NEXTORCH TA30C Max

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NEXTORCH TA30C Max specifications

Brand & Model	NEXTORCH TA30C MAX
Flashlight category	Tactical/EDC
LED	CREE XHP50D-Hi
Max. output	3000 lumens
Max. beam distance	390 meters
Max. beam intensity	38025 cd
Battery config.	1*21700
Onboard charging	No, but battery has USB-C charging
Modes	3
Blinkies	Strobe
Waterproof	IPX8
Review publication date	September 2023

NEXTORCH have quite a few lights and love to continue iterations to make their lights better than the previous generation. Each has been an incremental improvement over the last generation (at least on paper). With over 142 patents and sales in over 100 countries, NEXTORCH definitely seems to know what they are doing, and with that said, let’s see if these improvements are worth the wait, or if this, in particular, is nothing worth writing home about and you could save your hard-earned money.

Package quality.

The packaging is made of sturdy white cardstock, featuring images of the flashlight along with its specifications. The battery is loaded inside the flashlight. This is included:

• NEXTORCH TA30C Max
• 21700 Battery with 5,000mAh and USB-C port
• Lanyard
• USB-C Charging Cable
• Manual

We already reviewed the NEXTORCH TA30 Max, as well as the NEXTORCH TA30 C a while ago. The TA30C and TA30C max look nearly identical.

There is shallow knurling all along the body, and a small ring of the same, on the tailcap. This gives you enough grip when holding the light, or rotating the magnetic tail cap to change modes.
The tailcap button offers a two-stage momentary switch and features a lighted ring, providing convenient battery capacity indications (more details on that later).

The magnetic ring ensures easy rotation without any wobbling. This flashlight doesn’t stay comfortably on its tail, because of the lack of surface to stand on. On the opposing side, the head of the flashlight features machined flats, preventing it from rolling when placed on its side.

I can totally understand people getting light for tactical use, but even for general use around the house it would do well because of the magnetic control ring.

The NEXTORCH TA30C Max is a solid piece of 6061 aluminum, with the only break being on the tailcap. The head is machined into the battery tube/body so this removes one possible entry point for debris and water. It also keeps the light extremely rigid. This single, solid piece of aluminum is covered in an expertly uniform coating of Matte Type III hard anodizing.

The square-cut knurling on both the body and tail cap provides an improved grip without being overly aggressive. This precision extends even beneath the tail cap onto the threads. When you twist the TA30C Max, you’ll notice a subtle but reassuring level of friction, indicating a snug fit. There’s no need to worry about excessive noise or wear.

It requires 2 full turns to unscrew or screw the tailcap.

Warranty:

NEXTORCH® guarantees our products to be free from any defects in workmanship and/or materials for 5 years. If products are found to be defective we will replace them at our sole discretion. NEXTORCH® reserves the right to replace an obsolete product with current production.

NEXTORCH® provides free maintenance service for products with quality problems under normal use within 5 years since the purchase date. Please note, quality problems do not include regular wear and tear or things like the lamp burning out, batteries draining, or switches wearing out. Nor does it cover damages resulting from abnormal use, abuse, neglect, battery damage, use of non-NEXTORCH® brand batteries or accessories, unauthorized modifications or repairs.

The above warranty excludes accessories, while chargers and rechargeable batteries are covered within one year.
In the event that any issues with a NEXTORCH® product are not covered under this warranty, NEXTORCH® can arrange to have the product repaired or replaced for a reasonable fee.

When you look at the business end of the TA30C Max, you’ll notice a domeless LED, that is also known as an XHP50.2 Hi.. NEXTORCH also included the letter D, but I don’t usually see that. The LED sits inside an LOP (light orange peel) reflector.

The glass lens, protecting the LED and reflector has some kind of anti-reflective coating. When you look at a light source, reflecting the glass lens, there is a blue hue, that is likely tellin there is some sort of AR coating.

The bezel protects the lens, and seems to be made of titanium, and can be regarded as a strike bezel. It includes 3 ultra-hard nano ceramic balls that could effectively break car windows.

There is no mention in the manual of the color temperature of the LED, so that’s why we test it.

The beam was measured with the Sekonic C800 spectrometer, instead of the Opple Light Master 3 I used before.

Here are the measurements in High mode at about 5 meters distance:

• CCT: 7214K
• CRI Ra: 69.8
• duv: -0.00.20

This means that the light is very cold, and with a negative duv has a purplish tint. That’s not a problem with this type of flashlight, that is used for things to see, not to enjoy color rendering etc.

