Today I have Thrunite’s newest model, the TT20. It produces 2526 lumens from a Luminus SST70 LED, a 21700 battery. It has onboard USB-C charging and has a rear tactical switch. It’s available in 2 color bodies too. Thanks to Thrunite for sending this to me to look at and review.
Get the Thrunite TT20 for $55.96 (20% off) until October 31st by clicking coupon checkbox on the product page at Amazon.
Red TT20 https://amzn.to/2T2DHvx
Black TT20 https://amzn.to/356sIa6
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Packaging & Accessories
The TT20 is using Thrunites standard heavy but minimal cardboard box. It’s lacking information like normal but that’s fine since it’s designed for online direct to consumer sales. Inside you get the flashlight itself, along with the proprietary 5000mAh 21700 battery, a basic holster, and a USB-A to C cable. The extras bag includes 2 Orings, a spare rubber tail boot, extra orings, 2 spare USB Charging port covers, and a branded lanyard.
Construction
The Thrunite TT20 is available in 2 colors currently, a standard black and a Red “Outsider” edition that I have here. It’s a really nice rich vibrant red, I always like seeing lights in different colors. This version replaces the TT20 model number engraving with the Outsider’s logo. (Youtuber).
Thrunite added a large mechanical tail switch on this light making it “tactical” It’s cover is grippy and you can connect the lanyard at either side of the tail switch. It has some straight knurling for trip to help remove the tail cap. Inside the center contact is slightly spring loaded.
Threads are anodized and square cut. The battery compartment has very tight tolerances with the battery, when inserting the battery it’s cushioned by a layer of air escaping, normally you don’t see these types of tolerances in production lights. It doesn’t suffer the problem of the USB port cover popping off either which you sometimes see when inserting batteries in lights. The surface of the light has a fairly tame grip level for a tactical light, it’s a similar milled pattern to what the TC15 and T2 have. The 2 way clip is reversible on either end of the light, I have switched mine from where it came preinstalled.
The head of the light is pretty plain, and glued to the body of the light at the front. You have an anti roll ring at the front. The e-switchis similar in shape and design to other Thrunites but this time black anodized and seems to stick out slightly more.It’s still got the LED indicator underneath for battery power levels. The battery charging port is opposite, and it has a fairly large silicon cover. The little pull tab can get in the way causing the flap to open unintentionally. The front of the light has a scalloped bezel that’s non tactical but allows light to escape when standing on the head. The lens is anti reflective coated, and underneath is a deep smooth reflector and the LED is nicely centered. The light is IPX8 water rated and had no issues with time in a bucket of water.
Size & Weight
I measured the length at 136mm, max diameter at 29mm, minimum diameter at 26.5mm. Weight with the battery and clip installed is 181.1g. For me I find it fits in the hand pretty well and it’s a decent size for a 21700. Not the smallest light in it’s class but not the largest either.
Comparison
The Olight M2R Pro is the most obvious light I have as a competitor. It also is a 21700 battery, tactical tail switch with front button, and a similar overall size. Weight wise it’s within 1 gram. I think the Olight is a bit more tactical, with the more aggressive bezel, more aggressive body section grip, it’s more focused beam, and the 2 stage tail switch. Clip wise I have to give the advantage to Olight but the TT20 is good too. See the pictures below for how it compares to the Thrunite T2 and TC15.
Retention
The TT20 comes with a lanyard that you can attach onto the tail cap if you wish. This is approaching the size of light where I start to use lanyards, but for now I will leave it off. It also comes with a holster, it does the job but is fairly basic, with just a D-ring and belt loop. This is one area where the Olight M2R Pro’s holster is clearly better.
The pocket clip on the TT20 is dual direction and pretty good. It allows for a fairly deep carry in the pocket with only about 10mm of the light sticking out of the pocket. The clip is mountable on the front of the body tube or the rear. I suspect most people will rear mount it like I have it here. It’s a non captured clip so it does rotate around the body of the light. The TT20 will fit on a hat if you want it to but with the 21700 battery it’s heavier then I normally want to do with a strap on clip.
LED & Beamshots
The TT20 is using the Luminus SST70 LED in cool white. This is my first light with this LED as it’s fairly new and new to the flashlight market as well. It’s an XM Size LED, Quad die LED so it would be a replacement for a Cree XHP50, but it’s physically smaller, more like and XHP35. With it installed here in the TT20 there is a small donut in the beam at distances less then 3”. At low powers, I get a bit of green/yellow in the beam, but these go away at moderate power levels and the beam is a cool but not cold tint. There is a moderate hot center and the spill is moderate. There is a small ring at the outer edges of the spill.
This gets a bit into the UI of the light but during ramping it’s not a smooth ramp. It seems as if there are a ton of small fixed steps as it’s increasing or decreasing in brightness instead of a nice and smooth ramp like you have on most lights with ramping. Once you stop it’s even and I don’t notice any PWM to my eyes or camera. My scope says there is a tiny bit, so no concerns.
