hi all. i am new here, first of all sorry for my broken english,i am not a native speaker.
i would like to buy a decent flashlight, this will be my first decent flashlight, i dont mind spending money on it. something like olightm23, convoys8 this type of light.
i found this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtQtdQcvTM and decided to contact him, he seems a decent modder.
he has a website where you can buy lights: http://asflashlights.com/home/45-convoy-s8-1080-lumen-18650-cree-xml2-u4.html
found the real convoy sale site: 20.32€ |Konvoi s8 sst40 519a sft40 18650 taschenlampe|convoy s8|led flashlightcree xm-l2 u2-1a - AliExpress
as you see the convoy s8 on aliexpress is 16usd the s8 on aslights is 46usd.
why is that? because of the aslight has XPG3 and the aliexpress has XML2?
i dont mind spend money up to 150 200usd , but i regret to buy a cheap shitty replica for cheap, and not going to buy something what is overadvertised overpriced.
went to surefire site as well , lights start at 300 usd, then i typed in the google: “surefire shit” and there were topics when an expensive surefire gunlight went broke after 3000 shots, i cant accept it from an expensive light,ofc not going to spend 300 600 usd on my first light.
if this guy is a decent modder and does a god job i dont mind support him with my purchase, but if it just 3 times more expnsive for no reason then ……………
dont get me wrong i am not trying to ashame anyone, not trying to ruin anyones business, i just want a good light and trying to stay away from fakers scammers.
according to this guide : Reddit - Dive into anything where you find the quality manufacturers, most of them are chinese, if i use my common sense it means the quality product made in china and the fake ones also made in china, how can i spot the difference? why is the convay light so cheap in aliexpress and why is 3 times more expensive in asflashlights? did he make a good and quality modding? if yes then im happy to make him more popular, if not then i will hit thors hammer with the anger of the demigods:)
thanks for your answers
Matt at aslights is a very good builder. You would get an excellent high amperage driver, the correct tint and output bin led will be installed and the reflector/led combination will be correctly focused. He may do other things like braid springs and such. The light will be tested, guaranteed and warrantied if a problem arises.
Stock Convoy lights are a very good mass produced product. I often buy them fully stock built, with the LED tint I want and then change the driver, reflow the LED onto a direct thermal path star, bypass the springs and if not already installed I will install very good AR glass. This all adds to the cost of the basic light.
I would venture to say that stock Convoy lights are perfect for 85% of the people out there that have no desire for a “hot rod” light. I have many friends that I have sold stock C8’s, S2’s, M1’s and M2’s to and they love them. But I have also built a few for friends that just wanted more. With a built light it is possible to draw 5 amps, the stock will only draw 2.8 to 3 at best because of current regulated drivers. It is all a personal performance choice and an initial spend choice.
Welcome and your English is great!
Please read here, listen here and learn here and you will not regret the effort.
Matt
If you want a fully built c8, ask Simon he owns convoy . contact him on the aliexpress store and he will build you one exactly how you want it. By passed springs, direct drive turbo etc. I’d start off with a light like that maybe a couple with different LEDs. Maybe a pocket throw monster and one with a smooth broad hotspot for close/midrange needs. And go from there. If I had 150-200$ to spend on a light, I’d have 4-5 custom built the way I like them.
You’ll see as you get more into flashlights. Different LEDs have different qualities. Some are good for throw or flood or both. Then you have tints bluish white lights/ neutral whites/ all the wag to warm colored tints. So many choices to choose from. Buy a couple convoys first is my advice and see what tints you like ajd go from there. I love my c8s I have 3 now all custom built, I even use a pocket clip with them. Another good ligjt to have built up is the eagle eye x6. Or the blf x6/astrolux equivalent
as i said i dont mind to spend money on a good product where i can be sure the builder is skilled and passionate.
i want to support people like this with my small purchase and could happily introduce the modded lights to my friends,
this way i could spread the good reputation about aslights.
just try to imagine my position, where you need to find out what is good what not, and not everything is true whatever on the internet.
for example 500 usd surefire lights go broke, or people trying to sell 5usd lights for 80 usd —pointing to heider torches.
and need to read about every single light , and sometimes aint easy to find a real maniac to buy a decent product,if you know what i mean.
hard to find a really good car mechanic, joiner,plumber etc.
That’s good advice. Start with some simple stock lights — Convoys from Simon’s AliExpress store will teach you a lot for little money.
Then you’ll be able to start making choices based on something more than what some guy on the Internet tells you.
Talla, most members do a lot of reading before they jump in. It takes a while before you “know” what’s right and what not. I notice that you already did some homework. About $80 dollar lights that are really rebadged $6 dollar lights. And about $500 dollar lights that break down like any other light. It is quite hard to explain to an outsider why some lights deserve a higher price than others. But to give you some direction:
Compare Convoy-lights to Skoda cars: it is the “budget”brand within the VW-group, yet it has the best quality reputation. Better than VW itself, and far better than Audi.
