New convoy 4x18a

I’m going for it
Convoy 4x18A
I’ll let you know :wink:

Did you just smoke grass?

Well, it is legal here, but no. Yeah, it would make for a big light, but about the same as the old 4D incan maglites of the past. And 5000 lumens from AA batteries… cool!

Not everyone is comfortable with lithium-ion batteries and charging. And, I’m certainly not comfortable giving lithium-ion lights like a BLF Q8 to newbies.

Times are changing, D size cells are outdated (reliable though)
Tell them to be careful, show them videos when gone wrong, buy quality cells, that’s step #1

Everyone has lithium in their pockets nowadays, everyone uses cell phones, laptops, powerbanks, cordless power tools, etc, etc.

D sized cells are still quite viable… I use a 32650 in my scratch built 95mm thrower to power an Luminus CFT-90 to 5000 lumens and over a mile in throw.

We still have 2D and 3D Maglites in the house running on D sized Alkalines and Maglite still sells a lot of lights.

I really do like this light from Simon, the styling and size are very nice, but for me personally the output is not sufficient and the 70.2 beam profile is not to my liking with the dome on, I just don’t care for the discoloration in the aura. I have to agree that if this light were to come with the Luminus 90.2 and triple the power level it currently boasts, I’d be all over it….

Hows the throw? Generally, I do not like pop can lights, though if they have a handle like the Thorfire S1/TD34 then that does improve the ergonomics for me.

So has anybody confirmed the head size, 69mm or 99mm. Praying it really is a new style pop can thrower.

Simon’s page shows 69mm head diameter. :wink:

Has anybody messed around with one of these yet? Can we get a look at the driver and get some measurements of the current draw? I think this would be a great host for the SBT90.2, though a new driver would be needed . I’ve overlooked this light for a while but am surprised I haven’t heard this combination mentioned. Reflector area is ~8% lower than the FT03, but with the power of 4 parallel 18650s and way more surface area and mass, I’d bet that it would out-throw it beyond the 30 or 60 second mark. Really is the exact form factor I’ve been envisioning for this emitter.

That's an interesting idea!

But i think it's a boost driver if batteries are in parallel. If i'm right, new driver is a must

Check the review on 1lumen.com

I might give it a shot on a single cell with my clamp meter.
I asked Simon if it is possible to remove the temeprature protection, but due to the coronavirus he can’t contact the manufacturer of the driver

A $10 BLF Q8 driver may be fitted into this, making it ideal for the 90.2 emitter. Just sayin… not sure what diameter the stock driver is but there is a lot of leeway in the Q8 driver, should be able to fit it in.

Should fit, i think the Convoy has a larger diameter driver. You’ll loose the USB charging function

I usually either don’t use the USB or kill it off for safety reasons. So losing it works fine for me. YMMV.

I have used the Q8 driver to run the 90.2, swapped in the better Infineon MOSFET and flashed Anduril and it works great. A set of 4 Samsung 25S 18650’s give absolute max output. :slight_smile: In my case, I mated a 124mm reflector to a Q8, using the Q8 as a glorified battery holder. Made it so easy to use the 90.2 and get great output from it… 5200 lumens or so at start, a nice lengthy run at around 4700 lumens… lux in the 1.7-1.8Mcd range for 1.6 miles throw. Sure, this 4X18A Convoy has a lot smaller reflector and as such it wouldn’t throw like this one but it will make the power all the same and still be impressive, I’m sure. I actually have put the 90.2 in an X6 and it does 5100 lumens at start from a 25S cell. Heat is the real issue, running 25A in something this size (even with a copper head) the heat is immense!

Thanks Dale and Yokiamy for chiming in here.

@Yokiamy, I’ve thoroughly read through your review and any others that I could find around the forum and reddit. Thank you! If we could get a look at the driver topology, that’d be great. It looks like it unscrews easily. Also current measurements would be amazing as well :innocent:

@Dale, I hadn’t thought to deeply about which drivers to use, just knew that a mod would be needed. I feel like I’d like to keep the USB charging if possible, and use a slave board of some kind, but with that much power, a floating driver probably isn’t a good idea. If I’m lucky, Convoy used a separate slave board for the USB charging _ but given the pcb real estate provided by the soda style format, I doubt I’ll see my wishes come true. In the end though, I’ll give up the charging and maybe rewire the USB port to be a quick flash port? Somebody here recently did that…

Really, this is such a host and LED combo that I think it deserves it’s own driver developed. I think a L4P driver integrated onto the larger pcb with USB charging (c to c enabled), would bring this light up quite a few notches.

I made some pictures of the driver

Imgur

Aaaaaaaand there are Lexel's drivers....

Custom made at your liking.

I didnt know Dale pulled all that off with a Q8 ??

Didn’t know he was doing custom work. I’ve not been following driver development for quite a while (years). Just kinda got the bug again a few weeks ago when I finally cleaned up my workbench and started organizing some things and now I have hundreds of dollars worth of builds on my wishlist. Now that in this past year or so meaningfully better emitters are available, I feel the need to refresh my collection. Terrible how this works…

Thanks!

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