I've always wanted a compact thrower and really like my Ultrafire HD2010. So when the Thrunite TN31 came out my first reaction was, how much better can it be for 6X the price? Sure, it has a larger and deeper reflector and uses an XM-L U2 emitter instead of an XM-L T6. But how much more throw will that give it? What if I spend all that money and it's not much better than my $35 HD2010? That was my thinking and initially decided against it... until I saw HKJ's beam shots.
Bought mine from Aimkon (who I highly recommend and have bought from several times before) for $197.99 with free shipping, using discount code aimkon. Ordered it Wednesday evening and got it Saturday!
http://www.aimkon.com/catalog/product/thrunite-tn31/
When it arrived, must admit I was still concerned about being disappointed. Put in three Orbtronic 3100mAh 18650s to end the suspense and can corroborate that larger batteries are a very tight fit. Anyway... aimed the first beamshot at my living room wall and was pleasantly surprised. Pulled out the HD2010 to compare and found that the TN31's hotspot is A LOT brighter. Which I confirmed outside as soon as it got dark. :)
So I got to wondering how much brighter and decided to try to quantify it. Used my luxmeter to measure lux at the center of the hotspot of each light at 5, 10, 15, and 20 feet. The attached graph shows that the center of the TN31's hotspot was consistently 3X that of the HD2010's at those distances. Here are the actual measurements:
I'm thinking most of this is due to the reflector but am not willing to mod it with an XM-L T6 to measure how much. Shouldn't be too difficult to clone and I'd be surprised if we don't start seeing some in whatever the normal clone lag time is.
P.S. May eventually post beamshots if anyone's interested. Also took readings for the Zebralight SC600, Ultrafire UF-T50, Fenix TK35, and Ultrafire UF-T70 and can post those too if anyone wants to see.
Here are the lights I measured, in order of center-of-hotspot lux readings. Of course this is apples to oranges with all these lights because only two are throwers but thought comparing their hotspots at varying distances would still be interesting. You can see that the TN31 dwarfs them all and makes it difficult to read the lower measurements so here they are in text:
What happens when you operate the HD2010 on a capable 26650, such as the King Kong or IMR MNKE? That might make up a little ground, the 40% smaller reflector notwithstanding. Considering the HD2010 can operate on 26650, it's not much of a fair fight comparing 1 x 18650 to 3 x 18650 with a ~40% larger reflector (I don't know actual inside diameter so I'm making a rough estimate).
Sweet light though. Definitely out of my price range, however.
Good question. I was surprised that my HD2010 with a 26650 was not perceptibly brighter, if at all. Also read somewhere that someone fried their HD2010 with a 26650, so took the readings with an 18650.
Solid pickup!! Theres definitely strong desire for bigger reflectors and XML throw on BLF. I'm also waiting it out to see how the cloners respond. Although I dont know how practical a light THAT big will be to lug around in the field.
Great information! Yeah, can't wait to see beam shots of that powerhouse compared to the others. It must really be bright to dwarf the HD-2010 at that level.
The TN31 really does stomp it, but you can also shove the hd 2010 in your pocket, they are both great lights and I wouldn’t exactly pit them against eachother.
Reflector
W 68
D 70
Driven above 3 amps, closer to 4 IIRC.
Really nice (also massive) AR lens, fit and finish are perfect, the metal has a nice ring to it when tapped indicating some good harness.
It makes a very small spot with an absolute incredible intensity, you really need more than 100m for the beam to become usefully wide.
It’s a direct drive light, the 26650 is going to have less voltage sag and the internal resistance could have hit a sweet spot keeping it below 4 amps but above 3.
Just speculating here, I don’t own any 26650s, yet…
Maybe thrunite will catch on and make something cool with them, I’d love to have a higher quality HD 2010 with magnetic control ring aircraft aluminum HAIII and a real AR lens
price it at ~100 bucks and I’d be all over that like a cheap suit.
According to selfbuilt and his new light meter that is supposed to be certified, he got 112,800 lux@1m for the TN31. So your figures at least at 5ft are way off.
The TN31 is probably at least double and then some in lux@1m over the 2010.
Near-matches the ~120K my friends and I were measuring using a budget meter and an SR-95 as a 200K lux reference. No disrespect to the HD2010 its an outstanding thrower, but the TN31 smokes it. It should also be noted the TN31 is considerably bigger, heavier and drives its XML at a SLIGHTLY higher current.
How does the TN31 stack up against the TK70 or the SR+90+ (not 95/95UT) for throw? It goes without saying the Fenix wins for output. I’ve seen several rough lux values tossed around on here and on CPF for the TK70 but no actual tests. Regardless 100K+ lux out of this light is impressive.
I know my HD2010 didn’t drive its XML that hard. I could induce a tailcap current draw of 5.5A, but thats only if I pressed my meter probe hard enough to compress the +B spring completely flat. In the real-world however (with only moderate spring force) my light only drew around 3-3.25A… IIRC. note also that these are only current measurements at the tailcap. They should not be confused with the LED drive current.
I was told by a reputable source that the TM31 pushes its XML around 3.5A. (Correction noted thanks Jason!!) Note though I didn’t actually measure it.
