New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

I was gonna say, 500 don’t come easy in any light, not in this Hemisphere!

I remove the flat from the reflector completely, machine the inside of the lip and cut some off the head, machine inside the head and a couple of points on the reflector so it can seat deeper. Also machine the emitter shelf for a 26mm MaxToch copper mcpcb. Might have missed a trick, but if so it sure wasn’t for lack of trying…

Even the 440kcd is massive throw , but since Mitko mentioned it i was just wondering what the best outcome could be .

I have one last old xp-g2 s4 2b and a reflector waiting for a machined host to accept 26mm mcpcb , i must make it happen soon :stuck_out_tongue:

Giorgo, that L6 has an XP-G2 S2 0D de-domed, so an S4 2B should do about 20% more output, might get it up there around 500…

I don’t really know , but i hope so :slight_smile:

Well, even so the hotspot is too small even for my taste, the torch cant be mounted cause of its size too
The best you could make with it is W2/XHP35 mod

giorgoskok

Try a dded XHP 35 in it m8, i did that in an L2 host and the result is great!

Pics or it didn’t happen, how did you direct drive a XHP35 8 AA batteries??/

A KD driver m8( its actualy quite decent), didnt you tested it already?

Ld 51 could be used too( its actualy even better) yet youll need 26350s and some driver bed drilling- i did that the first time i XHP 35 modded an L2 yet my XHP35 dedoming wasnt good by that time, now i got the right formula :slight_smile:

Yeah OK! You didn’t hook the LED directly to a power source eg. directly to batteries! You controlled the current thru the driver, thats not DD in my book!

:smiley:

Well, most ppl do prefer having regulation and lower output levels

However, for the record and the idea of max output/throw you have a point here

What kcd are these putting out? I have read reports of 70 and 80 but none seem super accurate.

I ask because I have a black c8 with 8x7135, and a u4 dedomed. I have no idea of the kcd currently but guess it’s 50-60?

I have a maxtoch 2x for longer range duties but the c8 is my go to due to size/weight/power. Often it’s strapped to my 22 for rabbit shooting out to 100m and decent light behind subject to check firing zone

I’m just trying to justify that I need the clear c8 as well as my current one….

I am not sure if this is the right area to post this, but recently I received a Clear C8 from Simon and noticed that the frequency of the flashes during the “program” phase are slower than the Clear C8 (and a bunch of ‘new firmware’ (red PCB) S2+) that I bought a few months ago.

I prefer the slower flashes - I can count the actual number of flashes now instead of counting how many separate bursts of flashes there are :smiley: I would say the frequency is approx halved.

The other thing I noticed is that not only is the flashing frequency slower, but in between flashes there is a constant very very low dim output of light (like moonlight mode - really cool actually and far lower than the lowest 0.1% mode) - since the driver is capable of driving the LED at such a low level one wishes it included as a mode somewhere in the 12 options :smiley:

Was the firmware changed? Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes, the bugs from the initial release were fixed. These new ones are much closer to what it should have been.

The extra-low level between config flashes is a side effect of using fast (sawtooth wave) PWM on attiny13a. It’s really voltage-sensitive so the output drops quite a bit as the battery drains… which makes it less suitable for use as an actual moon mode. Also, it didn’t happen at all on the prototype drivers because they used a different brand of 7135 chips. It might be an option, if we could count on getting the exact same 7135 chips in each batch, but that’s not realistic. However, you could still change the source a bit and reflash to get it exactly how you want it…

The first batch was a bit unfortunate. The driver hardware changed quite a bit between prototype and production, without warning, and they were flashed with the wrong fuse values, so a lot of things weren’t quite right. But that all got resolved for the second batch.

Thanks for this! :+1: it is nice to know that this change is due to a software update. I really like the slower flash.

Out of curiosity, was the slower flash implemented due to user feedback? Or is it slower due to a side effect of some other technical improvement?

The first batch ran at twice the intended speed because the MCU was flashed with the wrong fuse value. Everything ran twice as fast, though most of it wasn’t very noticeable. So, the slower blinking was how it was supposed to be all along.

I didn’t change much for the second batch. I mostly just added extra redundancy on the part which measures the button timing, to avoid an issue which affected roughly 1% of the drivers. There were a few which had literally just a few atoms out of place, deep inside the MCU, in a way which interfered with the trick it uses to measure time while power is disconnected. And I think the driver hardware got some minor updates too, to make it easier to reflash.

Good luck on the surgery Dale. We’ll be watching for you.

I just received mine, its beautiful and very bright but I only have one mode (high) available somehow… Is there a quick fix to this problem or do I have to change the driver?

One mode is most likely a short from LED minus to the body

New driver can be programmed to 1 mode
Look for biscotti firmware

That’s the first time anyone has reported having only high mode on this light. Could be a short, as suggested. Or something else to try as a quick test is tapping the button as fast as you can to see if it changes anything. Turn it on, then give it a quick, light tap. Not hard enough to make a clicking sound, just barely enough to turn the light off for a short fraction of a second.

If it still comes on only in high after a quick tap, try doing it ~15 times quickly to see if it goes into a config mode. It could possibly be in the mode group with only one mode.

the MCU may be stuck in one mode

if its DD short you can easily check with a DMM

I tried multiple things, of-course it stays stuck in one mode. Nothing on the reflector side that can make a short, I even tried without the reflector. So I unscrewed the retention ring to see the driver on the other side but the cable are too short to be pulled -of the head so I can’t solder a new driver and now the driver is stuck in moonlight mode…

The driver is the same from the official Convoy website but mine is written ‘’convoy’’ instead of ‘’fx-12’’.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/7135x3-7135x4-7135x6-7135x8-with-new-firmware/330416_32734523412.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.BcDGXw