Nitecore TM15 @ 2450 lm

[recDNA]

The only thing that holds me off is the relatively low throw numbers for so many lumens.

 

[SeamusORiley]

great thread. Have others used the Thrunite diffuser? Does it offer protection for the TM15?

 

[SeamusORiley]

error

 

[SeamusORiley]

I have a tale of woe for you.

I preordered a TM15 ages ago and waited patiently for it. It looked superb, and was awesomely bright.

Then literally 6 hours after it arrived I had the misfortune if the lanyard slipping out of my hand and with a sickening crack it fell straight onto a concrete floor. Bezel first.

After I'd finished crying I looked at the wreck. It was totally ruined, lens smashed, bezel bent over double, anodizing stripped off. But what struck me was the apparent lack of robustness. The actual light had been about knee height when I dropped it, and yet it was totalled...not exactly 2 meter impact resistant. Also, I know the bezel is thin but it still shouldn't be that soft. It was like mild steel, and it bent in between my fingers with minimal pressure.

Obviously build quality is not as good on this light as I thought.

Truthful accounts are told from memory and are in chronological order.

Emotions take time to process, so truthful accounts generally have the emotions placed afterwards. Story telling puts the emotions in the 'logical' or 'perfect' place, like when reading Stephen King stories. Emotions placed in the perfect part of the story are often artificially placed there for effect.

I also noted that the "sickening crack" came before it hit the concrete.

Your doubters are correct, but I guess I am wondering is why you posted this in the first place? Did you have a bad experience with Nitecore previously? Knee-length fall "totaled" a well made light? No. It did not happen as written.

I have ordered the ThruNite Catapult Flashlight Flip Diffuser
from ebay and will see how it fits on the TM 15 and post review. I love the TM 15, in particular, how it can be used for common, every day uses on low, and then have the powerful lumen high for outdoors. It is solid and feels, as someone else said, more like a "tool" with its rugged design. The on/off switch feels substantial.

 

[sidecross]

Truthful accounts are told from memory and are in chronological order.

Emotions take time to process, so truthful accounts generally have the emotions placed afterwards. Story telling puts the emotions in the 'logical' or 'perfect' place, like when reading Stephen King stories. Emotions placed in the perfect part of the story are often artificially placed there for effect.

I also noted that the "sickening crack" came before it hit the concrete.

Your doubters are correct, but I guess I am wondering is why you posted this in the first place? Did you have a bad experience with Nitecore previously? Knee-length fall "totaled" a well made light? No. It did not happen as written.

I have ordered the ThruNite Catapult Flashlight Flip Diffuser
from ebay and will see how it fits on the TM 15 and post review. I love the TM 15, in particular, how it can be used for common, every day uses on low, and then have the powerful lumen high for outdoors. It is solid and feels, as someone else said, more like a "tool" with its rugged design. The on/off switch feels substantial.

I have the TM15 and use the ThruNite Catapult Flashlight Flip Diffuser too.

You will need to remove the pins that form the tighten down levers and the levers too. It was quite easy to do and a friction fit is all that is needed.

You will see this diffuser offers better protection for the light as well.

I am surprised no one is making after market rubber protection for these lights.

 

[skeeterbait]

I did not have to remove the pins or lever on my Thrunite diffuser. It took a bit of pressure on the lever but it latched down on my TM15 with no problems. And Nitecore does make 60mm rubber diffuser and colored filters for the TM line but I have only found them listed on one vendor, pixxass.de. I know nothing about them.

 

[sidecross]

I did not have to remove the pins or lever on my Thrunite diffuser. It took a bit of pressure on the lever but it latched down on my TM15 with no problems. And Nitecore does make 60mm rubber diffuser and colored filters for the TM line but I have only found them listed on one vendor, pixxass.de. I know nothing about them.

I removed the pin and lever because when closed the lever was not in line because of uneven tension.

If yours worked without uneven tension, I am glad it worked.

 

[skeeterbait]

Not the best picture but here is mine. Did yours look different? I squeezed the body shut with one hand as I swung the lever closed when I installed it.

 

[Beamhead]

I removed the pin and lever because when closed the lever was not in line because of uneven tension.

If yours worked without uneven tension, I am glad it worked.

Same here in fact one of the pins flew out so I took them and the latch off, nice slip on fit now.

 

[sidecross]

Same here in fact one of the pins flew out so I took them and the latch off, nice slip on fit now.

Yes. it is a very good friction fit and good protection for the head!

 

[shelm]

Please could NE1 report what kind of "signal" should come out of the charging adapter?

I know how the charging is supposed to work: the TM15 should be in standby mode (not in lockout mode!), you connect the charging adapter and that's it.
However my TM15 doesnt go into charging mode when connected to the charging adapter, so either the charging adapter is defective (which i hope and believe) or the TM15 has a defect.

Leaving the TM15 aside (in the drawer), in voltage mode my DMM measures 12.3V, and in current mode the DMM doesnt give a steady reading and it's practically 0.00A most of the time. If i can determine that the adapter is defective, it would be easier to get a fast replacement from Nitecore manufacturer/distributor. That's why i have tried to find out, with the help of my DMM, if the charging adapter is defective.

Anyone with a digital multimeter too?

 

[sidecross]

Not the best picture but here is mine. Did yours look different? I squeezed the body shut with one hand as I swung the lever closed when I installed it.

Mine did look like that the lever was not parallel like it was when not mounted on the TM15.

I felt the lever put too much pressure on the head and it did not need to be that tight.
the lever was not parallel like it was when not mounted on the TM15.

 

[sidecross]

Please could NE1 report what kind of "signal" should come out of the charging adapter?

