Simon is putting together a plan to make an 8A driver for the C8+ and I wanted to ask what additional groups would be useful to a hunter, not for general users?.
Currently, I have have the following 5 most used groups for New Zealand hunters.
For those who aren’t aware, I run a flashlight hunting store in NZ and I stock mostly Convoy models. Mainly it’s just the S2, C8, and L21B because they’re around the 25.4mm diameter to fit the standard rifle mounts.
Simon has asked whether SOS or Strobe should be added? Not necessary in NZ, but anyone else use Strobe for hunting?
For important hunters turn on 100% independent of the way it was turned off.
Forward switch preferred.
100% - 10% - 1% out of memory.
C8+ is mechanical switch.
If it were an electronic switch, long press = 1% discrete mode.
Would it be possible with Foward switch: mechanical: double press = discrete mode 1%?
I wonder what hunting activity requires lower modes? In my country most hunters would use only 100% during hunt, very rarely 10-20% for walking. If you want to make it more versatile, you can add 100–20-strobe for security and 100–20 for just simple high-low.
BTW, at 30-35% power, percieved brightness is 80-90% - for longer runtimes, while light is not getting hot.
Convoy’s firmware only reduces to the 35% brightness level when thermal regulation triggers, so there needs to be a lower level if it gets too hot, so 10. Maybe I ditch the 1 level since no one would actually use it when hunting. I only included it because it’s currently in the group 10 I set the C8+ to in the 12 groups firmware.
This photo below is of the C8+ PM1 running at 8A and then at 1.5A which would be roughly 20%. Top distance is 463m and the bottom is 208m. It almost looks too low
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Convoy forward switch doesn’t fit “drop in” into C8+/M2, Simon sent me some to build (the switch, the PCB, and the spring) : soldering wasn’t that trivial as the switch is actually as big as the PCB, and I had to shave down the nipple inside the rubber boot to reduce tension
(you can even see the first failed attempt with a melted down switch :innocent: )
For “tactical” illumination use, I chose the 100% only mode and have a secondary floody flashlight for anything else :sunglasses:
Ahh, forgot to share my experience - I had a light with 12 group driver and forward switch - very hard to enter into programming mode for me, not to speak about users.
to hunt I use mode 5 1-20-100 on the l21b. If I look for an animal in the field it is with the 20 mode and if I find it I change to 100. A 1-35-100 mode would be great. simple and without so many clicks.
To put you in context. In my country, Argentina, we hunt from the car generally looking for animals in the field or also stationed. In my country we love the c8+ and p30 (nitecore) both are sold for 100 or more dollars here
The following image is to provide visual aid to the brightness between levels on the 5A driver running at 5.7A This is a C8+ with SFT40 and the shed is 156m away
