Nitecore HC30 1x18650 battery,Cree XM-L2 LED,Headlamp REVIEW

I didn’t finish reading you review, but I see you state it doesn’t have exotic modes (I suppose you mean strobes and such) but it indeed has, double clicking from off you get to strobe, sos and beacon
I love the light, it’s my EDC since I received it about a month ago

As usual....Very nice review FlashLion!

Very good review, thanks!

Hmm, its odd that it doesnt have thermal regulation.

Cooling fins look pretty effective, one thing that sets this light(aside from hidden blinkies) apart from Xtar’s H3.

Thanks for reading! It should have thermal regulation,but is probably set to trigger in way too high temperature. In my opinion,no one wants a hot metal tube with a battery on their head. The cooling fins seems very effective. But still,this is a small flashlight and for best cooling is needed some air flaw through the fins.

Thanks for reading! Glad to help!

I meant extra features like voltage indication,or 20 times click to change the mode group,etc. Thanks for commenting!

Thanks bugsy36!

I will just add that while I havent eyeballed the output curve on my Xtar H3, heat wise it appears that there is no thermal regulation on mine - it will heat up unbearably and it doesnt seem that it will cool down while on turbo.
Maybe it indeed triggers thermal regulation on extreme temperatures and when cools down to few degrees less ramps up the output, but the temperature difference might be unnoticeable to the touch?

Thanks for the nice review!

I like the form factor and very clean slim design of the HC30, I hope that they will do a single AA version of this design some day (with less output of course). As always, I will not buy Nitecores because I can not stand cool white leds, even the sometimes used 3C neutral does not do it for me. So the led must be swappable and usually with Nitecore lights that is not possible.

Is it really that hard to swap the emitter in Nitecore products ?
I might not keep it if I can’t replace it with a NW one…

I bought a second-hand HC50 a while ago with the intention of swapping the led to a warm high CRI one, and I have not found a way to get into the ledboard part. My current idea is that the last part of the assembly is that the lens is glued in (with no option to get behind it to even start trying to pry it out)

Very well done review, thank you for all your work. This has helped with decision. :wink:

The surprising part of the HC30 is not stated Low Voltage Protection...but if I remember it starts stepping down (Not sure have not had time to work with mine yet)

Djozz - I think all of the manufacturers are going to go back to a AA/14500 offering. I know that one competing manufacturer has just made one and that another is considering so Nitecore hopefully will follow suit. They can still get 500-600+ lumens out of a 14500 nowadays.

BTW...these dogbone headlamps are relatively easy to mod...LED's and/or drivers

This became my edc also. Very compact designed. Bought a few for my coworkers also.

I'm using the skill hunt head bands with it. I leave the headband on it the whole time now.

would like to see a group buy with these type of lights . looking for more similar lights.

great review

Hi, I just swapped the stock reflector of my freshly unpacked HC30 with a 60 degrees TIR optic.
It’s now a useful headlamp for close up tasks !

Where did you get that TIR?

I bought it from FastTech, along with some 10, 25 and 45 degrees ones.
I’ve tested them in multiple lights and found that 45° is really useful indoor !

can you direct link those?

60 degree
45 degree
25 degree
10 degree

Oh, just for the info you have to slightly grind the outside of the optic to make it fit the HC30 bezel

Is it just plug and play?

Like I said, you just have to slightly grind the outside (less than a mm on the diameter)

Congratulations, you can make a review of how you did with pictures and some beanshots?
thanks
greeting

Yeah I may do that this week-end…I’ll make an update