Convoy L2/L6 modding thread

[EasyB]

@EasyB

@DB Custom

Got a new Convoy L2 in today, XM-L2 NW, almost 1000 lumens on a single cell. While I really really dig the dimensions on the single cell beauty, I had something else in mind.

I did some machine work on it to fit a 26mm MaxToch mcpcb onto the shelf, loaded a XHP-35 E2 3A emitter on it, bored out the driver bay to take Mountain Electronics MTN Buck driver at 27.5mm and 2.5A for the 12V emitter.
No tail spring bypass and with a rigged spacer as the cells are a bit short (I’m using 3 extension tubes, 4 Basen 26650’s) It’s making…

0.01A for 2.59 Lumens
0.05A for 71.42
1.03A for 1193.7
2.42A for 2352.9 and 2270.1 at 30 seconds.

Edit: Lux is 258Kcd for 1015.87M throw. Not fantastic, but not too bad either.

I machined inside the head and outside the reflector to allow the reflector to sit deeper, used Simons taper centering ring he designed for the XP-L, works great! Kind of a Convoy tribute to the old 4 cell MagLite of old.

(had to double up on some pain meds, made it through pretty well, covering the lathe back up in the shop is a major pita though, ugh!)

I think this is a great result. I’m planning on playing with the H2-C single cell boost driver in the L2 to see if I can make it put out 2.5A. I’m planning on changing out the inductor for one with less resistance.

Modded the H2-C driver with a R030 sense resistor to output 2.37A to the XHP35 HI E2 3A emitter. (see this post and thread for info on modding this driver) I filed down the edges to make it fit in the L2 driver space. I could not get the output to be stable at this level with 1s input, so I’m using 2x26350 cells. These cells are a bit too long for the L2 single tube so for now the battery tube is not completely threaded into the head, to make room for the cells.

I measured 250Kcd at 6m. I was comparing the L2 w/XHP35 to my fandyfire SP02 with dedomed XPL V6 1A, which does 243Kcd with a fully charged 30Q at about 20s. The SP02 has the same reflector as the HD2010 and Mitko’s BLF style thrower. Based on a ceiling bounce test the L2 has about 30% more output. The two beams look very similar. The L2 hotspot is very slightly larger with a larger corona.

So, a pretty good result, but not a huge performance increase over the dedomed XPL V6. The boost driver/XHP35 setup also uses quite a bit more power, about 60% more from the cell(s).