ThruNite P60 / SF 9P issue

Light: Surefire 9P
Battery: Surefire CR123a
Engine: ThruNite P60L XM-L Drop In

Issue: When I click the tailcap on and leave the light on it turns off on its own after about 3 minutes, then (without clicking the tailcap a second time) it turns back on after about a minute the goes through 1 minute cycles of on off. After the cycle starts, it doesn't like to stay on for more that about 30 seconds at a time if you start running it with the tailcap again. Also, it will sometimes just get extremely bright then shut off. This happens on both new-out-of-the-box batteries and used batteries so i wouldn't think that it was a voltage surge.
please help because this was my primary duty light and I view duty lights like my weapons: If it starts malfunctioning i disguard or rebuild it from the ground up.

Sounds like you have a faulty P60 dropin. But I was not aware that the Thrunites have thermal shutoff. I dont think they do.
also are you using the big outer spring on the base of the dropin for reliable electrical contact? sometimes you need it on there.
I would suggest sacrificing a few lumens of output for the reliability of something like a Malkoff dropin. If your life depends on your firearms working and you view your other gear in the same way then you shouldnt be going the low price budget made in China dropin route. You have a quality host with the SF 9P there. But the weak link is the dropin.

I'm pretty new to the world of up grading lights. I've always just bought a light and left it alone. I had read several reviews on the thrunite selling and I hadn't heard any issues. What are some of my other quality options other than the Malikov? Are the Lumens Factory dropins any good? I'm trying to get as much light output as possible.

I also looked at the lumens factory host bodies as well; are they any good? I'd love to be running a 18650 light instead of my regular 6P for a backup light.

Dont get me wrong. The Thrunites are great dropins for the price and the failure rate is very low. You get failures with every thing no matter the price it happens.
I was just going on your description of use and how you regard your lights and specifically this light. Lots of light is a great thing but I wouldnt hesitate to sacrifice a few lumens for a true duty grade light.

There are countless police officers and military guys who have had great luck with many of the import lights like Fenix and such.

Lumens Factory also makes great dropins and lights very reliable . Thats the tough thing with Surefire hosts, you have to go the bored route which costs a little extra but they are unrivaled hosts. The malkoff hosts are already 18mm compatible which is nice. I can understand the desire to go rechargeable. The only thing with rechargeables is the chance you could have a battery failure or hit the protection circuit when you need the light the most. Thats why so many stay with primaries if the dept. pays for the batteries or the military who I would assume does. That coould mean using a rechargeable called an IMR. These have no protection circuit to fail/shutoff but you have to be careful not to overdischarge them because that will ruin them.

I could go on for pages and I am not an expert here. The most reliable P60 formatt to me would be a SF/Malkoff/Elzetta host with a Malkoff dropin or one of the Oveready triples or maybe a potted dropin from Nailbender . nailbender is in the custom BST section. He makes custom dropins at very reasonable prices and does many configurations of drivers and LEDS. Then I would use primaries or IMRs . Then i would also carry a small backup and nowadays there are many to choose from and with LED tech advancing you can get tactical levels of light form a AA size lite. Remember as with firearms 1 is NONE and 2 and ONE

Hope this helps and be safe out there

Thanks for the help. I wish my department paid for my batteries, haha.

Update: I replaced one of the cells in the 9P with a dummy cell and it is no longer malfunctioning. I guess the 3 Surefire cells were too much voltage for it to run properly.

I was actually going to make that suggestion, you most likely got a unit that had slightly lower spec components and driving at the rated max voltage probably was overdriving the circuit. While you certainly COULD have your Surefire bored to accept an 18650, it isn't necessary to get it up and running on rechargeables. I recently bought a couple of 17670s to use in my newly acquired C2 Centurion which I dropped a Solarforce XM-L emitter into that was designed to run at max on a single Li-ion cell. The AW cell fits perfectly in the C2 with no rattle at all.

Before doing so though...I would suggest replacing the emitter since it technically is faulty and trying to run it close to the max may bring back all of the problems you encountered. I too have a Thrunite XM-L module resting in a Solarforce L2P...I have used a single 18650 in it as well as a pair of RCR123s with no problems like you are having.

Check the heatsink paste, i once had my other light faulty as there was no heatsink gel below the star, and the led was just being fried

UPDATE:

I purchased a SolarForce L2 body frome lighthound. I'm now running this head with the L2 and an UltraFire 18650 3000mAh battery. I can get several hours of use before the light drops off. With this set up I have yet to had the light turn off or shut down.

I tested the Thrunite assembly with 2x Surefire CR123, 2x UltraFire 16340 880mAh, and 1x Ultrafire 18650 3000mAh.
- 2x Surefire cells = ~7 mins before a sudden drop off in light output (more than a 50% drop)
- 2x UltraFire 16340 = ~8 mins before a sudden drop off in light output (more than a 50% drop)
- 1x UltraFire 18650 = ~200 mins(at 30 min runtime intervals) before a sudden drop off in light output (more than a 50% drop)