Triple XP-L Convoy S2 MTN Edition BLF17DD Review

Have any of you guys built a triple with XPG2s and the BLF DD17 on a copper spacer? If so how much light did you get out of it?

Well, obviously we’re getting too much guts in too small of a light. The Cypreus EDC 18350 is very small, I love it’s weight with the copper spacer in it and it’s very impressive. Having 7 levels to pick from it’s a useful light in at least 5 of em. :slight_smile: I can’t say that Turbo is really useful as it is really pretty short lived.

That said, I love my high powered lights! Can’t use em for real world situations a lot of the time, but still the modes make em at least carryable for normal situations…if you can leave turbo alone. I have a Delrin locker to carry a spare cell, need to get one in 18650 size for the X6 and Sinner Ti lights as they both take 2 of the 18350’s. At some point I start to get concerned about the bomb in my pocket though, does that make sense? Don’t want anyone thinking I actually am sane on occasion…

I did build a Convoy S2 with an XP-G2 and a Qlite running 2.25A. Shocker, I know. It still gets hot in Turbo level, at some 500 lumens. This is my 7 yr olds light, his favorite. :slight_smile:

I think we need a well set up pill — holding any chosen emitter and driver — built with mass and radiator fins on the outside — as the middle piece of any flashlight.

Make it threaded for attaching a battery container, and for attaching a head with optic or reflector.

The old 35mm SLR cameras often had very well made adapter rings, so you could as we now say “Lego” lenses from various sources onto camera bodies from various sources.

Often the adapters would have a bayonet mount on one side and screw threads on the other for making things fit together.

And they had to worry about precise distance between lens and film plane — which we don’t.

I know the ‘lottery’ — people using the machine tool that makes and matches threads, these days, aren’t trying for compatibility with anything. But there can’t be all that many useful choices, right?

I’m wishing for something that would end up looking a bit like the hand guard on a sword, I suppose — wider than the battery holder/handgrip, like a collar, effective at losing heat.

Just dreaming. But right now these modded triple high-powered lights are reaching the energy density where they’re overlapping with IEDs, and so long as lithium-ion cells overheating can be trouble, they will be. I wonder how fast a li-ion starts to break down when it’s repeatedly heated too hot to hold?

That’s why I would like to see an inert battery tube that wouldn’t absorb heat from the head/pill. Like carbon fiber for example. That would go a long way to keep the cells cooler and still be strong with the benefit of looking awesome. :slight_smile:

Ti bezel/tail cap, copper pill/fins, carbon fiber head and battery tube. :slight_smile: Oh, $25, max. :stuck_out_tongue: Oops, I think our wish list just exceeded our budget…

I don’t know but I’m a find out!

My efest 800s (18350s) are no longer holding a charge sufficient to take the light out of moon mode. Oops.

Sounds like you need some of the Purple Efests, they rock at high discharge. The regular red Efests are good up to around 6A, but beyond that I think they're getting pushed pretty hard.

new time temp amp data up

Scotty, I built a triple XP-G2 R5 2B for a Solarforce L2M shorty. I used a 7/8” diameter copper pill 1 1/16” long (made from bar stock) to fit in the L2M, Efest Purple 18350 and it draws 8.4A with the BLF17DD driver. Start output is 2084, 1766 at 30 seconds. Still doing 1500 at 4 minutes with a head temperature of 144º.

I’m not Scotty,

But you say the lumens will droop and the head temp will stabilize long into 4 minutes?

I don’t think I’ve got the balls to run this thing that long, considering how hot it gets so quickly

I left the timer at 120 secs on my Roche F6 triples, seems fine to me. (as long as you don't change hands with it after that amount of time, the normal-temp hand gets quite a shock :O )

wd, that’s with XP-G2’s on a big chunk of solid copper. Scotty asked about hard driven XP-G2’s output in comparison to yours. Look how much copper is under this, and even with XP-G2’s it heats up pretty good…

Comfy, so what you’re saying is keep the fried hand on the light and it’s ok? lol

I’ve used thermal paste on the head threads of my last 2 Solar Force triples—Seems to pull the heat to the head more and slows it to the lower tube a bit—Has anyone else tried this

Thermal pastes only work where the layer is very thin, like microscopically thin. In thicker layers it acts as an insulator not much better than air. To get the thin layers required usually means very flat highly-finished surfaces and high clamp loads, things that are usually not possible in most flashlight parts other than like between MCPCB & pill top, pill flange to head surfaces, or rather tight press-fit pills.

So when you tighten up threads till something binds (head to body) therefore making the threads pretty snug against each other—that’s not a tight fit

In a narrow contact area like the spiral lands on the threads you likely have enough surface contact that the paste wouldn't help. And it definitely won't help between the other parts of the threads that aren't physically touching.

You got me wondering now if putting a thin copper foil like Teflon tape on the threads would increase head to body contact

If you got a tight enough contact you wouldn't be able to unscrew it.

I tried to put solder paste on the threads, figuring to reflow it together. I couldn’t get it to thread or screw in with the paste on there. Probably would have been a PITA to keep all the wires in place. It took a long time to clean out with an old tooth brush and paper towels.

Is it worth running a triple xpl on a sensible current that would allow you to run it constantly without heat issues in an Convoy S host? How much current would that be and what output would we be expecting? I like the setup but always prefer to have safe runtime on a high mode and then all-out turbo with stepdown.