Working voltage is 2.7V-4.2V which means you are only using the “proprietary” 21700 that the light comes with. FIrefly is measured at 0.5 lumens, infinity low starts at 31 lumens up to 1468. Strobe is 1294 lumens and Turbo is 2526.
Heat & Runtime
I did my runtime tests with the included battery at room temps of around 73F, non cooled. Turbo on the light lasts for 1:15 before it starts stepping down and it’s stable again at the 3 minute mark at around 23% relative output. I saw peak temps at 1:30 of 52C. The light was able to hold this 23% relative output for a long time, 3:30:00, total runtime was 3:36:00. LVP was measured at 2.849V. The standout for me is if you just skip turbo and run the light in infinite high, it’s around 1300 lumens and the light is able to hold this for a little over an hour (75 min).
When I compare the runtimes to the Olight M2R Pro, the Olight is able to withstand it’s turbo output slightly longer at about 5 minutes (while stepping down), and it’s bulk of the runtime was closer to 38% but for a shorter 2:33:00 and a total runtime of 3:15:00.
UI
The UI on the TT20 is different for a tactical light. It’s ramping with the use of the front button. It starts on low and if you long press from off the light comes on in firefly mode. Once on in normal mode you can press and hold and the light will begin it’s ramp up, as mentioned the ramp isn’t very smooth or fast. A full ramp from low to high takes 5.44 seconds which is a long time in my opinion. The light flashes at both ends 3 times and you can ramp in a loop low to high then ramping back down to low. It’s harder to start the light out in low especially if coming from moonlight mode. Double click on the front switch to jump to Turbo or use the tail switch to go to turbo at any time. Triple click the front button to get into strobe. There is memory as well for modes other than Turbo. When using turbo from the tail switch you can’t adjust the mode.
The light does have electronic lockout mode, if you are a subscriber here you know I rarely if ever use lockout through the UI. Thankfully mechanical lockout is an option by just breaking contact with the tail. This will prevent the tail from working but the E-Switch will still work thanks to that proprietary battery. The light basically has 2 physical paths for current to flow. I find myself sometimes turning on electronic lockout accidentally here if I press to long to get to firefly mode.
Charging
The TT20 has a onboard USB-C port for charging. It’s only compatible with USB-A to C, and not full C-C or USB-C PD unfortunately. Total charge time was 3:03 which is pretty good. Max charge speed I saw was 2.1A. The curve here is different from I typically see but it did decline as the battery charged. The battery measured as full at 4.199V.
The battery will charge in some external chargers too if you have a large or pointy contact to make it over the plastic spacer on the battery. Alternatively if you have a charger that accepts long cells like the VapCell S4 Plus I recently reviewed, then a 1mm rare earth magnet will work as a spacer if needed. With the S4 I don’t need a spacer it turns out.
As mentioned before the 5000mAh 21700 battery here is proprietary since it has both the positive and negative contact on the traditional positive end of the light, and it has small plastic spacer here. The battery is interchangeable with the Thrunite T2 and Olight 21700’s like what’s on the M2R Pro. The Olight battery will run in the Thrunite TT20, but not the other way around. This is done to reduce the lights diameter, so it can run without an inner tube, so the E switch and tail switch can both operate.
Pro’s
- Body Color options, but I wish these were not cobranded.
- Better value and longer overall runtime then the main competition.
- It can sustain a high percentage of infinite high for quite a while.
- New SST70 LED that I think we will be seeing a lot more from manufactures, hopefully in Neutral white soon.
Con’s
- The red anodizing is a great color but doesn’t seem to be as durable as black.
- Ramping isn’t steady and suffers noticeable PWM during the ramp. It’s also slow.
- The UI here isn’t my favorite, it’s a clumsy mix of what I will call Everyday tactical.
Conclusion
My conclusion I come away with this light is, is it really tactical? The inclusion of the ramping suggests to me it’s more for general everyday use, with the tail cap being the more tactical feature since it allows you to go to full turbo instantly, but when using the tail option you can’t adjust the mode and it’s only turbo. I like how with the Olight M2R Pro, the tail switch is 2 mode, so it’s easy to get to but you have the option of if you want full power or not.
To me the TT20 more everyday tactical than full on tactical. The beam to me is more everyday than tactical too with it being less focused and more flood then the M2R Pro. That said the TT20 is a nice value compared to many othe the other 21700 lights in the price category. It’s nicely made and carries better than I expected in the pocket. The runtime on infinite high is great too, It’s easily able to sustain over 1000 lumens for over an hour. In my opinion I can recommend the TT20 for general use if you’re OK with the UI and slow ramps but I probably wouldn’t recommend it for a true tactical operator type situation.
Get the Thrunite TT20 for $55.96 (20% off) until October 31st by clicking coupon checkbox on the product page at Amazon.
Red TT20 https://amzn.to/2T2DHvx
Black TT20 https://amzn.to/356sIa6
