[Review] Convoy S12 - the best Convoy's flashlight?

S12 can sustain Turbo much longer than 2 min, the test was in cardboard box with no cooling and even worse than standing on a table. Second test was fan cooled, 4 min turbo. When I was taking beamshots to this review, there were pretty cold in the forest, and S12 got seriously hot after about 4 min.

Output is very good for me, of course there are 21700 lights with more and more lumens, but you know, battery will be drained very quick. 1600lm is ok for what I use flashlight for (wandering in the forest, listening calm music and thinking about life…yeah). And some campings and mountains, but I prefer headlamp then. In fact, I use it on 3% most of the time, and 30% sometimes. I use 100% rarely (it drains battery pretty fast), so I don’t care that much about Turbo runtime - 2 or 2,5 min, whatever.

Not much to improve for me now, I really like my Nichia version as it is, it is in fact more yellowish than SST 4000K in FW3A, but still not that bad. If I bought SST version, I’d probably use Dc-Fix to have more even beam.

To add to Mocarny’s data, these are my runtime charts - at about the three minute mark, I was at 90% relative brightness then it starting heading down fast. This was indoors at around 23 degrees C, no cooling. Bottom chart is just a zoom of the first 10 minutes.

Thank you :slight_smile:
It looks like mine - don’t you have a feeling the 30% mode is more like 38% ? It stepped down to about 38, and when I checked lumens, it looks like maybe ~ 35.

The percentages are amperage, not output. Due to the non-linear current response of LEDs those numbers not matching is normal.

Where is the best place to get this light?

I have a decent deal for it. https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/58182

Yeah, percentages are on amps - I got:

Low: 10mA (6mA)
Med: 170mA (180mA)
High: 1.8A (1.8A)
Turbo: 6A (6A)

Amounts in brackets are what the percentages in the description work out to be. So low is higher, medium is slightly lower, but high and turbo are dead on.

/shrug

Finally S12 sst20 2700k has arrived! Yeah!!

Still daylight though, but try it just for moment in dark room….wew! I CAN’T believe it…I am well amazed by High cri output, shined it on my messy clothes…perfect to me. S12 is my first high cri, triple led flashlight. I think in term on lumen, it is bright and flood. I still can’t figure, but I did comparison with 6500k xt21x. I will do it later.

2nd thing, don’t we should know about how much candela it is? since sst20 known for throwy. I see this thing could do a lil bit of throw. Let see after night.

else, it was smaller and short than I was thought. Imagine 21700 cell, longer and bigger…s12 is really compact which is great! Smaller but brighter indeed. :laughing: anywany Vapcell 21700 4500mah red one I use fit well, just well enough…

I went Nichia because I’ve found the SST20s Simon sources are just too green for me. That said, next step is to put SST10 365nm in this thing.

XPL-HI’s in A and D tint bins have superior tint over it.

Another better option would be scalped 90CRI LH351D’s which are described as having a beam profile of something between HD and HI and have an extremely consistent near zero duv.

Just done testing.

Brighter, yes. I’m absolutely agree. In term of flood, it got usable spill. Although it used smooth reflector, the flood is wider and and I think the reason it got bit of throw.

Tint ? I choose 2700k bcos our eyes will feel better and yes, it felt much better than 6500k. But, I have to agree with mocarny, in green forest I thought it will light the green. Well it look not. But fine for me. 2700k become one my fav tint now.

I’m happy you like it, so my WOW about S12 is confirmed.

S12 is short indeed, longer than S2+ and shorter than M3, just in the middle between them. It’s the shortest 21700 light I have…I mean except Imalent DM70 that is disgustingly short as 21700, shorter than S2+ .

I went Nichia too, because of more flood and no tint shift I heard of. Not as much CRI as SST, but very good, a little bit too yellowish, but maybe I’ll use XPL HD another LED in the future… Or maybe this LH351D’s.

What do you use that powerfull UV light for, oweban?

Just for fun - I’ve got plenty of lights that can compensate, but would love a UV light with more punch than the S2+ that I’ve got :slight_smile:

Temperature stepdown can be easily removed on these convoy 6A drivers.
Also by stacking sense resistors output can be set higher or lower.

Yep! Added an R050 to my S11; 7.2A is close to perfect for SST40 :wink:

You guy go try to mode em’ first, tell me if it work well later… :wink:

Funny, i added an R050 as well :wink:

Temperature sensor bothers me in M3, but in S12 flashlight gets really hot before step down, so I assume inside is really hot, I definitely want to keep it.

But this sense resistor in SST40, tell me more :nerd_face: Where to solder it?

That’s the sensing resistor - if you run something in parallel with it, it’ll adjust the maximum amps. I’ll list the final current if you add one of the below resistors in parallel:

  • R010 - 12A
  • R015 - 10A
  • R020 - 9A
  • R025 - 8.4A
  • R050 - 7.2A

Note that they’re 2010 (5025) resistors - I found it hard to find a mix bag of low resistance in 2010/5025; I got them in 2512 (6332), so the new one overhangs a bit.

Nice review. I don’t usually see people who describe as being allergic to warm light. I like things golden. Green is a funny color. Green seems to pop with cooler light, whereas some of the background colors come out more with warmer light. For instance, birch trees in summer look great under cool white at night. Mixed forest scenery looks more alive with warmer light.