I know how the charging is supposed to work: the TM15 should be in standby mode (not in lockout mode!), you connect the charging adapter and that's it.
However my TM15 doesnt go into charging mode when connected to the charging adapter, so either the charging adapter is defective (which i hope and believe) or the TM15 has a defect.

Leaving the TM15 aside (in the drawer), in voltage mode my DMM measures 12.3V, and in current mode the DMM doesnt give a steady reading and it's practically 0.00A most of the time. If i can determine that the adapter is defective, it would be easier to get a fast replacement from Nitecore manufacturer/distributor. That's why i have tried to find out, with the help of my DMM, if the charging adapter is defective.

Anyone with a digital multimeter too?

I do not charge my TM15 with built in charger; I like to check each battery so I charge the batteries with one of my three Nitecore i4 chargers.

 

[kreisl]

i dont know how much you guys paid for the diffuser but here is my glorious story:

Thrunite flip diffuser system (originally for Catapult V3):

( click to enlarge! )

Eagletac M3C4 diffuser filter system ET55:

( click to enlarge! )

Nitecore TM15 head diameter: 60.00mm (at knurled part), 59.41mm (at stainless steel bezel)
Thrunite flip diffuser diameter: 59.31mm (inner diameter of original untouched rubber insert)
Catapult V3 head diameter: 58.00mm

In the TM11 review thread it was already mentioned several times that the Thrunite flip diffuser (14$ for the yellow filter, see Ebay-Thrunite-Store/Make Offer) can be mounted on the TM15 head: one leaves the TM15 SS bezel on, opens the TN latch, and fully mounts the TN flip diffuser all the way down. Some force is needed since it's a nice tight fit. However the TN latch cant be closed unless one thins out the rubber insert or replaces it by some alternative rubber band/ring/tube. Or one leaves the latch open

It was also mentioned that the Eagletac M3C4 diffuser/filter system ET55 is a perfect match as TM15 SS bezel replacement: one removes the TM15 SS bezel and then screws on the ET55 (white diffuser or colored filter).

I can confirm that both methods work great. Perfect actually. The ET solution is more elegant imho because of the 100% perfect match (thread diameter, thread length) and one could, in addition, even take out the TM15 original glass lens so that there is no more "double lens system" in front of the reflector.. but some users might not like to remove the bezel or the bezel+glass lens. The TN solution has the advantage that the user doesnt fiddle with the SS bezel or the original glass lens. The disadvantage is the loss of lumens thru the tunneling thru the double lens system and .. that it is not really a 100% perfect match out of the box: as mentioned, the latch wouldnt close if one leaves the rubber insert as thick as it is out of the box.

Thrunite flip diffuser's glas filter lens, diameter: 54.43mm
Thrunite flip diffuser's glas filter lens, thickness: 1.97mm

Eagletac ET55 screw-on diffuser's glas lens, diameter: 54.17mm
Eagletac ET55 screw-on diffuser's glas lens, thickness: 1.96mm

Nitecore TM15 original lens, diameter: 56.97mm
Nitecore TM15 original lens, thickness: 2.07mm

I now found out that the lens of the ET55, as part of the M3C4, has exactly the same dimensions as the lens of the Thrunite flip diffuser. Both lenses can be very easily removed if one wants to exchange lenses/filters/diffusers between the ET vs TN diffuser systems.

( click to enlarge! )

The point is, if you already own the white diffuser lens from the ET system but prefer to use the TN flip white diffuser (retails at 31.99$ on ebay), you could buy the cheapest version of the TN flip (e.g. the 14$ ebay sale/Make Offer on the TN flip YELLOW diffuser) and then swap the 2 glass lenses.

Another option is to remove 1 pin from the latch system and use tiny stripes of double-sided tape to fixate the latch parts:

( click to enlarge! ) , ( click to enlarge! )

Hope you found this post useful!!
I also got the Fenix AOD-L white diffuser tip/cap on order. Even more fun!!

 

[sidecross]

If you can order through Thrunite like I did and it cost $18.

 

[Beamhead]

The latch and pins are removable.

( click to enlarge! ) , ( click to enlarge! )

 

[sidecross]

The latch and pins are removable.

Yes they are. and they are NOT USED to latch the diffuser cover.

The latch and pins are only used to tighten the diameter which is not needed on the TM11 or TM15.

 

[SeamusORiley]

A tool this well made should have come with a protective case. I ordered the Thrunite diffuser cap too.

I assume with the tightness of it, it is left on full time, correct?

 

[sidecross]

A tool this well made should have come with a protective case. I ordered the Thrunite diffuser cap too.

I assume with the tightness of it, it is left on full time, correct?

Yes, mine is left on full time, but I have the option of rotating the diffuser lens to be on the side flush against with TM15 head.

 

[itguy07]

Please could NE1 report what kind of "signal" should come out of the charging adapter?

I know how the charging is supposed to work: the TM15 should be in standby mode (not in lockout mode!), you connect the charging adapter and that's it.
However my TM15 doesnt go into charging mode when connected to the charging adapter, so either the charging adapter is defective (which i hope and believe) or the TM15 has a defect.

Leaving the TM15 aside (in the drawer), in voltage mode my DMM measures 12.3V, and in current mode the DMM doesnt give a steady reading and it's practically 0.00A most of the time. If i can determine that the adapter is defective, it would be easier to get a fast replacement from Nitecore manufacturer/distributor. That's why i have tried to find out, with the help of my DMM, if the charging adapter is defective.

Anyone with a digital multimeter too?

Anyone? Having a weird issue with mine where it will blink normally and then do a double or triple blink. See this video.

Testing I get a steady voltage out of the adapter and it seems as if it only does it at the CC phase of the charging as with depleted cells it will do it but with cells at 4v or so it won't and will terminate properly.

Anyone know where to get a spare A/C adapter or car charger?