Inside Convoy T2

Today i received my first Convoy T2 !

It looks and feel exactly as i expected from a Convoy ie : simple and robust with a clean finish

The only thing that ennoyed me somewhat once the "new toy" effect started to settle down was the feeling that the mid is not really enough (to my liking) for some serious work while the high (and the associated battery drain) is too high, wich was enough of an excuse to decide to open it and see if i could mod it ;-)

Pictures an schematic will follow asap but to make a long evening short and after verifying several time i have a question :

Is it common for that kind of flashlight to drive the led with a constant voltage (about 3.25V) through a low value resistor (0.2 ohms) with NO current feedback (or anything else that could make a decent current source) ?

I figured that while you need a boost converter and decide to add some kind of u-controller it wasn't that much work to have them drive the led in current mode ... but i might be wrong !*

*Long ago i have built a flashlight with cc mode driver (maybe i'll show you pictures of the poor ugly thing one day) but that was a single mode (and low power) one so it was no big deal

Adding pictures and schematic for the driver (updated schematic according to HarleyQuin's feedback) :

Links :

Outer diameter of the PCB : 17.1mm but it doesn't "fill" the inside diameter of the head (threading ID is 18.0mm)

Inner diameter of the retaining ring : 14.7mm

Thanks for the schematics and photos, those are always interesting to have :+1:

That driver configuration looks normal for a PWM-controlled LED.

Djozz has found the PWM frequency to be 744Hz, which is unfortunately low and makes the PWM flicker perceptible to a fair number of people. Djozzā€™s post with his impressions and test results is here:

@Kame Sennin
Thanks for the effort, that are very good pictures of the driver, and a schematic to boot :slight_smile:

Iā€™m not sure how this driver handles it, but I can say itā€™s not ā€˜commonā€™. The PAM2803 based drivers are indeed current controlled with a sense resistor.
If the driver is in fact not current controlled but voltage controlled, it might be adapted for a certain LED. So R3 (R200) could be a current limiter, protecting the FET, or burning off excess voltage to adapt the output voltage of the boost circuit to the desired Vf of the LED. But I havenā€™t identified this T2 controller IC yet (I also presume the SOT23-5 with D3 on it).

A defining characteristic is the use of an external switch (8205S) in the boost circuit. Iā€™m curious if the external switch would allow for a higher current than the PAM2803 drivers, although itā€™s not relevant for 1AA (1.2V) use. Here the cell is the limiting factor. But might be interesting for 2AA.

My hopes for an Attiny based driver are gone, of course, the MCU pinout is definitely not Attiny13A and it canā€™t be easily swapped. Strange to see the sub-par PWM and modes, itā€™s not typical for Convoy to use visible PWM and a disco mode in a single mode group. Thatā€™s what makes me think he just bought the driver and did not put own development into it. Or he sells more lights to muggles and they demand itā€¦ But although I donā€™t consider this driver suitable for use, itā€™s interesting to study it.

Some annotations to the schematic:

- C2 has the marking 476, which means 47000000pF (6 zeroes), so itā€™s 47ĀµF.

- thereā€™s a third ceramic capacitor on the board thatā€™s not in your schematic

  • R5 is probably ā€œ01Dā€ (zero one D) which means 100k in this code form
    Again, Iā€™m very grateful for the information you provided.

:beer:

The T2 looks great, I consider it a great host, and Iā€™m on my line of boost drivers again, which were a bit neglected in the past.

Thank you very much for your feedback !

You are totally right about the 47uF, missing ceramic resistor (near the red wire) and "01D" resistor, i just updated the schematic.

It took me too much time to reverse engineer the schematic because i was looking for a current drive like the PAM2803 and couldn't have it to fit what was on the board ;-) and i was expecting an Attiny too :-(

From what i have seen, without a current mode drive (a higher voltage with a higher value serial resistor is a decent current drive at low power) the led output might change pretty much from one led to the other even in the same batch (U/I curve irregularity) and is more temperature sensitive but that is certainly not a real concern for that kind of use :-)

Iā€™ve seen this style of marking a number of times before, it took me ages to find out who makes them. :smiley:

Itā€™s a Torex XC9104.

The parallel 8205S and rather small inductor certainly help its current capabilities but efficiency probably sucks. Iā€™m a bit skeptical about that ā€œ800mAā€.
Iā€™d really love to see an output/runtime graph on Highā€¦

Nice find !! I have watched many small boost IC datasheets but couldn't find one that was totally fiting !

I am somewhat short of time at work right now but i hope to be able to take this driver to the bench soon and see what it can do

So now we only miss the MCU ... i have seen that "gnd at pin 8" on some cheap driver's picture already but don't know that kind of IC well enough to guess what it could be. Idea anyone ?

