Today I’m taking a look at the new Thrunite Catapult Mini V2. Now if you have watched my channel for a while you will know I really liked the original Catapult Mini and it’s probably my go to small thrower flashlight so I was excited when Thrunite said they had an updated model coming out. It’s using an SFT40 LED that’s brighter than the original light and a different optic setup, so lets see if it’s an improvement or not. Thanks to Thrunite for sending this to me to look at and review.
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Get the Thrunite Catapult Mini V2 at Amazon with the links below.
Desert Tan https://amzn.to/3oD2ee6 use code LXDG4Y7L to save 15%
Black https://amzn.to/3N1xbln Click the coupon on the page to save 15%
Packaging & Accessories
Standard Thrunite packaging here, the signature brown cardboard box with just the logo on the front and the line drawing on the side, opposite that is the indicator for the body color and LED tint. Inside the light is nicely protected with black foam. Accessories are the light itself, USB-A to C Charging cable, proprietary 18350 1100mAh battery, and a bag of extra o’rings, button, recharging port, and branded lanyard.
Construction & Design
V2 shares some similar design characteristics with V1 in roughly the same shapes but with a little different style. The light is made from 6061 aluminum and is available in two colors currently, a standard black and a Desert Tan that I have here. The V2 is slightly longer by about 4.5mm in length. The V2 to me feels more like most of the recent Thrunite Designs with a lanyard attachment point on the flat tail, allowing the light to tail stand. The grip on the body is a combination of very fine-milled lines, and then 5 milled flats around the side. The head has the standard Thrunite flat metal button with an LED Battery indicator in the middle and a standard USB Port cover opposite that. That head grows in size with a cone and a more traditional flat screw-off bezel that’s not glued in place. The V2 is using a traditional smooth deep reflector where as the V1 used a TIR-style optic and this has a pretty big difference in the beam pattern as we will see later.
Retention
Retention options here are limited, as the light doesn’t have a clip, nor comes with a holster. It does come with a lanyard that attaches to the tail if you wish. The light does tailstand but that’s less useful with a thrower like this in my opinion. I do like the size of the light in my hand, and find it pretty comfortable to use. The tail is nonmagnetic.
Size & Weight
I measured the length at 85.81mm, the diameter of the head at 40.4mm, diameter of the body at 26mm. Weight with the battery installed came to 4.06oz. The light is drop rated to 1.5M, and waterproof to 2M (IPX8). Here is a photo comparing it to the Catapult Mini V1 and the Lumintop GT Nano all small form factor throwers.
LED & Beam
The Catapult Mini V2 is using a SFT40 LED that I measured on my Opple meter at 5835k and 65 CRI, so more on the cool white spectrum and low CRI. DUV had no undesirable tints to it. This LED is combined with a traditional smooth reflector where as the V1 used a unique TIR style optic. The result is the beam patterns are quite different. Where the V1 was all throw, and basically no spill, the V2 has a very bright hot center (with a bit of a donut at closer ranges), and a bit of spill. This makes the V2 somewhat better as more of a general-purpose light rather than only a thrower.
V2
V1
Outputs
Outputs here on the Catapult Mini V2 were generally higher then claimed when measured on my TexasAce lumen tube at the 30 second mark. This isn’t something I mind at all, a nice little benefit.
One other thing to note here on outputs is the candela rating or throw, the V1 was rated at 89,600 candela and 598 meters of throw. The V2 is rated at 66,150 candela and 515 meters of throw, so slightly less throw than the outgoing model, but you are giving that up for a bit more spill to make the light a little more useful as well as a brighter output in all modes.
Heat & Runtime
I will let the graphs do the majority of the talking here on this section. Turbo runtime lasts 90 seconds in my testing, stepping down to 400 lumens. This corresponds to the thermals that I measured on the outside of the light at 34C. It was able to run at this level for 1:20:00, with peak heat increasing to about 39C on the outside of the light. Skipping turbo and just going with high nets you another 6 minutes of total runtime, and running on just medium gives you 3:30:00 of total runtime.
User Interface
The Catapult Mini V2 is using Thrunight’s standard UI that they use with basically all of their lights. It has 3 modes during normal operations and shortcuts to Firefly and Turbo. To get to Firefly from off, just long press for about 1 second. For Turbo double press in any mode, and for strobe triple press. For the main modes once on just long press to cycle between them. The light does have memory and will remember only the main modes. There are 2 lockout methods with the light, first is electronic lockout which you can do by long pressing the button for 4 seconds when off, and the same to unlock it. The LED will breathe fading in and out when it’s locked out with this method. Or my personal favorite is just to mechanically lock it out by slightly unscrewing the body from the head to break contact.
Recharging & Power
The Catapult Mini V2 comes with a Thrunite branded semi-proprietary 1100mAh 18350 battery. I tested this battery at 1181mAh in my Vapcell S4 Plus charger. What makes the battery proprietary is the plastic ring around the positive contact on the battery and the fact that there is both positive and negative contacts on the positive end. However, the Catapult Mini V2 only uses positive contact meaning a button top 18350 that’s long enough works here too.
Using the onboard USB-C charging port I was able to charge the light from LVP at 2.903V to full at 4.191V in 3 hours 3 minutes. Now this is a pretty slow charging speed of about 0.5A and only about 1/2C. So it’s super conservative given the battery capacity. I had no issues here charging with a USB-C PD charger either.
Conclusion
I think it’s debatable if the Catapult Mini V2 is really an upgrade here, while it is brighter, and the beam is more useful as a general-purpose flashlight, it’s slightly not as good as the original at being a thrower, which was what is so impressive about the original. That said the V2 is more useful daily because of the spill and the throw is nearly as far. The SFT40 has a slightly cool white tint with no negative tints which is nice to see.
I do like the design of the V2 light slightly better with the improved grip and lanyard attachment points. The rest is pretty similar and unchanged. While I am a little disappointed a proprietary battery shipped with the light, i’m glad it’s not required to function and that normal small button, button top works here or a standard battery with a magnet if needed.
I can definitely recommend picking up a Catapult mini, now which version I think comes down to how you plan to use it, and the V2 for me probably gets the slight edge over V1 just because it is more useful in more scenarios with the increase in spill. That said let me know what you guys think is the better light to go with and why in the comments below. If I have any discounts those will be in the description of the video along with links to my socials.
Get the Thrunite Catapult Mini V2 at Amazon with the links below.
Desert Tan https://amzn.to/3oD2ee6 use code LXDG4Y7L to save 15%
Black https://amzn.to/3N1xbln Click the coupon on the page to save 15%