New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

Good eye ‘gchart’, and good question. :+1:
I hope the retainer ring will work with these.

If everyone’s sure it’ll run forever at 2.8A w/o cooking the LED (DTP, integrated head, etc.), then I’ll take it on faith that it’ll work, and be happy with it. :smiley:

My only issue with AX is that, for whatever reason, it always redirects to it.aliexpress.com and everything comes out in italian. Hell if I know how to change that…

And yeah, I go and put “www” back instead of “it”, but same thing, still back to italian. ?!?

As for the light, I’d figure out the config, no worries. My only concern is that it cannot flip modes or even go into config by any kind of diddling with the switch. That’s why I might have to go and reflash it anyway or just hardwire the ’13 out of the way (ground/Vcc/NC the offending PWM-out pin, forgot which), which is a pain.

Wonder if I can just buy it in “kit” form… That way I can use the goodies in my black host and use the “clear” one as a regular light.

Feh, I always gotta make everything difficult…

So I keep hearing, and I have no doubt it’s true. :smiley:

I can testify that apparently what was said about the S2 is true.
I did it by accident one time with a fully charged 3400mAh Panasonic. No apparent damage to the S2+………
But that is another story. :wink:

If AliExpress kicks you in a strange language I usually place the item in cart then click global site top right
Then gobto cart and click item to return and browse the shop or whatever.

Dang Dale I can test that cell status thing of the BD06 I got it here.
Give me a few hours and I’ll post a pic.

Mine arrive today! Very excited to try out the new firmware!

Hey all. I don’t have time right now to respond to everything but as far as the naming goes it doesn’t all make sense to me either. Some of these names and designs are “publicly available designs” meaning essentially they’re open source. Anyone can build a C8 and call it a C8 but some companies (like Convoy) do it better than others. In these publicly available designs they may be required to use the original name but I’m just guessing.

The BD series lights to the best of my knowledge were originally made and solder under the Dipper brand name but Convoy now manufactures most of them. I don’t know what the exact rules are but take the BD04 for example. It’s made by Convoy but it’s also sold by Thorfire under the same name and neither company is doing anything illegal in doing so. Convoy does use some of these public designs and does a very good job of them.

As The Miller correctly said earlier, the L2 and L6 are both original Convoy designs and can not legally be produced by anyone else. Hopefully we will never see clones of these lights but it’s quite hard to control in China. It wouldn’t be a very cost effective design to clone though. Simon isn’t making huge profits on these and it seems like a cheaply made clone would stick out like a sore thumb…

No J-Dub74 you say it wrong, IF we see a clone of the L series (so please make that L1 happen :wink: ) we buy a L at Simon of BG/GB/DX/FT with the Convoy name.

Holding the BD06 and no sharp edges.
And while charging it shows red or green just like the 01
The only real difference is head size.
About more pronounced edges, I am thinking of a test to kind of prove “pocket friendliness” but havent figured it out yet
It is good to think of something so I am devoting time on it :wink:

BD01 and BD06
06 hooked up to USB

Sweet! The site didn’t go on about it as they did the 01 so I wasn’t sure. The bezel has much different crenelation on the 06 than the 01, 6 ridges instead of 5, and this on a smaller head so they are more compact, look to be more angular instead of flowing like on the 01.

I’ve had the 01 here, bumped output on it and fine tuned the beam profile a little, it’s really quite nice with a small bit of TLC to tweak it slightly. :slight_smile:

I can attest to that. Bought a bunch of cheap C8 clones at too-good-to-be-true prices, intending to just use them as hosts. Yeah, too good to be true.

I’d gotten some before, pretty decent brass pills, XM-L (genuine or lookalike, dunno, but pretty good), pretty bright (>300lm, at least, from ceiling-bounce tests), not bad for an Amazon special…

These… pfft! Plastic reflector, cheap featherweight Al pill, XP-E sized LB emitter, maybe 80-100lm of angry-blue light, tops. With a decent brass pill from FT that fit fine, a real 4300K XP-E2, new driver, it throws pretty nicely, but still isn’t a light I’d put much faith in. Still got the plastic reflector (ordered 3 different types of Al reflectors from FT to see which’d fit best), but just adding up the costs of getting the cheapo host to do anything (decent pill, reflector, switch, etc.), it’s just plain not worth it. I’d rather just get the real Convoy host from FT that’s all ready to go with solid parts, not crap. Much less agg as well.

