Current Budget Flooder Recommendations?

BLF Q8 I would say is top of its group right now

No doubt about it. I received mine about a week ago and it has quickly become one of my favorites.

Figured I would see if I had missed anything else.

Convoy S2+ with a wide-angle TIR replacing the come-with reflector.

Takes a fried-egg beam from a 4C (yellow hotspot, blue spill) and turns that into a wonderful warm-sunlight beam that’s nice and even throughout.

Try 60°, 90°, or 120°.

I like 60s, as 90s and above can have a “halo” around the edge of the beam.

I love my S2 triple from MTN. This definitely sounds like a good idea.

Yeah, I got all the goodies for an S2+ triple but didn’t do anything with ’em yet.

Don’t recall offhand the angle of the Carclo. Forgot if it’s throwier or floodier. Imagine a fairly small diameter of the lens for each LED would put it on the floody side of the spectrum.

But yeah, get a whole set of 20mm TIRs, from 5° through 120°, and go crazy.

Hi Lightbringer

Where can those TIR’s for the S2+ can be ordered from? Many thanks

Hi Lightbringer

Where can those TIR’s for the S2+ can be ordered from? Many thanks

https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10007055/1574903-21-2-12-6mm-pmma-lens-for-cree-xm-l-t5-t6-u2-5

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I’m getting them from fasttech, best price plus 10% off sale right now.
These will also my Nitecore HC30.

Isn’t the correct size 21.2mm?

https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10007055/1574903-21-2-12-6mm-pmma-lens-for-cree-xm-l-t5-t6-u2-5

I’ve got a few 20mm from fasttech and although they do fit the S2+ there is open space around the lens, (you can’t tell looking at it though)
I also need to order some different ones and I’m seeing now the listings show 21.2mm for the S2+, so I’m pretty sure that’s the correct size.

I just go and goggle “20mm collimator lens” on Amazon, and >pouf!<, they appear.

20mm seems to work fine for me. Without the shoe that sometimes comes with, they drop in and press right up against the O-ring without too much wiggle.

In fact, it should have just a little bit of play, because you want it to self-center on top of the LED, and press flat against the inside of the bezel.

And either illumn or ledsupply (forgot, probably the latter) lets you get them as one-fers, instead of a 5-pack or so.

When you’re undoing the glass, reflector, etc., and when putting it back together with the TIR instead, make sure the existing thin O-ring doesn’t come out. Normally, it’s pressed tight that it almost “sticks” to the inside of the bezel, but if it comes out, it’ll just be TIR-against-bezel, not particularly watertight.

If you look at the pix for the above TIR, you’ll see it comes with the mounting shoe that holds it over the LED (square cutout, vs spacer/centering-ring), and that’s where the extra 1.2mm comes from.

At first, oh yeah, I was wedging that that thing down the tube like an old-timey musket, pressing it so hard that the threads would shave down the perimeter of the shoe somewhat. Then, good luck getting the LED to snug up in the square hole. You have to undo/redo/undo/redo until it just lines up and “grabs”, then as you snug it up, try to not let the TIR+shoe twist the LED off its mcpcb.

Was just easier to pop the TIR out of the shoe and drop in the nekkid lens down the hole, let the LED self-center inside it, and then snugging it up, let the TIR press flat against the bezel.

I like the description of that tint. I assume wide angle TIR means flood? Can you get a better throw out of a S2+ with a narrower TIR?

I have the 20mm 10-degree, 15-degree and 30-degree TIR’s from fasttech, the 30-degree ones came with the white housing which I removed, (they don’t show the white housing in the photo, SKU 1144800) with the housing they measure around 21mm and bare around 19.5.

None of the 20mm ones at FT and amazon have the honeycomb textured diffuser surface like the 21.2mm ones I linked, I want to try that style for an even smoother beam. So to get that you have to order the 21.2mm.

Are you sure that on the 21.2mm ones the white housing is “where the extra 1.2mm comes from”? Have you ever bought any of those 21.2mm ones? I personally have no idea and I’m probably wrong but my thought was those would actually measure around 22mm with the white housing, since the 20mm ones I already have with white housing actually measured 21mm. If that makes sense.

I tried the 15-degree TIR but I got better throw with the longer SMO S2/S6 type reflector:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10007056/1575001-aluminum-alloy-smooth-reflector-for-s2-s5-s6-s7

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It’s nearly twice as deep as the stock S2+ (20mm vs 12mm) so the whole pill sits farther back, there’s a very slight gap at the head/body you can see about 10% of the black O-ring. There’s some solder build up on the lip of the pill where they grounded the driver, if I would file the solder flat I think it will screw down far enough to cover the whole O-ring but I haven’t tried yet, guess I’m too lazy to bother.

I’m not 100% sure if its actually the depth of the reflector, or just the fact it’s a SMO that’s making more throw, but it seems to have a brighter hot spot compared to the shallow OP reflector that comes stock on the S2+.

I need to do some side-by-side testing, I do have an S6 with the same driver/emitter I can use to compare, the shallow vs deep reflector, but I haven’t got around to testing them side by side. I also recently got a 10-degree TIR but I haven’t tried that one yet.

Could you link me up with a TIR optic for a Convoy C8 XML2.

Yeah, wide angle means floody.

I never really tried with, say, a 5° TIR. Theoretically it might, but I can’t say.

Unno. I only ever got the “20mm” ones from Amazon in multi-pax, and they all fit fine. Never bothered to take a caliper to ’em, either, being that they, like I said, fit fine.

Nope. Needs 43mm or so and the best I’ve seen are ~26mm for drop-in type lights.

Unless you get a triple/quad for a C8…

Jaxman E2L, Sofirn C8F or for a few bucks more, the Emisar D4.

If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty and you’re up for the challenge of rolling your own, get a good host and build a triple/quad with LED and fine optics of your choice.