Lights for the outdoors

November 29, 2021

Thrunite TH30 headlamp

I own and very much like the earlier version of this light.

Currently, this light and the TH10v2 are both available. I prefer the TH10v2, and I will explain why eventually.

It is available in cool white or neutral white. I overwhelmingly favor neutral white.

This light uses the CREE XHP70.2 emitter. The emitter is big. Along with an orange peel reflector, this makes for a lot of spill and a very uniform light pattern across a wide area. The price is $80 from the Thrunite site. This currently includes a battery (their high discharge 3100 mAh cell) and free shipping. On top of that, they currently offer a 20 percent discount which brings the price down to $64. Nonetheless, I would pick up the TH10v2 for $48 instead.

The TH30 is almost exactly the same as the TH10v2. It has the built in USB charger and comes with the nice protected high discharge thrunite battery. The big differences are as follows:

A brighter "turbo" at 3350 lumens.
A very broad beam pattern with lots of spill.

This is a curious combination. In effect all those extra lumens get spread over a wide area and essentially "go to waste".
At least that is one way of looking at it. It is certainly my way of looking at it.

That aside, this business of "lumen wars" is silly. Over the two years I have owned and used the original TH10, I have never actually used the turbo mode in the field. High lumen ratings sell lights I guess, but are of no use to me. I am much more interested in extended battery life at useful lumen levels.

Useful runtime comparison

The most common setting I use my original TH10 at is the middle setting. By fooling around inside my darkened garage, I determined that the following settings yielded comparable brightness at the center area of interest.

TH10 - medium 172 lumens 9 hours
TH10 v2 - medium/low 160 lumens 13 hours
TH30 - medium 352 lumens 5 hours

For my purposes, the TH30 is a step backwards (unless you really value the wide spill, and no doubt some people do. The TH10 v2 will give me 50 percent more runtime at the light levels that matter to me.

I was concerned that the TH10 v2 would be too hot in the center and be annoying, but that does not seem to be so at all.

Full side by side comparison

My overriding concern is runtimes at illumination levels relevant to my common use. So I am looking hard at the times and current draw for low, low/medium, and medium. Also be very aware that these runtimes are based on a 3400 mAh battery for the original TH10 and for a 3100 mAh battery for the TH10v2 and the TH30.
If you are using old high mileage laptop recovery batteries (as I often am) their capacities are often more like 1000 mAh, and you will need to divide the following times by 3.

The original TH10 (no longer available)

firefly 0.2 lumens, 2 mA, 65 days
low 11 lumens, 25 mA, 107 hours
medium 172 lumens, 350 mA, 9 hours
high 490 lumens, 1450 mA, 178 minutes
turbo 750 lumens, 2700 mA, 118 minutes
sos 750 lumens, -- mA, 270 minutes

The TH10 v2

It has 6 brightness modes and SOS. Only the middle four (and SOS) are normally accessible. The current measurements are from the BLF review.

firefly 1.0 lumens, -- mA, 40 days
low 37 lumens, 50 mA, 57 hours
low/med 138 lumens, 160 mA, 13 hours
medium 350 lumens, 450 mA, 4 hours
high 1100 lumens, 2150 mA, 90 minutes
turbo 2100 lumens, 8000 mA, 2+ minutes
sos 630 lumens, -- mA, 285 minutes

The TH30

It also has 6 brightness modes and SOS. Only the middle four (and SOS) are normally accessible. The current measurements are from the BLF review.

firefly 0.5 lumens, -- mA, 32 days
low 25 lumens, 40 mA, 60 hours
low/med 130 lumens, 180 mA, 14 hours
medium 352 lumens, 470 mA, 5 hours
high 1275 lumens, 2040 mA, 90 minutes
turbo 3350 lumens, 8030 mA, 1.5+ minutes
sos 645 lumens, -- mA, 305 minutes

As I have mentioned, the problem with the TH30 runtimes is that you will probably need to run the light a "notch higher" than you would one of the other lights to get equivalent center zone brightness due to the wide spill.

The TH30 v2

I just (November, 2021) bought this light in neutral white during a promotion. I always avoid cool white, even though it may give more lumens.
It uses a Cree XHP70.2 emitter, just like the original TH30.

firefly 0.3 lumens, -- mA, 29 days
low 30 lumens, -- mA, 55 hours
low/med 131 lumens, -- mA, 13 hours
medium 345 lumens, -- mA, 5 hours
high 1256 lumens, -- mA, 4.5 minutes then 867 lumens for 111 minutes
turbo 3320 lumens, -- mA, 2.0 minutes then 853 lumens for 110 minutes
sos 665 lumens, -- mA, 350 minutes

I am hard pressed to figure out what is different about the "v2" and I don't have an original TH30 to compare to. The only difference I have found is that the USB connector on the v2 is USB-C. I always charge my batteries outside the light, so I may never care.

How to operate the light

To turn the light on, press the button quickly.

To change modes, with the light on, hold the button down. Normally the light cycles from low to medium/low to medium to high to sos and then back again, ad nauseum. The low setting will be fine once your eyes are dark adapted.
Once again, it is unfortunate that SOS is included in the regular mode sequence, but really not that big of a deal.

This light now has a mode memory and will come up in the last mode used. This helps to avoid being frustrated with encountering the SOS mode.

To get to firefly mode, long press when the light is off.

Double click gets you to turbo from any mode.

Dead battery warning

The light begins to blink when you need to replace the battery. I use it underground where it is my only light source, so I replace the battery promptly. I have no idea what happens if you ignore the blinking. How long do you have? Who knows.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Light Info / tom@mmto.org