If they were to ever clone the L2/L6, you can bet it’d be rated 45,000lm (maybe 150-200lm tops in reality), be half the weight, have horrible purple-blue 7500K LB XP-E clones, and just be an embarrassment to flashlights everywhere.

Sad part is, people’d buy ’em.

So, got my new C8. Looks really nice. The glossy silver look is really catching.

However no matter what mode grouping I program the light to, no light is emitted in any configuration while in moonlight. Down to 1% everything is fine and on high it seems just as bright as my older C8s but no moonlight.

Not a huge deal, I can use it on a mode without moonlight, but just wanted to see if other people have/are experiencing the same issue.

Edit to help diagnose:

Tried with NCR18650B flat top, NCR18650GA raised flat top and EVVA protected NCR18650GA button top.

Programmed into configurations 2, 3, 8, 9 and same behavior. No light on moonlight.

Edit2 : Reprogrammed it back into a mode with moonlight and got the led to flicker on moonlight mode, eventually resting on a level that is indistinguishable from 1%. After a few cycles though, moonlight goes back to emitting no light at all. I actually have a second new C8 but left it on my desk at work without testing it. Eager to see if it has the same issue.

Hmm, curious observation msim. ToyKeeper has mad firmware skills, so I’ll bow out when she arrives. But until then…

I see Biscotti has moon defined as PWM level 1, but I’ve had trouble before with the LED not turning on until I started at 3 or sometimes 4. It seems like 1 just isn’t enough sometimes. I wonder if that’ll need bumped up.

TK doesn’t set a value of 1 out of 255 for moon with 8*7135 chips. Even one 7135 chip needs a value of about 3 or 4 maybe. So the dilemma most likely stems from the specific 7135’s on this driver not liking the absolute low value, it’s always a gamble, trying to get it as low as possible but still have it work on “all” the drivers. Really difficult to do.

Edit: I’m seeing values of 3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11… in the code for the 7135 driver. So 3 is the lowest and in some cases it’s not quite enough by a value of 1. If you set it that 1 or 2 higher, the vast majority complain it isn’t low enough. Set it low enough, a few get a driver that loses moon… whatareyagonnado?

Yeah Dale, dunno. I’ve been compiling a modified version of Biscotti today but haven’t had a chance to flash it to anything yet. The Biscotti source on launchpad has the following array of PWM values:

Every other line of PWM values (commented out) starts out at 3, indicating she usually does use 3 for moon. I think I typically stick to 4 to be safe. Not sure why this one starts at 1.

Dale, what repository are you looking at? I only see one active line of PWM values (line 82 here), and it starts out at 1. Does TK have another place she keeps code?

Hmmmmm, that is interesting.
Kinda like “damned if you do & damned if you don’t”. That is a tough place to be put in……… :weary: … :frowning:
Personally I have a solution to that problem….
But, since it would not even be close to clearing the “PC Bar”; I will refrain from sharing it……… :smiling_imp: … :smiley:
:slight_smile:

I can live with it, but I would expect Simon/Convoy is going to hear from people who want a refund or new light because of the moonlight malfunction.

Sadly you might be right. that would be a shame too in my book…… considering the apparent reason it’s like that. :person_facepalming:

I just have to say this……….
You people who write THIS STUFF simply amaze me!!!
Thank you and hat’s off to you………. :beer: … :+1:

Heck, those that can even understand it impress me…… :wink:

Possibly, but hopefully this is just a one-off situation. And while I like having the option of a moonlight mode… how often do you pick up a light the size of a C8 and say “I want an almost indiscernible amount of light from you!”?

This world takes all kinds of people! Some of us code all day long, some drive tractors, other save lives. We’ve all got an amazing role to play! (not to down play TK’s great work - code can be a work of art sometimes!)