Could be one of the countless 8-bitters that Holtek makes. Cheap and generic. Iā€™ve found quite a few that have GND on pin8 but pin3 would be reset I assumeā€¦ no luck so far. Maybe a PIC12Fxxx or a clone, VDD and GND match too.
Does it really matter though? Itā€™s going to be far easier to shoehorn in an Attiny.

Thumbs up for a link to the boost controller, Iā€™m pretty sure I hadnā€™t seen that one.

Iā€™m interested to see some performance values of the driver. Iā€™ll buy me a pair of T2 at Fasttech, 12.47$ ā€“5% BLF code = 11.85$ ist the best offer around. Banggood, Gearbest, all more expensive despite some code offers.

In the meantime, I need 2 measurements: The outer diameter of the driver (roughly to 1/10 of a mm) and the inner diameter of the retaining ring.
Much obliged.

Iā€™m already tweaking my Oshpark boost drivers for the T2, Iā€™m pretty sure Iā€™ll build them myself as Iā€™m not that fond of shoehorning MCUsā€¦ any more :smiley:

PCB OD : 17.1mm

Retaining ring ID : 14.7mm

Schematic updated, links and dimensions added

Thanks a lot! :slight_smile:

Trying to measure the current drained from the battery whith an ampmeter did some very weird things at max brightness. I guess that the voltage loss in the measurement shunt was too high and made the driver to enter a very fast ON-OFF loop.

So i measured the voltage across a (very) low R shunt and got 3A max with a freshly charged eneloop.

Changed the 0.2 ohms limiting resistor in the driver of a second T2 (stupid me who didn't think of measuring this one before modification for reference !) for a 0.5 ohms, got about 2A max and then 1 ohm wich was 1A max

Lux measurments are from a calibrated Minolta T-10A using a 20cm polystyrene foam ball setup according to Djozz's "fast and cheap integrating sphere". As i don't have a calibrating light for now i have no good way to convert from lux to lumen but a Convoy S2+ with xm-l2 T6-4C at 1.4A (4*7135) in mid (40%) mode (should be about 200lm ?) reads 924 lux with the same setup.

T2-a 0R2 T2-b 0R5 T2-b 1R0
A Lux A Lux A Lux
Low 0.023 13 / 11 0.014 8.6
Mid 0.260 152 / 113 0.133 86
High 3.0 1150 2.0 848 1.05 585

Anybody got any idea as to when this will start being sold at the Convoy store?

You mean T2 ?

You can buy T2 from Convoy store on aliexpress since the mid august iirc (mine was from a 08/29 order)

Iā€™d never seen it before there, and it sure is. Cool beans, getting that (alongside an S2+) ASAP.

Get the T2 from their Taobao store instead. ę·˜å®ē½‘ - 귘ļ¼ęˆ‘å–œę¬¢

Taobao Description:
(2) Low voltage protection: When the battery voltage is between 2.9 and 3.1V, the flashlight will alarm, showing a weak brightness with 2 flashes per second.
(3) Reverse battery protection: the battery will not light up, but there will be no abnormalities, no need to worry about burning the battery or circuit

It has low voltage protection and reverse battery protection while the one on Aliexpress store doesnā€™t have them. Pretty disappointing as the Aliexpress store is direct from Convoy. Anyone contacted Simon about this?

Thanks, but nope, donā€™t intend on getting it from TaoBao, even because I donā€™t have 14500 cells to toss in it so the LVP is moot and I donā€™t think they even ship to my country. If anything, Iā€™ll wait for Simon to have his stock updated/upgraded.

Oh shoot, 774Hz PMW freq. What theā€¦ā€¦

Got 2x Convoy T2 from Fasttech. Iā€™m very pleased.

The moment I held one in my hand I thought:

  • I need more
  • as host please!!!
  • do these come in colors???

Really nice look and feel. Iā€™m a sucker for the S2+, and this is absolutely its little brother.
Greatest asset is that a driver of 17mm does fit. Makes DIY much easier, and the trade-off of a slightly larger diameter is really insignificant.

Lineup:

From left to right
SK68 clone, Ultrafire SK58, Convoy T2 (/w clip + sling), Thorfire TG06, Uniquefire G10, Utorch UT01, Convoy T2, Manker T01, Thrunite Archer 1A

Stock mode spacing is already really good, waaaaaay much better than most, especially the expensive AA lights. But doubleclick-to-strobe and PWM are a downside. Leaves room for improvement.

:wink:

Got my Convoy T2 last week. Havenā€™t had much time to play with it. First impression, big and heavy for a AA only

If you like the smaller lights, I recently took delivery of a batch of small Sofirn lights - SF10, SF12, SF14v2.0 & SP10v2.0. The SP10 comes in black, red and blue.