Hi everyone, this is my first post. I have recently gotten into the led flashlight thing, so I am a complete newbie. But I have bought one or two cheap flashlights over the past three or four months. I initially purchased a Nitecore P12, which is really cool. The. I bought some cheaper ones; a convoy S2, an S3, then another couple of convoys, a C8 and C8+, and finally an L3 that uses one or two 26650 cells. What I would like to know is does anybody else come from the U.K. and are there any U.K. based vendors that sell mods etc? I’m looking to make my own modded C8 with an XPL-HI and 8 or 10 * 7135’s to give me some great output. Thing is I struggle to really understand what it is I’m ordering when it comes to a lot of the Chinese websites and suppliers. Can anyone offer me any guidance? Best regards to all.
Sort of off topic, but Matt Smith of Adventure Sport Flashlights has an excellent guide to modding the C8/C8+. The Youtube video showed the steps and results. Matt is member VestureofBlood, and his shop stocks some mod parts. It’s in the US, and I’m not sure what shipping would run. There’s also member RMM’s US-based MTN Electronics’ International Store and Croatian member led4power’s LED4POWER which stocks his drivers and MCPCBs.
I’m from the UK but I’m not really into internal mods
Drop Rotablade an email, they are based in Derby. They may be of help.
Thanks for this, I’m quite close to Derby so that’s convenient!
Welcome, there are a few of us UK-based users here!
For cells, I highly recommend 18650.uk- sign up to their mailing list for notifications of their offers. I don’t order cells from China anymore, I got tired of long shipping times and receiving multiple fakes.
For parts, I mostly order from China, I’ve also been meaning to order some drivers from BLF user Lexel, based in Germany:
VirEnce does high CRI LEDs and boards:
I’m super confused, never heard of rotablade, a quick google seems to bring up a company who does spinners, I’ve not seen them mentioned before on BLF? Do they also do torches??
Yes they make the ROTABLADE VISION. One of the finest torches money can buy.
One of the most expensive for sure! Lovely looking things.
Welcome 
I’m in the UK and have bought the bits you mention and can offer some advice, so feel free to ask specifics here on in PM.
I’m not aware of any UK based sellers that sell parts, the cheapest places i use are Fasttech and Kaidomain who are located in the Far East which means an expected month delivery time and the occasional mistake which, because of the cost of return postage, communications barriers, and different ideas on what constitutes a ‘mistake’, is not always feasible to correct, so i accept it as a risk i’m aware of when i order. Parts are cheap though so i find it easy to accept the occasional error. BanL is a KaiDomain representative who is a member on this site and has helped sort out some problems members have had with their orders.
Banggood is a Chinese site who has recently acquired a poor reputation on here, and i have experienced enough problems with them to not risk dealing with them anymore.
Closer to home I also buy from LED4POWER who is an active member on here and sells his own drivers, switches and MCPCBs, as well as some more niche LEDs. He’s been very helpful with a couple of specific requests i’ve had, and delivery is about a week rather than a month.
I’ve also bought from Mountain Electronics in the US, mixed opinions on here about their service but the owner’s also a member here i’ve only had good service myself.
You can also buy direct from Simon who runs/owns? Convoy, he is an active member on here and by all accounts provides an excellent service. And don’t quote me on this but if he has access to the parts he may even be able to build a C8 with your required driver and LED, if you ask nicely!
Obviously though, if you want to build the torch yourself i fully encourage that I’ll do my best to answer any questions regarding the actual builds, as will many members on here, a lot of whom are far more talanted in that department than me.
Thanks for joining the gang, Hardcoregeneral!
I'm afraid to ask what your username is in reference to. 
Hi mate, thanks for your reply! Really appreciate the effort and the advice.
Hi UK based, we need more.
Welcome! There’s a few of us from the UK lurking around 
Like others have mentioned, 18650.uk & fogstar are good places to get genuine batteries and both do discount codes at weekends if you sub to the mailing lists.
I have bought quite a few lights from banggood and so far they always arrived within 14 days and apart from the occasional mix up been ok. My advice would be, don’t order anything from them that is expensive or would matter if it goes faulty, there is no real warranty on anything.
Convoy on AliExpress (Simon) is a good guy, with well priced lights
For Lumintop it’s worth checking amazon.co.uk as sometime their lights from Lumintop-direct EU are cheaper than buying from China!
I’m in UK as well, don’t really post or chime in like I should do, but not really needed to ask about anything as anything has pretty much been asked or posted about it somewhere in this forum. Marc E and Big_Sam has pretty much listed and explained all the places to buy everything you would need to buy for ready out the box torches or build from scratch.
Moved to London from San Francisco 3 months ago, so I don’t know the lay of the land yet.
Well you learn something new every day! Way out of my budget and I don’t “get” exotic metals, so not for me but nice to see a UK retailer.
Looks like there’s an opening for a U.K. retailer of all this kind of stuff, if there’s a market for it? You’d definitely need a good contact in China that you could trust to supply you with quality items and that speaks decent English! Maybe that’s the issue . . .
Thanks for all the replies anyway, really appreciate it.
Hi and welcome to BLF. Looks like the bug is hitting hard.
Welcome to BLF Hardcoregeneral! Glad you found Convoy flashlights already. Convoys are considered high quality flashlights for a good price. I personally buy my Convoys directly from the source Simon. Here’s his website: Convoy flashlight Store. He is very accommodating and will customize your flashlight if you ask him.
There used to be 3Tronics in the UK.
Was quite handy for some modding gear & services but shut up shop probably due to lack of interest, not too many of us in the UK.
Also check out LEDs & Other Stuff for useful info.