On the other side of the spectrum you find the custom cars, based up a standard model, but on order equipped with anything you come up with. Asflashlights falls in this league. This type of cars are very rare in Europe, so I’ll give you another example. Compare lights from asflaslights to Buday shoes. Handmade, and last (almost) a lifetime. Not to be compared with just any other off the rack shoes.
Convoy lights are amazing for the price. The quality in my opinion is just as good as most of the high quality lights out there.
If I were you, I’d be looking at these lights depending on what you want:
Nice small portable floody light: Convoy s2+
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-Convoy-S2-Black-Cree-XML2-U2-1A-AMC7135-3-2-Group-3-5-Mode/1614309086.html
I recommend option: T6 4C and 7135x8. Ask for modes 5, 30, 100 percent when you check out.
Nice, reasonably small throw flashlight: Convoy C8:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Convoy-C8-with-XPL-HI-LED/32651190452.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_116_10065_117_10068_114_115_10069_113_10017_10080_10082_10081_10060_10061_10062_10056_10055_10037_10054_10059_10032_10078_10079_10077_10073_10070_421_420_10052_10053_10050_10051,searchweb201603_7&btsid=c31fe0d0-c470-4c2e-8b68-8933ffcf530b
This one throws very well for a stock flashlight. Easy to upgrade which will make it throw even further, by getting a XPL-Hi on copper PCB and a 17mm driver, then spring bypass the wires, good to get a high amp output battery as well if you upgrade it.
If you’re looking for a much bigger flashlight, that will throw well and flood very well, look at the Convoy L6.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Convoy-L6-flashlight-XHP70-led-inside/32659785735.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1_116_10065_117_10068_114_115_10069_113_10017_10080_10082_10081_10060_10061_10062_10056_10055_10037_10054_10059_10032_10078_10079_10077_10073_10070_421_420_10052_10053_10050_10051,searchweb201603_7&btsid=a04507e0-cef8-4c79-b77d-ff7f1c34767b
It’s amazing for the price. You will want to get 26650 batteries if you can (or use 18650 with an adapter).
Message me if you have any questions, I have all these lights. If you can’t tell already - I love Convoy lights, they are very very good value for money.
thanks guys for all your decisions, i made a decision, i ordered this : http://asflashlights.com/home/45-convoy-s8-1080-lumen-18650-cree-xml2-u4.html with 1 battery and 1 nightcore charger plus shipping to hungary it costed me roughly 84 usd.
i also contacted Simon and i order 2x https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-Shipping-Convoy-S2-Gray-Cree-XML2-U2-1A-AMC7135-3-2-Group-3-5-Mode/330416_1614328969.html
1 for me and 1 for my dad, i wait for Simon to answer me what type of batteries and chargers he recommend, because i want one pack not going to order everytithing separately.
i think the prices of the Convoy lights from Simon are very good, why do i say this?
because 15 usd is very affordable price for a quality, and if i go to the supermarket and want to buy a flashlight i see only RUBBISH for 10 usd.
believe me they are pure rubbish, the company where i work bought 2 of those shitty lights , 1 of them is 2 days old and doesnt work already, other one only makes a moonlight but not on purpose….it is a disgrace.
i dont mind spending money on quality or half decent quality , but i regret to spend 10 usd on pure trash.
I highly doubt you’ll have any issues with your convoy lighhts. Simon has great customer service. He is the owner of convoy.
He may have batteries for sale on his page I can’t remember but since the lights you ordered don’t pull more then 3 amps you could order some Panasonic ncr18650b and get a long runtime out of them. All those lights have low voltage protection so I’d get the unprotected version of those batteries. Protected batteries are longer and don’t always fit.
A nitecore charger is ok, there are many brands just stay away from no name Chinese chargers, anything from nitecore, liito Kala, opus,xstar will be a good charger. Not in any order just named them as they came to mind
At the moment waiting patiently to get my lights, they arrive from Simon and Matt whenever they arrive, i expect 20 days. i just realized Simon cannot ship batteries to Hungary so i ordered Panasonic ncr18650b batteries from another site.I kinda know myself and i can only hope i will not fall into the flashlight scene, as i said i know myself….if i fall in love and addiction into flashes then nothing will stop me, i only hope i just buy 4 5 decent flashes, modded or unmodded stock and that could cover most of things in my life for a long term.
Yeah, it starts. The logical part of your mind was set on writing 4 or 5 flashlights. In the meanwhile, the parts that other beers don’t reach took over and made you write 45! A classical Freudian slip. Buddy, you’re doomed :smiling_imp:
lol truth spoken. i accept my doom then:)
Finally got my light im happy. just writing down my experience, difficulties or the way it goes shipping items from usa to eu.