Dimensions: 

TA30C Max	Millimeters	Inches
Length	153 mm	6.0 in
Head diameter	39 mm (at widest spot)	1.5 in
Body diameter	28 mm	1.1 in

Dimensions are rounded to the nearest millimeter, and to the nearest tenth of an Inch.

Weight: 

TA30C Max	Weight in grams	Weight in oz
Without battery:	158 g	5.6 oz
With battery	231g	8.2 oz

Weight is rounded to the nearest gram, and to the nearest tenth of an Oz.

Flashlight size comparison with its competition:

Group 1, NEXTORCH flashlights: NEXTORCH TA20, NEXTORCH TA30C Max, NEXTORCH T7L, NEXTORCH T10L, NEXTORCH T20L

Group 2, Tactical flashlights: Olight Warrior X3, NEXTORCH TA30C MAX, Fenix Tk22 v2, Nitecore MH25S, Armytek Predator Pro

The TA30C Max has a pretty unique feature with a mix between the rear 2-stage switch and the magnetic control ring on the tailcap.

The magnetic tail switch has 5 settings, TAC, Low, Med, High, Strobe. And all 5 modes have direct access to High and Strobe.. even in Strobe mode.

High and strobe are easily accessible. Need high? Press that button half way.. Need strobe, press a little harder. If you require any of the lower output modes, you can access them with a single rotation of the dial located beneath the same button. This user interface is truly praiseworthy, and the inclusion of a battery indicator within the momentary button is the icing on the cake.

Available modes: 

• Low, Medium, High

Available blinky modes:

• Strobe

From OFF:

• Rotate dial to desired output (Tac, low, Medium, High, Strobe)
• Half press tailswitch: High output
• Full press tail switch: Strobe

From ON:

• Tailswitch will allow you to override with High or Strobe
• Rotate dial to desired output

Mode memory:

• No necessary, because of the magnetic control ring

Shortcuts:

• To High: Half press tail switch
• To Strobe: Full press tail switch
• And turn the control ring

Low voltage warning:

• Light inside the tailcap shows the charge status:
• Solid blue: 75-100%
• Blue blinking: 50-75%
• Red light: 25-50%
• Red blinking: 0-25%

Strobe/blinkies

• Full press of tail switch or rotate dial to Strobe. Keep in mind that both strobes are not the same. The full press is a constant strobe, and the strobe on the magnetic control ring is a variable frequency strobe.

Lock-out mode: 

• No real lockout mode present, but Tac mode will be like a standby mode.
• A real lockout can be done by unscrewing the tailcap a quarter turn

PWM

• PWM is not visible by eye

Charge type	Fits	No fit	Charge time
Battery with USB-C	Longer 21700 sizes, but not the longest	Flat tops and too long 21700’s	4h 04min

The TA30C Max has no onboard USB-C charging, but the accompanying NEXTORCH branded 21700 cell does have a USB-C charging built in.

The battery is a 21700 5,000mAh with a product code DC20045, and needs to be inserted in a reversed way. The positive terminal towards the tailcap, and the negative terminal towards the driver.

During charging, there is a small red light visible, that turns blue when the charge has finished. The total time for it to charge was 4 hours and 04 minutes. That’s a little slow, but safe. You’ll notice that it starts off at a low current, and slowly increases. The highest charge current I saw was about 1.33A.

If you only have flat top, unprotected 21700 batteries, you are out of luck. They won’t fit, because they don’t make contact with both springs. I also tried a long Acebeam 21700, 5100mAh battery, and it was likely too long. So, only long cells will work, but not the longest!

This is the gear I use for testing:

Gear	Purpose	Link to buy
Hagner E4-X	Measuring beam intensity (throw)	Inquire at Hagner.se
2* Extech SDL400	Lumens and logging runtimes	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Leica Disto D2	Distance for throw measurements	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Sekonic C-800	Spectrometer for LED measurements	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
Uni-T UTi260B	Thermal Image camera	Amazon.com,

How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards: The ANSI FL1 standards specify that output in lumens should be measured 30 seconds after turning on, as this is the standardized time for measuring brightness according to the industry standard. This is why we focus on this part in our measurements. The ANSI FL1 standards require an ambient temperature of 22 ± 3°C. We record the ambient the ambient temperature to identify potential reasons for any observed discrepancies.

The output measurements in this review are based on my homemade integrating spheres, each equipped with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter. For consistency and accuracy, a calibration light (Convoy S2+ with 249lm and a Convoy S2+ with 261lm) is measured prior to each set of lumen measurements.
For high-output lights, one of the lux meters uses an ND camera filter to prevent the lux meter to max out. This is either the Kenko PRO1D ND16 up till about 80,000 lumens or Gobe ND32 for anything above.

