New Convoy C8 – Clearly better

Well, it’s not avoidable using a mirror finish reflector. There are options that allow elimination of the donut hole.

ie: Ledil Mirella 35mm reflector with mounting base.

Illuminations Machines also makes some very worthy diamond faceted reflectors.

I also tried a “larger” emitter in mine, a Nichia 144A in my case, but the beam isn’t very good for me either. Pretty bad “egg yolk” effect. My hope is that raising the emitter up higher into the reflector will help but I haven’t had a chance to try and accomplish that.

There’s a Khatod optic, I believe, that works great over a XHP-70, it’s got a large “cup” in the top surface and vertical lines inside the TIR. This tames the donut hole pretty well, I have one in an X6 with extension tube and it makes some 5441 lumens at 10.4A from a pair of the older Samsung 20R 18650’s. Granted, it’s a 35mm optic and the C8 accommodates larger than that, but it’ll work with the lens in place, especially if using one of the holders.

Banggood sell the Convoy driver with Biscotti, in all variants (number of 7135). It’s not expensive.

Plain ol’ XM-L, but I had just the opposite in an F13. The come-with spacer was in there, it had a decent hotspot but a little fuzzy, so to try “tightening it up”, I tried pulling the spacer and using a thin PETE insulator instead, to let the LED farther up into the reflector.

Big mistake. Ringy, and the worst fried-egg beam I’ve ever seen.

Swap the come-with spacer again, and it’s back to normal, pretty smooth beam.

I had an idea which I never quite tried before.

Take a stiff spongy material that’s not conductive, make a “washer” out of it, and put that between the reflector and LED. Turn it on (hopefully not hot enough to melt the stuff) and watch the beam as you screw down the reflector. The tighter you screw it down, the more the “sponge-washer” will compress, and the farther into the reflector the LED will go. Loosen it, and hopefully the sponge will press the reflector back out.

This way you can adjust the focus to whatever you’d want, and know that it is possible to get that focus. Then, shave down a real spacer/washer to the appropriate thickness.

Beats repeated swapping of spacers/washers/whatever, trying to remember what was better or worse.

Been there, done that, F13 is spaced nicely as standard. Countersunk top of spacer thinking it was blocking a little of the side throw, which it slightly was, but not worth the effort.

Why is FastTech making you mail the light back? That makes no sense.

You can get replacement drivers from overseas from a lot of different places including Convoy itself or any of the other stores such as Banggood, FastTech or Gearbest.

My advice, since your in the US, is to buy one from Richard at Mountain Electronics. He has a ton of options. You can stick with a constant-current driver with a wide variety of different user interfaces or you can go with a fet driver and get increased output.

These lights can absorb heat really well, so a FET driver is a good option.

See if Fasttech will refund half the purchase price and you keep the light, then take that money and get whatever driver you want.

A simple plumbing washer might to the job. Soft rubber, get a thin one with an adequate inner diameter, might work

If you’re able to take it apart, a new driver can be swapped in pretty easily. You could even upgrade it at the same time, perhaps using a bistro driver from MtnElectronics. This would give you more throw and a nicer UI.

Or with some fairly cheap tools you could reflash the stock driver to fix it.

If you’re not able to take it apart, a solution is more difficult.

Maybe just replace like with like.

I think this is your’s TK i.e. your Biscotti (or is it special for Convoy ?)

I’ll play around with the part I have now, have the OP reflector but seem the diameter hole different with the original smooth reflector.
The OP reflector little bit shorter in height to it’s not tight when I put back the head in place.

@DB Custom, may I know the link for purchase those optics and/or ledil mirella? Appreciated.

Try to reflash it first, maybe you luck. If not, then buy the driver from the above suggestion’s post.

Anyone recently got C8 clear from GB ? Are there any issues about firmware ? I would like to get one.

So, I got my C8 from Simon, but not exactly in one piece…

Now, I put the little white ring back in its place, but the question is: is it supposed to be glued down, or does the reflector keep it in place just by sitting on top of it?

I don’t know if the ring got dislocated in transport or if it was just shoddy assembly and no QC.

The reflector has to push the led into the body for good heat transfer. The plastic ring let’s the reflector push hard against the mcpcb, centers the led in the reflector and spaces it just right for proper focus and to clear the wires preventing a short.

In normal assembly the centering ring can not be there. It is larger than the hole in reflector. If I see right this centering ring is for 7mm reflector hole and XP leds. You need a centering ring for 9mm hole.

Is it possible Simon put in the wrong size ring in my light. It does seem a bit small compared to the hole in the reflector.

Right now it’s sitting in place, just barely. If it’s not being pressed down correctly, then that’s probably not good for heat transfer, even if it does remain in place.

I pulled it apart to measure the plastic ring… it’s about 8mm wide, but as you can see below, it is smaller than the hole in the reflector. No wonder it fell out. I guess I need to contact Simon. That’s not cool…

They used the wrong gasket. :person_facepalming:
Those are to small.

So it turns out Fasttech has a return center in Miami so the shipping to send it back is not as bad as I thought. They will replace the light. I am using an old Convoy C8 now as a backup. Once I receive the replacement I think I’ll us some of this information to upgrade it. It is a few years old. I mostly use it indoors so a long throw is not important. I’d actually rather get more flood out of it. Any suggestions on a suitable replacement emitter? Thanks for all the responses.