I have a Convoy C-8 with a SFT-40 and 8 amp driver.. awesome setup.. has a perfectly round sharp hotspot and enough light out to the sides.. but it opens up at range.. definitely can see the focal point at night with the dew in the air..
Keeping with this power level, will another led give a more straight forward beam or is it the depth of the reflector that needs to change ? If so what light would be best for this..
I have a Cyclops hunting light with a very deep reflector, i upgraded it to a SFT-25R and an 8 amp driver, big improvement, but its all but a laser beam, very tight hotspot goot for long range on a scoped rifle..
Im looking for something that will lay down bright light about 15 - 20 feet wide at like 200 yards without going with a large, power hungry overly hot light..
Im open to other brands, but really liking Convoy..
Thanks guys..
Forgot which way it goes, but a shim to raise the reflector off the LED, or sanding down the bottom of the reflector to lower it, adjusts the focal point a hair.
Try shims first, obviously, to see if it gets better, something like onion paper, a layer at a time. If it gets worse and worse, then sand it down a hair at a time.
Try masking tape at the bottom of the gasket. A layer first then two to see in which direction the beam goes. If the direction is wrong start sanding the gasket down.
Great suggestions. When the beam is prematurely convergent then divergent, it’s an indication that the LED sits too far inside the reflector, and padding with tape is indeed the correct fix.
Just tried removing the gasket, it did fix the divergence of the beam and actually would be great for general back yard shining as it starts out bigger and just keeps getting bigger.
Ill make a tape shim under the gasket and start moving the reflector outwards..
Get this nailed down I’ll put it in a scope ring and mount it on top of my .22lr
After i check it with masking tape to find out how many layers it takes what would a permanent solution be ?
JB-Weld putty under the gasket and slowly tighten down the bezel till it gets to the right spot and let set up ?
Carve out a plastic shim and sand to the right thickness ?
Or will the tape last plenty long enough ?
You could also use kapton tape and leave it there once you find the right amount of layers. Masking tape should do the trick just fine though. It will get yellow and sticky with time and heat.
Your suggestion would have been right for a convex lens rather than a reflector!
I’ve been ok with masking tape, though it tends to flatten over time (as paper compresses easily). Kapton tape is a bit difficult because it’s super thin, so it takes many, many layers to shift the focus noticeably.
The best tape I’ve used for this purpose is glow-in-the-dark tape, which is made of thick and somewhat hard plastic. It survives the heat without issue, does not compress, and a single layer is thick enough to make a slight difference.
I put 2 layers under it, compressed it good and let off. It definitely made a change in the right direction and i can remove 1 layer and see how it does..
A comparison between the C8 with the SFT-40 and then the Cyclops with the SFT-25r…
It did change it, but not enough to amount to anything.. ill just look at a different host to work with.. looking at the Convoy L21A.. that with a SFT-60 and 15 amp driver should do a better job, it is bigger than id like but it would also handle alot more heat..
Would i ever get to use it ? Most likely not.. but the way life has changed i cant use half of what i got.. oh well. My daughter will get alot of cool stuff lol.
Based on the level of divergence in the beamshots, you probably will need at least 5 layers of masking tape to fix it. Unfortunately, different batches of Convoy C8 reflectors come with subtly different heights; some of them deviate enough to require serious re-focusing.
I’ve received 2 supposedly identical reflectors in the same anti-static pack that had noticeably different dimensions, with one being more than half a mm shorter.
Under ideal circumstances the reflecting surface is a section of a paraboloid, which means there always exists a focal point that gives a clean beam; such a focal point can always be found by playing with the gasket.
It is less likely, but still possible, that the manufacturing is so poor that the reflector deviates significantly from the ideal parabolic shape and does not have a focal point that makes a clean beam. I’ve encountered this in some Convoy lights (all of my S2+ smooth reflectors, in fact), and there’s nothing one can do but to move on.
Ok, ill give it another shot then..
I know they got it spot on with my Cyclops hunting light.. that thing is all but a laser beam hahaha. It just needed a bit more punch..
This can explain why some smallish lights have a weird-looking reflector and beams with an unusually sharp hotspot boundary, which is not possible for a parabolic reflector!
