On Amazon there is a listing for 4 C8's for $12.99 (makes them $3.25 each)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0786D7KN4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3EM3FZAXLD3E9&psc=1
Its nothing I am recommending because I know nothing about the brand but it is the cheapest I have ever seen for a C8. Just wanted to let people know about it.
It could be using the old pill type design.
Cheapest ones I found are on ebay. Just open a dispute when the LED is clearly not a XM-L and get a refund.
Or it could be the C8 with hollow pills. I bought some Ultrafires like this and ended up buying new pills from Fasttech.
I may bite, if nothing else they can make gifts for muggles who will be ecstatic to have a light that bright.
Can order some better pills, if they are hollow. I wouldn’t mind having some with pills. If you feel like having a change its a easy swap. I usually edc a x6 or c8.
I should also mention the C8s i bought had plastic reflectors and the bad tail cap style. They are modifiable i had some spare reflectors and some AR coated glass soi they are decent with some work. Plus the pills from Fasttech are super heavy way better than the stock pills in the older C8. No retaining on these pills.
Can someone recommend a source for a high quality / value C8 host?
Convoy C8 from Convoy’s aliexpress shop
Why would you do that ? His hosts are $14.68
95% of the time it’s cheaper to just buy a complete light from Gearbest or Bangood and you end up with a free driver and emitter .
I like Convoys stuff but never understood peoples need to go buy it from convoy directly . He’s always more expensive than the retail vendors he sells to .I applaud him for not undercutting his vendors i think it’s appropriate business ethics but just don’t know why people are always pushing people to go buy from him. Fastech still has a better selection of emitters and drivers.Only reason would be if you can’t solder at all and want him to add the new driver in the light …why he doesn’t just use it in all of them instead of the OLD 3/5 driver i’ll never know …probably just $$$
Thanks for the heads up. If the reflectors are crap. Rmm has them for a couple dollars a piece I believe. Guess I’ll crunch the numbers first. A convoy host is about 10 dollars. If I have to buy new pills reflectors and switches along with shipping charges. Migjt not be saving much of anything. I do like the pill design though even though it’s not as efficient. I like the idea of having a few pills made up and being able to change emitters abd drivers with just unscrewing and rescrewing with a little thermal paste on the threads. Then complelty disassembling the light if you wanna swap drivers and emitters.
Speaking of which offhand do you know if fasttech or anyone sells pills for the s2 or s2+? They are probably the same pill just wondering.
Sofirn sells good hosts too, especially the C8F triple emitter variant.
Should be about 10 dollars for the black one. Or 12 or 13 for the silver one with AR glass and clear tail switch cover.
Yea Simon Convoy sells all those parts cheap also.
Yea the C8 host can become expensive once you start adding parts before the cheapest C8 Convoy host i could find was around 14USD so it was the same price to get them on sale. Even when Gearbest puts the S2+ on sale for around 10USD by the time you factor in the LED and driver its a good buy. Ill just re purpose the driver/LED.
Its also an issue if parts will fit proper with these cheaper C8. They are not the same threads as the Convoy branded C8s. If you buy these and they are crap you can write it as its not to expensive. They could be half decent hosts?. Kaidomain also sells the C8 pills its practically the same as this Fasttech pill.
https://www.fasttech.com/p/1208600
I am yet to come across any S2+ pills apparently Fasttech use to sell them but they are out of stock. I tried a different pills and none fit.
I have bought two cheap C8s and both are different threading from the convoy and also each other. Need to get a fasttech pill and see if it fits one.
Just got my order an hour ago.
They are branded Ploarnovo.
Here is the quick and dirty without photos. Good and Bad qualities.
Aluminum Reflector (not bad looking), Plain glass (needed cleaned), hollow threaded pill, press in Dog Vomit 4 resistor driver and unlabeled LED board.
Lumen robbing tall centering ring and black cover over the whole deal to center the led and apply pressure to the board.
Draws a whopping 1.55 amp on High with plenty of low freq PWM on Mid and Low for your seizure pleasure.
Starts on high and resets after about 5 seconds, decent.
Anyway after moving the negative to the other side of the resistor bank and putting in cheap gauge left over wire from another bucket flashlight as a spring bypass it now gets to 2.60 amps on high and then drops back to 2.50 amps pretty quick due to the hollow thin pill shelf.
The good is:
Not bad tint, white but not blue. Very focused hot spot due to high centering ring.
Does have screw in tail switch, looks like Omten clone.
Pill threads were the same as an old brass pill I got from FastTech some time back.
Threads are not bad really.
I have bought way worse C8’s and for the money I am pleasantly surprised with these.
Good light to give to someone who wants long run time in stock form, or if nothing else or a good cheap host to practice modding skills.
Muto rating;
8.5 on the econobox scale 
Thanks to the OP for the heads up on the deal.
Happy Trails,
Keith
Thanks for the report .
I also got these a few hours ago. Only difference, 2 were branded Ploarnovo and 2 were branded TotaLohan. All 4 appear to be the same and as described by Muto. I am new to all this flashlight modding and thought these would be good to practice on.
I got these today and they are just OK. They will be great to leave all over the place so there will be light everywhere.
I railed about that at length a bunch of times here. Not worth the ag.
Vaguely recall looking at FT, discontinued.
Imma just stick with convoy host by the time you make it a nice host it cost the same as a 11 dollar host basically. Now if I got them free or had a box of spare parts already something would be a different story.
As for the s2 Imma talk to kirbu when the time comes and see if he has some. Or if I ever get around to a triple I’ll have a spare one.
It would be nice is maybe Rmm could get Simon to send him a handful to sell. Maybe like 10 or 20 to see how they would sell at first.