New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

Wow, nice job with this, TK & Simon!

Yes, 50-100% can be done but doesn't really show much of a difference. The highest I would typically go is 40%, sometimes 50%, as do most high mode count lights - just doesn't make enough difference. Best usage is a spread in the lower levels.

OK, thanks Tom E. I appreciate the info. :slight_smile:

It’s not a linear scale.

The stated outputs are the power level, which can be misleading. Throw distance follows an inverse square law, while perceived brightness tends to follow something like an inverse cube. So, there’s usually not much point having a mode between 50% and 100% power.

For example, let’s say it puts out 1000 lumens and does 50 kcd lux. Here are the resulting levels in more detail:

  • 0.1% power: 1 lm, throws 14 m, brightness 10/100
  • 1% power: 10 lm, throws 45 m, brightness 21/100
  • 10% power: 100 lm, throws 141 m, brightness 46/100
  • 35% power: 350 lm, throws 264 m, brightness 70/100
  • 100% power: 1000 lm, throws 447 m, brightness 100/100

So, to a human eye, the 35% level actually looks like it’s 70% as bright as the 100% level, and it throws 59% as far. Does the mode spacing make more sense now?

It could be just me but my eyes can hardly notice a big difference between 1.5A with 3A, but 600mA with 1.5A the difference is huge.

In my H17F equipped lights the high mode is 1.5A then it jumps to turbo 5A+, and it only feels like twice as bright.

50% is great for a high mode on a 2.8A driver, this way it can run for extended periods without overheating.

Bist-Con driver

I had to take a few hours to get some work done and I have more to do but I’ll try to pop in here and there.

Thank you ToyKeeper for popping in to answer the questions that only you can. I’m absolutely thrilled with what you created for Convoy within the constraints of the current hardware.

As for the questions about modes between 50% and 100%, as I think a few others have mentioned already they simply don’t make much sense in application.

Sure it sounds great on paper but when you actually see the difference between 50% and 100% it’s not what you would expect. The visual or perceived difference between 50% and 100% is much closer to 10% than the 50% you’d expect to see. Light output just doesn’t work with standard mathematics where 5+5=10. In the lumen world 5+5=maybe 7?

I may be using a very wrong analogy but hopefully some are getting where I’m going. Others here can explain this way better than I can. It was ToyKeeper and Dale that showed me what I didn’t know about this topic. Truly proper mode spacing is wonderful. I’m not going to embarrass myself by trying to further explain what I only partially understand.

I do believe I have a fairly good grasp on what the masses want though and I’m doing my best to translate that into flashlight reality through Convoy with plenty of help from my friends here at BLF.

:slight_smile:

Oh and since TK threw the “Jared Stinks” suggestion out there (yes, it was my own suggestion) I’ll throw in my own suggestions. :stuck_out_tongue:

“Convoy ToyKit”
“ToyKit”
“Convoy Kitchen”

I also see now that while I was trying to explain the 50%/100% thing and doing a bad job of it ToyKeeper came in and explained it beautifully. :slight_smile: Bravo once again. :+1:

Bisconti

J-Dub, do you know when the new looks and firmware will be coming to the S2+?

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this!
To answer your question, yes it makes a lot of sense now. It is the first time I have really even halfway understood it. :slight_smile:
Thank you again. :slight_smile:
(You too Tom E…. :wink: …)

BIS-CON or BISCON

FWIW, some explanation about the choice of mode groups.

There wasn’t room for many independent config options like in bistro, but I could at least fit something similar in the form of mode groups. It allows a total of 24 different configurations, compared to 145 (or 129) in bistro.

The first nine are basically three groups in forward and reverse, with optional blinkies.

1. 0.1, 1, 10, 35, 100%, strobe, biking, battery-check (default)
2. 0.1, 1, 10, 35, 100%
3. 100, 35, 10, 1, 0.1%

^ General purpose group. Note that you do not have to cycle through the blinkies if you have memory turned off. (The groups could only be up to 8 modes each, so SOS was left out. It’s rarely used.)

4. 1, 20, 100%, strobe, biking, battery-check, SOS
5. 1, 20, 100%
6. 100, 20, 1%

^ For people who prefer 3 modes, which is pretty common.

7. 0.1, 1, 10, 50, strobe, biking, battery-check, SOS
8. 0.1, 1, 10, 50
9. 50, 10, 1, 0.1

^ Half-power mode groups, so that 8x7135 drivers can work as if they were 4x7135 with no modification. Was specifically requested. Doubles the runtime, eliminates heat issues, and doesn’t actually look much dimmer. Also works as sort of a muggle mode.

10. 1, 10, 35, 100

^ Because it’s nice to have a moonless version of group 2, especially on a thrower. And because a full-power 4-level group was missing.

11. 100, 20, strobe

^ This arrangement was independently requested by several people, especially for police work and traffic routing.

12. 100% only

^ Sometimes people want a single-mode light, and there were two bytes left over, just enough to add this. The ROM is now exactly 1024 bytes.

Some of bistro’s features weren’t possible (like medium-press for reversing) or took too much room to fit (like “soft start” ramping up each mode), but I put in as much as I could. Hopefully it’ll cover most people’s preferences.

TK understands the science of light a whole bunch better than I. I know radiation is the inverse square rule - double the distance, 1/4 the exposure, etc. Golden 3 rules for radiation are time/distance/shielding, and it travels in straight lines. Light is similar.

Works the same for photography purposes, takes 4 times the light output to cover twice the distance. I have flash units that will fire 191’, or, effectively, across a football field from the sidelines. This takes a massive burst of power and will heat up the AA NiMH cells poste haste! For perspective, most point and shoot camera’s have a built in flash that will fire about 16’, few have a flash that will fire 20’.

When you get hot rod lights up into the thousands, the eye really has trouble telling the difference between hundreds of lumens. Very deceptive, this hobby of ours.

She blinded me with SCIENCE!

… and a flashlight.

I think it was mostly the flashlight.

Thanks a lot! :person_facepalming:

Now I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to rent Weird Science and watch it several times.

Hey, that one’s worth studying for sure! Thanks for the visual TK. :wink:

Dale, don’t hate Kelley LeBrock because she’s beautiful. (from an advert’ of the period)

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

I never saw the movie, but she was memorable anyway (I just put it into my Netflix queue, it should be fun). She was at least as memorable as the old Noxzema “Take it off, take it all off” girl from my early teens .

Take it off, take it all off.

Sorry for the trip (and diversion) down memory lane. Back to lights.

Finally new UI! :slight_smile:

Not those have all I need. Would it be possible to buy those drivers separately?

How about Bisquick (edit: This was totally a joke, no disrespect intended)? lol Café au lait? I think when I get mine, I’ll just call it “AWESOME!!” :heart_eyes:

Demitasse?

Mahalo to everyone involved!

In general, it is quite interesting firmware.
I’ll try it now flash in the Convoy C8.
From the description, I did not quite understand how the adjustment, but I think I can figure out.

What FUSE?

Why did you decide to abandon the separate control group of chips AMC7135?
1*7135 in the fifth leg, 2*7135 in the second, the other on the sixth leg of the microcontroller?