A proper ending of an era: receiving the last light before the new customs regulations. Of course, it is a Convoy - my first flashlight from China was also a Convoy /more than 4 years ago - months before joining BLF/.
GT-FC40 5000-5500K tint seems to be a very good one: seems to be very close to BBL, and it does not have any dominant hue. 4000-4500K tint is already very good, but this is even better.
The difference is not very big. The light spot of L7 is a little more focused. After a while, there will be review videos on Youtube.
thanks for your advice,
Hello Simon,
If I remember correctly, you can sell currently the A5 tint (5000-5500K) and A4 tint (4000-4500K) of the high CRI GT-FC40 LED. Can you also get the A3 bin (3200-3600K) from the manufacturer?
CCTs around 3500K are very pleasing and gentle for the eye while still having a good amount of blue and green, thus being not too “warm”.
Same for me, I ordered a few flashlights before the new European customs regulations, all Convoy :) and a few folding knives.
On the tracking, my last two Convoy packages went through customs yesterday, just in time.
I don't know if Chinese merchants like Ali Express will find a parade, perhaps with warehouses in Europe.
Strangely AE is doing a lot of commercials on TV right now that I've never seen before.
An interesting (p)review of the 3X21A with SFT40 (in Mandarin)…
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1kw411R7jm
Beamshots start around 11m 30s. Credits go to TLF member helicoil who frequently discovers the latest news on Baidu.
Hello simon when will 26800 tube be available for l7?
It seems, that my last order did not turn out to be a straight winner (at least in its current state).
I definitely need to solve a less obvious short circuiting problem.
I have an L6, and I tried different output levels. I left the L6 on its highest output setting for little more than one minute, and I saw the driver blinking the LED, and returning to low output. Pulled out batteries, checked voltage: 3.75V - it was way too high to trigger low voltage protection by the driver. Then I noticed, that the tailcap spring has been compressed in a way, that it cannot fully extend, and it is a bit skewed.
Ok then, I started to look into the flashlight head, checking, if the plus wire possibly making contact with the reflector. Close call, but probably not. To make sure, I just turned the flashlight head downwards, and screwed off the bezel to let the reflector drop away from the LED board (about 3-4 millimeters distance). Then I switched on the L6 on its highest setting, and waited about 30 seconds. Switching off, then immediately screwing off tailcap - there was a burnt smell, and I was a bit less than cautious to touch the spring steadily - the heat was definitely above 100°C making a small blister immediately on my finger.
I think, normally, this should not happen, and I guess, the spring installed to the tailcap was not too thin to heat up this much because of its resistance.
I also checked this problem with lowest out setting for a minute, then there was no significant heat accumulated in the tailcap spring.
Could anybody please help me, what I need to do in order to prevent this short-circuit from happening?
Im also waiting on the L7 26800 tube before I order.
Simon, will the L7 26800 tube match the pattern of the L7 tube? I love the machine work on that tube and own several flashlights that are very similar.
Is the L7 26800 tube an extension tube that screws onto the end of the existing L7 tube, or does it completely replace the L7 tube with a single piece tube?
This similar thing happened to me while I was doing a beamshot video of the Convoy M21C (XHP70.2). I had a full charged battery, doing beamshot videos on max brightness, then I think less than 20 seconds later, the light mysteriously dropped a lot in brightness. Stopped filming the beamshot video. When I checked the flashlight later, I notice the tailspring has compressed.
Although I didn’t get the M21C directly from Simon’s Convoy AliExpress (I got from a 3rd-party reseller that shipped to me faster), I sent Simon a message about this problem, and if he can sell me a tailswitch replacment, and he did something better, he sent me (for free) 3pcs replacement tailsprings… (Initially, I thought it was the “tailswitch board + tailspring already soldered on it” that he will send; but it was just the bare unsoldered tailsprings, still I thank very much for this.) Anyway, this means the compressed spring need to be unsoldered first from the tailswitch assembly, and then solder the replacement tailspring — unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do that yet. As I currently just do mostly beamshot testing, I just ‘borrow’ the tailcap of my M21C (SST40) when I need to do beamshot test of the M21C (XHP70.2).
I wonder if I need to do a bypass wire on the replacement spring when soldering it back to the ‘previously compressed spring’), to prevent the collapsing spring issue from happening… I’m not so skilled at soldering small parts so I have procrastinated the replacement of my compressed tailspring though…
imtersting, but I really don't think it's the driver at 8amps causing the problem because that's what I have and I'm running a 40t battery which I would assume would be using every one of the 8amps the driver alows. And I have not had this problem. I always give a quick glance at my leds before turning on a light for the first time ,usually to make sure they're centered more than anything, but I would like to think I would notice a black spot. Now I'm going to start talk8ng pictures just to document if anything ever happened.
also,I'm wonder if it has anything to do with turning it on max output the first time you use the light, and keeping it on max output for a duration of time right when you first use it? Would that have anything to do with it?
Adding the bypass will prevent the spring from over heating and collapsing -- that's the primary reason why spring bypass's were first used. However, a superior spring will also prevent the collapse, like a Beryllium copper one. It could be the spring was simply a bad piece with particularly high resistance, or the wrong spring was chosen for this high amp light.
Thank you d_t_a and Tom E for your help.
I was suspicious about this is really a short-circuit or not - as if it was a short-circuit, it should heat up the spring quickly regardless of the selected output.
I will get a better spring then, and maybe also add a bypass. By default, spring bypasses were not present in this L6.
(I will check this though with another L6 tailcap, which I have in a 4 year old L6.)
Anyway, I was happy to notice, that Simon sells a conversion kit for upgrading from XHP70 to GT-FC40. Maybe I also buy that, when I order better springs.
Keep in mind in a true short this will just pass along the resistance to the next component in line and ruin that as well. This suggestion only applies under normal (high current) operation.
Yes, I can let the factory customize any color temperature.
Even if the goods are sent to European warehouses in advance, the goods will be taxed in advance.
in production ,it needs some time
Do you have photos of the positive and negative springs? The old spring is made of iron and has a large internal resistance. Now I use a copper spring.
a little longer ,i may produce special 26800 tube for L7
thisnis great news! I would definrey buy this LED in a light if it was under 4500k!