What is you budget? RMM / mtnelectronics.com does custom builds as well, besides selling drivers. You could have him build you a light with exactly the modes you’d like.
Moonlight: <= 1 lumen
Low: 5 lumens
Medium: 20-25 lumens
High: 100 lumens
Just checked, he has S2, S2, S2 blue, S2+ red hosts. Select the build service. Add a driver (Nanjg AK-47A 7135*3) specify remove 2 7135 chips. I’d recommend an “off-time” firmware. Then add an led to your chart as well, maybe an XP-G2 on aluminum mcpcb. Or you could go for a nice nichia and ask him to stick it on aluminum to save a couple dollars (with only 1x7135 you don’t really need copper). RMM has a sales thread here on BLF if you have any questions for him.
Going full out (S2+ blue, nichia 90+cri, customized Nanjg AK-47A driver) it’s about $27 for the light. Less if you go for a plain S2/S2+ and XP-G2. Looks like shipping to Philippines is $15.
Everything you gain by reducing the driver to 1x7135, you loose by choosing a driver with a minimum mode as high as 5. The guppydrv from RMM has two modes lower than 5 — 2% and ML.
I just took 3 flashlights for a short walk. A Zebralight SC600 spec’d at 3.8 lumens and two Convoy S2+ lights with 8x7135 and the guppydrv. One Convoy has a triple XP-G2 and the other has an XP-L. The XP-L with the small S2+ reflector has a much larger hotspot than the SC600 and the triple XP-G2 is extremely floody.
On the guppydrv ML mode the single emitter Convoy is less intense than the 3.8 lumen SC600, and the triple emitter Convoy is much less intense than the 3.8 lumen SC600 — even with 8x7135.
RMM is very accessible and could make further recommendations.
@Halo, gypofles5000 and chucknov
Wow, thank you for the very detailed suggestions. Looks like I have to think about RMM’s offerings as an option before I pull the trigger on this light. I don’t mind falling in line and the long wait. I also believe you get what you pay for.
What makes this hard for me to decide is, like most BLF members, I don’t really have a specific need for a new light. I have multiple lights that cover my needs (or wants) from Moonlight to Turbo. But the Blue Convoy S2+ looks so good, I gotta have 1, or maybe 2 … :zipper_mouth_face:
If not, since you don’t have a specific need I’d say get a nichia 90+ cri (presuming it fits your budget). That way, you get a light that is more different then your current lights. Easier to justify the light to yourself!
@Gunga
It’s not an option for me since my skills are not up to par. Thanks for your suggestion though.
@Halo.
Thanks again for the input. I have three- an L10, a modded 501b and C8, both overdriven and made by 18sixfifty. The 501b is single LED, the C8 is a triple LED. Love them all. Sadly, the C8 is not working. Don’t know how to troubleshoot it which requires dismantling the head
Yup, I am seriously considering a nichia version for my next light.
Wish I had known that Richard did this before ordering my second S2+, but usually isn’t that the case in life? You don’t know what you don’t know until after you learn about it!
Not a complete loss though. I really love my Blue S2+ 4C. Best tint in my collection. I wanted to pick up another one, anyway. And there’s always the option of removing one or two of the 7135 chips, if I’m really not satisfied with the 3x7135 setup.
Kind of late in my reply, but this is why I went with the Astrolux S1 instead of the Convoy S series. Moonlight is somewhere around 9 lumens, which I use a lot, and it could still be lower. Lowest stock Convoy is what, around 5% of 400 lumens or about 20 lumens?
Like others, I like really low lows and really high highs. I may have to look into a custom Convoy build, though.
Interesting thread, just noted the part of a Convoy S2+ with only 1x7135.
I wonder approximately how many lumens does a Convoy S2+ with only 1x7135 output if using their old firmware (low-mid-high)?
How about if that same Convoy S2+ w/ 1x7135 is using the Biscotti firmware, any idea around how many lumens for the lowest and highest modes? (there must be some “quick / not exact” computation formulas to get some approximations…)
I'm not familiar enough with stock convoys to know exactly the software limitations. However for a single channel driver, at 3A max a PWM of 1 corresponds to a little over 11mA. 3A is fairly high, but 11mA isn't terribly low. I did just work out that it's possible to get below PWM of 1 using software PWM instead of hardware. This probably doesn't help someone looking for an easy convoy fix, and I doubt the software required could even fit on an attiny13 without compromising on something else. Also reaching low PWM levels probably requires effectively slow PWM speeds, maybe 2 or 3khz to get 10 times lower, maybe even slower. That wouldn't necessarily mean that all modes require slow PWM, just moon.
1×7135 gives you 350mA at maximum, for about 100 lumens OTF, maybe a little more. The lowest mode on the old Convoy firmware was 5%, so that would be something like 5 lumens.
The new firmware goes down to 0.1%, so that would be something like 0.1 lumens, but be warned that output varies dramatically from one light to the next at such low levels. If your light happened to be at an extreme of the manufacturing range, you might get several times more or less output than that. Anything from “firefly” through “moonlight” to “low mode”, basically!
Right 0.4% is the minimum without using software pwm, which I'd be surprised if this new firmware is using. However, as you say because hardware doesn't respond very well to very low PWM at high frequency, you end up getting lower, which all adds up with what Phlogiston is saying. The method I'm talking about though doesn't rely on that hardware variation to get that low though. Each individual pulse will be wide enough to drive the hardware well, but they can be on for less than 1/255 of total time by spacing them farther. Slower PWM but more reliable levels. Only possible using fairly non-standard software PWM, that as far as I know has not been used for that purpose yet. What we've used it for so far was programming a 4th PWM channel on attinys that only support 3 channels. But once we're there, we can also hack the PWM levels to go lower (but slower). I might well be doing this soon, but for attiny25 most likely.
I have the Convoy S2+ Desert Sand w/ the new Biscotti firmware. But I find it’s lowest “moonlight” mode to be still a bit bright (for moonlight). This is when I compare with the Astrolux S1’s moonlight mode which I find to be almost the right amount of ‘moon-light’.
Although the Biscotti on my Convoy S2+ Desert Sand (7135x6) is running twice as fast, so I’m not sure if having the driver running twice as fast would affect the brightness levels.
I also got the older Convoy S2+ (from Banggood’s flash sale last time) that still uses the 3/5-modes firmware. I have just ordered some USB ASP programmer (which I saw mentioned in other message), but I’m not sure if I’m capable of flashing the new firmware on it. Will probably take a month or more for the items to arrive though.
It does affect it. PWM speed is just clock speed/255, because pwm has 255 time bins per cycle, but half slower again for phase mode. Shorter time, faster clocks, means for the shortest PWM pulses, 1/255, the hardware has trouble coming on at all. This could mean lower levels on the lowest mode, or could just mean the lowest mode becomes 2 or 3 instead of 1, with the exact output on the first usable level being kind of random chance.
Despite I’m not savvy to discuss some of the things mentioned here, I’d like to say that maybe those 0.1 lumens with 1*7135 are not so low.
I made an experience with a S2+ Mini and turned its driver into 1*7135. The 0.1% output level seems pretty higher than 0.1 lumens, though. Here’s the post!
