Best Convoy Thrower?

It’s less about the size of the hotspot, but rather minimizing the relative size of the corona. So the first one you mentioned likely throws farther but definitely is in better focus.

Swapped the sft40 from the L21B into another light. Now I’m running a Cree XPP and replaced the the R010 with two R056, so the current should be around 2.85A (will confirm later).

With the 30T @ 3.8V, I was seeing 305kcd. Cell is charging and I’ll get more measurements later.

I chose the small 1.1mm² emitter so that I could better characterize this reflector. With the SFT, I was seeing no meaningful change in lux values @ 5m when raising the reflector from ~0.5 to 0.9 mm. The emitter was being too forgiving to nail the focus height… with the XPP, I think I perfected it. Using the stock 3535 9mm gasket (0.59mm) with a 3535 ‘butterfly’ gasket sanded lightly to 0.79mm, the corona has the sharpest ‘petals’ and highest center beam cd. The butterfly gasket also helps center the emitter since the convoy 3535 gasket is a bit loose around the emitter.

The XPP is 0.75mm tall, 4040 NM1 measured 0.80mm, SFT40 was 1.10mm.

The base of the reflector should then be 0.63 above the LES.

With the SFT40 and supplied 5050 9mm gasket which comes in at 1.06mm tall, then we should space up an additional 0.67mm.

I have some oval base 5050 gasket that is 0.66 thick, and by dumb luck, that’s what I tried first to space the reflector when I first started messing with it.

Hope this helps!

I tried mine, only got 57 meters, and the stupid thing broke when it landed. Tried my c8+ and got 62 meters and it broke too. All these people talking a thousand meters are full of it. Dont believe a word they say.

Just ordered the L21B with the W2 green. I’ll post some photos comparing it to the C8+ with a W1 green, and M21a with the W2 Green.

The focus needs adjusting by increasing the reflector height by 0.3mm. The focus was much worse upon release, but after my input another gasket was made, only for it to be wrong. Not sure if Simon gave the factory the wrong dimensions or the factory screwed it up. Thankfully my instructions were followed for the 4040 gasket. Another gasket is being made for the 3030.

I measured 250m less with a CSLNM1 3030 gasket, than using my own gasket. The very first L21B gasket performed worse than the C8+

Less corona and larger hotspot will throw further in this case.

Using the CSLNM1 my gasket as shown produces the longest range by a lot

Thank you! Did you DIY a gasket or buy one separately? If so, what exactly did you use?

Buy two of the original 3030 gaskets and sand one down, removing the risen edge that the reflector sits on. Sand it flush or till 0.5-0.6mm and glue both together

0.5 + 0.6 = 1.1mm. 1.2mm gets a tiny bit more, but easiest is just the 1.1mm.

The height of the gasket is 0.6mm where the reflector sits. Just so you know where the 0.6 above came from

I see, I’ll order two of those now and hopefully they arrive around the same time as the L21B.

Thanks for the confirmation.
(I was suspecting this but was unable to test more precisely to note the difference)

Also, while my eyes can see the “hotspot” and “corona”, I can’t seem to get that image taken with the camera, even when adjusting settings manually (I’m no expert in camera adjustment settings though, so maybe there are settings that can allow a camera to take a better picture of the hotspot/corona thing…

I wonder if this could be done for the S2+ too. Here are some images I pulled from someone’s AliExpress review:
First is stock:

With adjusted reflector:

Apparently he shimmed the reflector gasket with tape:

Ideally you want to reduce the corona for better throw and the 2nd photo looks larger. It certainly made the hotspot look nicer, but who knows whether it was correctly centered to begin with.

Easy way to try is to unscrew the pill a little at a time and see what happens

You were right about the S2+, the stock gasket is far too thin. I added 0.5mm and it looks way better, mine is too thick so tuning is needed.

I tried 3D printing a centering ring for my L21B NM1 since the original one was a bit loose around the LED and was constantly losing its centering.

I admit it’s not the cleanest. On the one hand using a circular hole for the LED might be better to avoid torquing the emitter while tightening the bezel, but on the other hand the square hole seems easier to center if the dimensions aren’t perfect.

I used 1.2mm like above for the gasket thickness. Unfortunately I didn’t do before/after measurements, but the corona looks nicer and it was much easier to center when reassembling, compared to the original gasket. Hopefully it holds up to the heat of the LED, it’s only PLA plastic so it may not be ideal.

By the way, did you ever get around to tuning the gasket thickness for the S2+? Does a thicker gasket improve the throw?

You should get a decent bump in range at 1.2mm. I never bothered to try any further tuning of the S2+ , I had no reason to since I doubt Simon would bother and I don’t have an S2+ of my own, they’re all for sale and I certainly don’t want to make a custom gasket for those, takes too much work without a 3D printer :slight_smile:

In the L21B the increased gasket thickness makes the screws useless, so I always remove them to make it easy to center the LED. Without the screws it centers itself most of the time

Convoy L7
Convoy L6 FC40
Convoy 4×18a
Convoy 3×21a
Convoy L21A – L21B – L21C
Convoy C8+ Osram

Convoy L21C ?

I was wondering about that, too. I can only find 2 references to it, that post you quoted and this: convoy m21a vs l21c - Album on Imgur

My guess is that it’s a typo or mistake in both cases but I’m prepared to be wrong.

If you look at the very last photo it shows the M21A and L21A :slight_smile:

that must be a typo, that’s an M21A and L21A in the link