the new Klarus G20 does.
The TM03 has a deep reflector with 2 zones of angle, down close to the emitter the angle of approach is steeper, then it flares out more above that. This can be seen in the double effect in these shots. In this instance, as in the Solarforce M8, which uses a hybrid reflector where the lowest section is orange peel and the upper section is smooth, the big MT-G2 seems to like the approach yielding a nice beam.
I think this is MT-G2 number 12 for me. The least likely is my Solarforce Skyline I, with an incredibly deep reflector. Something about the fat boy emitter is just really appealing, the look of it, the creamy rich color of it’s light, and the rugged nature it seems to have in spades.