New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

I especially like warm tints as low-illumination light an hour or two before I go to sleep. I find bright lights, and blue light (in cool lighting), makes it harder for me to go to sleep right away. It’s more a problem with bright light, but decreasing the amount of blue light helps too. Or, maybe warm lighting is just more relaxing.

I like to tailstand my M1 on the nightstand, turn it on “moonlight” (0,1%) and put a Thrunite T10’s diffuser down on the lens. Makes for a great night light with the 7A tint.

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

You have to keep in mind that this is an international forum and for a lot of the members here, English may be a 2nd or 3rd language. After a while you learn how to figure out what a person is trying to say even though it’s broken up and not exactly correct English.

I know that, my man. Believe it or not, it’s my second language :nerd_face: That’s why I’m not giving Tangra a hard time over it.

That is in fact one reason why I corrected the phrasing: because most second-language speakers not intently dedicated on learning already have a hard time with properly written language, a more broken phrasing can be even more confusing than it is for a native.

FWIW, it’s actually a good idea to avoid blue or cool-tinted lights before bed. The blue light interacts with cells in the eye called IPRGCs which then tell the brain to create serotonin. This makes people feel more awake. This effect can be avoided by using only warm-tint lights or wearing blueblocker-type sunglasses at night or using a screen color adjustment tool like redshift.

Well, mostly, anyway. Apparently about 3 out of every 20,000 people don’t respond to blue light this way, and I’m one of those 3. And, statistically, the other 2 are blind. So I’m a bit of a freak.

In general though, it’s good to avoid blue light before bed.

I have the same experience. I’m using Convoy driver with new firmware and I guess it’s the same driver in new C8. With original tailcap switch, I can easily change mode memory on or off, I set it to off and running normal.

But after I change the tailcap switch with Astrolux lighted tailcap from BG, then the mode memory is always on. In the beginning, I think the problem is in the driver. Something went wrong when I install the new lighted switch. Then I try to put on the original switch to check the config, and Voila! The mode memory setting is back to normal, easily to set on/off.

After that I put back on the lighted switch, then the mode memory is on again, can not be set to off.

Anyone can explain?

Yes. A lighted switch’s circuitry interferes wih Biscotti’s functionality.

When using Astrolux lighted switch you have to put bleeder resistor on driver to work properly.

After reading much discussion here, I decided to order both a 7A and a 3A. I’m really curious about the 7A, so I want to give it a try. But I figure that a 3A is probably more useful outdoors as a pocket-thrower, since that matches up with others that I have and I like a slightly cooler tint in throwers. I can always get a 4C later (4000K is my favorite for EDC) if I find the 3A too cool, but don’t see the point in getting two warm tints at the same time.

I hope you like the 7A. I don’t see it as very useful outdoors (and I’m happy I didn’t order a throwier light in it), but for indoors up to 10m away, it’s a beaut. Moreso if it’s the one and only light source around.

Might have to get myself a 3A tint sometime. The coolest Convoy I have is 4C tinted, and while I intend to get a 5B C8 with a smooth reflector for further throw than my current C8 in 4C, I had no plans for 3A.

3A and 3D are some of the nicest I’ve come across.

Ostensibly, my S2+ has a 4C, which is a little too warm and yellow as far as the hotspot. Do a ceiling-bounce, and the mix of yellow hotspot and blue spill gives a quite nice overall light. In fact, really nice.

And I think that’s the problem, that in reflector lights, the hotspot is almost always significantly warmer than the spill (think of the typische “fried-egg” beamshot).

I expect it to not be as useful outdoors, but I’m curious to know if the “useful throw” is greater with the 7A than a cooler tint, when it is humid. The warm tint should cut through humidity better than a cool tint and scatter back less light, at least in theory. I wonder if it makes up for the lower output of the 7A.

Funny that we’re thinking a warm tint isn’t useful outdoors, when a couple of decades ago all you could buy was warm tints (incandescent).

Funny. I have an S2 in 4C, and the beam tint is very uniform. Now when I’m using my C8 (also in 4C, despite the OP reflector, I can definitely notice the yellow spot contrasting the whiter spill. Thankfully not a problem when using the C8 for range like the thrower that it is.

Is it less of a concern with cooler tints?

Well when you have a hammer and nothing else, everything becomes a nail :smiley:

If you can test that for us, please keep me posted, because I wanna know too. It’s drought season where I live, and I won’t be able to check the humidity-cutting power of a 7A at full blast until late September, if not later. OTOH, I can definitely say it doesn’t seem to struggle with dust quite as much as even 4C :stuck_out_tongue:

Forgot… does the S2+ have a SMO or OP reflector? All I recall is the rather fuzzy (and large) hotspot.

That’s my guess. You got the blue LED and the phosphor sucks away some of the blue light and reradiates it as yellow, red, etc. (big gap in the bluegreen/teal part of the spectrum).

A cooler LED means a thinner layer of phosphor, and less of a contribution to the total beam. So tint-shift is that much less (it’s there and to the same degree, but it’s a smaller piece of the total pie). A warmer LED with more phosphor and more of a contribution is that much more susceptible.

Will do. Though, it’s back-ordered :frowning: so you might get to test it before me.

Don ’t you just love physics? :smiley:
Anyway, that makes sense. Thanks.

I wouldn’t be so sure. South American savannah’s been known to sometimes see little to no rain from mid-June to late October :confounded:

They’re doing that?

I just want a .45 longslide with laser-sighting…

FWIW, a lighted tailcap will make a Biscotti driver think every button press is a short press. The only way around that is to add a bleeder resistor on the driver, to allow current to pass while it’s “off” without keeping the MCU powered up.

As for throw, blue light scatters in the atmosphere. The scattering effect is proportional to the color temperature raised to the fourth power, or something like that, so cooler tints waste a lot more of their output creating a visible blue beam… and that obscures whatever the light is pointing at. So for a thrower it’s important not to have a cold tint.

Unless you want the thrower to look like a light saber. In that case, get the coldest tint you can find. It’s great fun.