Lumen measurements (for each mode)

The 10 minutes measurements were taken from the runtime graph, while the measurements at turn on, and 30 seconds were done manually.

Mode	Specified	Measured at turn on	30 sec.	10 min.
Low	70 lm	70 lm	70 lm	–
Med	520 lm	497 lm	497 lm	496 lm
High	3000 lm	2822 lm	2810 lm	830 lm

The measured output were lower than specified, except for Low. However, High mode is less than 10% lower measured that specified, so that’s not really visible in person.

NEXTORCH TA30C MAX battery life: runtime graphs

Runtime tests were conducted in my 50cm home made integrating sphere, paired with the Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

Note: since the flashlight has a magnetic control ring, it runs from low to high, and starting the runtime, and the highest measurement manually can differ a few lumens. Manually, I wrote down the highest number right after turn on, which could be 1 second after turn on. The runtime graph is started as soon as I turn the dial.

How Runtimes are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About ANSI FL1 runtime standards: The runtime is measured until the light drops to 10% of its initial output (30 seconds after turning on). This does not mean that the flashlight is not usable anymore. The last column shows how long the light actually works till it shuts off. If there is a + symbol, it means that the test was stopped at that particular point, but the light was actually still running. This happens on certain occasions, with certain drivers, firmware, or batteries.

Mode	Specified runtime	Measured runtime ANSI	Time till shut off
Low	35h	–	–
Med	5h	5h 19min	5h 19min
High	2h 45min	3h 12min	3h 12min

I didn’t test Low mode, as it is supposed to run for 35 hours. And looking at the data for Medium and High, which performed better than specified, I wouldn’t doubt it to be correct.

Peak beam intensity and beam distance measurements

About Peak beam intensity: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About peak beam intensity The calculated value of distance in meters at which the flashlight produces a light intensity of 0.25 lux. (0.25 lux is about the brightness of a full moon shining on an object). This means that the intensity has decreased so much, it becomes difficult to see darker objects, or objects that don’t reflect light. The columns ‘Meters’ and ‘Yards’ use rounded numbers.

Measurements were taken indoors at 5 meters with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. The measurements were taken 30 seconds after turn on.

Mode	Specified	I measured	Meters	yards
Low	900 cd	975 cd	62 m	68 yd
Med	6,400 cd	7,125 cd	169 m	185 yd
High	38,025 cd	41,750 cd	409 m	447 yd

In these tests, the throw measurements were higher than specified!

Here is the TA30C Max compared to other 21700 tactical flashlights

21700 tactical flashlight comparison

Single 21700 tactical flashlights measured: These numbers are NOT from the specifications but measured by our team.

Flashlight	Max Output (lm)	@30sec (lm)	Candela (cd)	Distance (m)
Acebeam L18	1249	1051	215,500	928
Acebeam L19	1378	1242	430,300	1312
Acebeam L35	6189	5609	57,000	477
Cyanksy P25	4236	3300	11,275	212
Fenix PD36 Tac	2590	2079	18,675	273
Fenix TK16 v2	2657	2222	40,900	404
Fenix TK20R UE	2571	2078	45,700	428
Fenix TK22 TAC	2742	2234	72,250	538
Fenix TK22 v2	1622	1592	53,000	460
NEXTORCH TA30C Max	2822	2810	41,750	409
Nitecore MH25S	1979	1850	68,400	523
Nitecore P10iX	4223	566	8,700	187
Nitecore P20iX	4119	1342	16,000	253
Nitecore P23i	2795	2345	50,760	451
Nitecore SRT6i	1744	1691	99,617	631
Olight Warrior 3	2598	2428	25,500	319
Olight Odin	1999	1884	25,750	321
Olight Warrior X4	2817	2664	92,125	607

Interactive runtime graphs

Below are interactive comparison graphs for a selection of these tactical lights. Hover your mouse to see more details.

If you use a mobile device, rotate your phone horizontally or open this link for a closer look.

The following graph focuses on the first 10 minutes after activation. If the details are unclear, access the interactive graph through this link for a closer look.

And the last comparison, we zoomed in to show the differences even better. For the first 60 minutes after activation. Not clear? Use this link for the interactive graph.

For the following beamshots, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 with a 50mm lens. Manual settings: ISO1600, 1/4sec, F4, 5000K

The shed is about 65 meters / 71 yards away, and the reflective fence about 200 meters.

Beamshots of the following flashlights compared:

• NEXTORCH TA30C Max
• NEXTORCH E52C
• Fenix TK22 Tac
• Olight Warrior X3
• Nitecore MH25 v2 (old and new)

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to us for review at no cost by NEXTORCH. We have not been paid to review, nor have we been holding back on problems or defects.