New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

Flashing it isn’t all the hard and only cost about $5 in parts. It’s also good experience in case you ever want to do it again. A new driver will cost you more and a new light definitely way more.

The reports I’ve heard were more than 50 taps… after people messed with it for a few days it started working again. Probably hundreds of taps, and I don’t know what the magic recipe is because I’ve never actually gotten to see one in a failure state.

Regardless, the whole thing can be avoided with reflashing.

I think I’ll order my first Convoy C8. However, I have a question about the tint.

I’d like to try the 7A tint (I don’t have any LED lights that warm). But, is it yellow? I mean, is it like an incandescent light that looks white if it’s the only light source, or will it look yellow?

The warmest LED light I have uses an XM-L2 that measures at 3600K. However, it’s yellow. It doesn’t look like a white light when it’s the only light source. It looks yellow or amber.

I know I’m not getting a high CRI LED in the Convoy. But, does the 7A tint still look nice?

I know I’d be most happy with the 4C tint, but I have plenty of neutral white lights in that range. I wanted to try something different, and was hoping it would look like a really bright incandescent light.

WITL, I have an M1 in 7A, and I can definitely tell you: that baby is warm, and I mean warm. Even when it’s the only light source, it’ll look amber-ish but, IMO, not overbearingly so. It took me a while to get used to it, now I really like it, on low and high brightnesses alike.

If that’s a trouble for you, I’m gonna recommend you stick to 4C. That one has a neutral to very slightly warm tint that does look white when alone in the dark, and while I can’t say the actual number, its CRI to my eyes is very very close to that of my Lumintop Tool CRI (loaded with a Nichia 219B). EDIT: Missed the part where you said you already have plenty of 4C torches.

If you don’t like it, you could salvage it by buying a new emmiter on a star.

That sounds okay. Thanks for the info.

If I don’t like it, it can just join my drawer of unloved lights I no longer use.

I have a great little Eagle Eye X2R that I bought in 3C (plus 2 more I bought in 1A), but didn’t care for the NW. I tried to get used to it, but never did. So I bought a new emitter for $7 from MTN Electronics.

If you wanna try a 7A tint, you can buy just the emitter and try it in one of your existing lights. If you dont like it, it’s just a $7 loss as opposed to a $20 loss of not using a flashlight.

Or it can join the long list of BLF giveaway prizes :smiley: lol

Does anyone do a spring bypass and measure amps reading ?
I’ m interested how much is increased amps after spring bypass on stock version, with stock led and driver inside, so just s. b. nothing more ?

If you are talking about the Convoy C8, it would make little sense with the stock linear driver, as the 7135s will just consume the extra voltage and the increase in Amps will be 0, unless the battery is low.

I start looking for Reflash gears. Can I get a complete, good “REFLASH KIT” somewhere? In the mean time I’ll put in an BLF A6 driver. Is that good?

I got these from the same aliexpress highly positive feedback store, I think this is all the hardware you need

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pcs-lot-Programmer-Testing-Clip-SOP8-SOP-SOIC-8-SOIC8-DIP8-DIP-8-Pin/32583236296.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pcs-lot-USBASP-USBISP-AVR-51-Series-Programmer-Download-Aluminum-Shell-64K-Limit-Support/1459903502.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-40pcs-1ROW-in-Row-Dupont-Cable-20-cm-2-54mm-1pin-1p-1p-Female/1970669232.html

I got these from the same aliexpress highly positive feedback store, I think this is all the hardware you need

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pcs-lot-Programmer-Testin… (link is external)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-1pcs-lot-USBASP-USBISP-AVR… (link is external)
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-40pcs-1ROW-in-Row-Dupont-C… (link is external)

Thank you.

I got an S2+ from Simon with the 7A just because I figured I had to have at least one of every tint he offers. :slight_smile: That one is an XM-L2 T4-7A. It’sd crazy warm, almost orange really. It’s not entirely unpleasant but I don’t find myself using it very often. It’s more orange than any incandescent I can think of but opinions vary. I bet if I took the time to get used to it I may like it but I haven’t yet. I find the T6-4C to be a really nice warm but not too warm balance. Very pleasing to the eye. This if course is only one opinion but I tend to agree with my opinions. :smiley:

That’s good info, thanks. It sounds like it’s more amber in color, than a “warm white”. That was what I was afraid of. I guess Cree LEDs aren’t very good at emulating incandescent light. I guess they can get the color temperature, but can’t get a proper spectrum to give it a white tint. Probably too much yellow spectrum in the amount of phosphor they have to use to coat the LED to make it warm enough.

I guess I’ll stick with a 4C.

Keep in mind my only experience with that tint is in the XM-L2 that Simon offers. I can’t imagine the XPL-HI variant would be completely different but I don’t want to discourage anyone in their “tintexploration” :wink:

There are no “wrong” choices in this journey and I find the exploration process quite fun. I also find my own opinion changing from time to time. I’d blame that on having “too many” flashlights, but as we all know there is no such situation that can be defined by our current mathematical system…

I’ve posted this elsewhere, but my wide-spectrum BST has a 7B emitter in it. It looks good when blended with the other three tints in this light, but by itself it looks very very yellow to me:

However, I think anything warmer than 4500K looks yellow — including the high-CRI 4000K Nichia emitters that many people around here like. And I find anything over ~5300K looks blue. I have a pretty narrow range of tints I actually like for “white”.

Do you find that incandescent light (when it’s the only light source) looks yellow? I find it doesn’t start looking yellow until it gets down towards 2500K. But, unlike you, I find the 4000K Nichia 219 looks white to me. I haven’t had as much luck with warm non-Nichia LEDs, though.

Yes, I find that incandescent lights look yellow if they’re 4000K or warmer. Even if they’re the only light source.

Under 5000K lighting, things look normal to me, like this:

But under “warm” lighting things look yellow, like this:

After a while, it makes my vision get weird so I can’t really see color any more. If I try to read on paper under a common incandescent light, the colors start inverting and pretty soon I can basically only see edges. It looks a bit like this:

Has been that way as long as I can remember. I don’t like “warm” tints, regardless of the CRI.

The HC50 is totally unrelated; it was just a random picture I used to show the effect.

Oh god, TK. Seizure warning next time, wouldja? :confounded:

Good god, that legit gave me nausea.