So the supercharged flashlight ,nitecored2 , and a 18650 battery costed me 84 USD with the cheapest shipping.
Cheapest shipping mean something like post office, it mean the post office doing the custom/fee job, once the product arrived to hungary i’ve got an sms to my mobile i needed to react, so filling up different forms for custom officers. They parked the light in Hungary for 2 weeks or 3 i dont even count it, everything went very slow and the custom fee and all prices added another 30 USD( usa is not part of the european union so we need to pay custom fees and some sort of tax , tax is 27% and the fee is like 8usd). Overall i paid 114 usd flash ,battery,charger, custom fees taxes.If you choose different (more expensive) shipping methos something like DHL you will pay 30 40 USD for the shipping, but they do all the custom fee/tax job automatically, i would highly recommend this instead of the local post services, themoney is the same and you dont have to fill up the forms, wasting your time,while i have like 5 6 7 different very important things going on right now, and if i dont answer to the local post office and custom office within 5 days they will ship the product back to the usa.The nightcore charger came with usa electric plug, no problem i changed it to european powercable i have some spare ones from older electric equipments.
Overall i am very satisfied with the product, but the usa eu trade is a bit difficult.
Thank you Matthew this is a really good modding.
The products from china still didnt arrive , i guess they will arrive whenever they arrive, and ohmagawd custom/fee and documents again (china eu trading), really want to compare the modded and unmodded lights.
Overall i ordered 1 s8 supercharged convoy from Matt (AsFlaslight) and 2 s8 from Simon(2 convoy chargers as well), those 2 going to my father and my mother and they will have a useful flashlight, coz in Hungary you only buy trash for 10 20 USD i mean pure trash. Any good recommendations to them how to use it? Something like a noob guide: pls dont put the 3.7mAh 4mAh batteries in your pocket with coins in and keyrings and any metal coz it can cause fire, or dont charge the batteries at night while you sleep just in case anything goes wrong, watch for overheating…. any good advice is welcome
The C8 with XPL Hi V2-1A with SMOis very nice
It has almost perfect cool white with barely noticeable tint
I ordered as well an AR coated glass
Use some air to blast out any dust
Its a bit tricky to get the reflector centered perfectly
When it is all done this light has a very narrow throw
The spill is not perfect as it has 2 different light cones
The reflector is not perfectly calculated for a domeless LED like the Manker U21 for 100% throw and smooth spill
But for less than 20$ with the AR glass its a great light, almost as good as 60$ ones
Where to start? Yes bought 1 from Matthew Asflashlights.com and 2 from Simon, i use the one from Matthew and i gave the 2 to my parents.
The modded one (Matthew’s version) is way better than stock S8, i am pretty satisfied. I just show it to my friends or colleagues everyone like it, it is new to them……some of you are a master of flashlights and modding but the most of the people have no clue about cree led and no clue about how powerful are these lights. We all need to learn how can we use our lights and what lights we need, for my need the modded s8 convoy is a good choice, sometimes thinking about another light……
Maybe we fall into a trap how powerful the light is, then we realize we dont really need that power , we get fooled by lumens and such then as we get more experience we can define what we actually need. For example i didnt really understand why some Surefire has only 200 lumens, now i think it doesnt need more because you dont want to get blinded and you dont really want to get blinded if you use a gunlight. If i point my S8 to my hand my skin will be very bright and it is blinding me, if i grab my light by the front end and i light my fingers i can see and count my blood vessels even in daylight lol, and it is brutal in dark:) hello 1000 lumen. If i go around at night i like the 1000 lumen because i actually want to blind unwanted people, but i think i understand the concept on the 200 lumen gunlights.
What could be the best for me next? an EDC light with high 1000 2000 lumens with strobe and moonlight capability and with an electric shocker, and need 2 3 buttons on it , one for flash 1000 lumen only, 1 for cycle through the programmable modes, 1 for the electric shock.
I work in the nighttime usually the 1000 lumen is quite powerful to escort out unwanted people,they dont ask anything when they blinded by 1000 lumen,they know they have to go.
Showed my light to my boss ,then he needed a thrower so i ordered him an Olight M3xs-UT Javelot with hunting set, thought about Acebeam k70 and Thrunite tn 42, but overall the Olight had the full package for the hunting set ( magnetic holder, holster , red diffuser etc etc).
Wanted to get another lights too but spent money elsewhere, bought some machines for woodwork such as band saw, table saw still looking for a mobile thicknesser/jointer(had plans for renew the house), so god knows when can i afford another light.
So this is my learning curve about flashlights:)this is where i am right now