I’m looking at the Convoy S12 vs M21B
What’s the difference? Is it just one has 3 LED’s and the other only has 1?
What’s the pro & con of that?
Any other differences? Both have use a 21700 battery.
“Relevant BLF thread”: 【convoy】L21B SFT40 3000K Ra=95 available now
“”Convoy S12”:26.95€ |Convoy S12 taschenlampe mit luminus sst20,nichia 219C, LH351D|Taschenlampen| - AliExpress
From what I can tell, in addition to both being 1x21700 lights they both have the same driver and similar bodies but don’t underestimate the difference the optical setups will cause, in use these will be very different lights with very different beam patterns. There’s also color rendering differences and efficiency differences from them having different led’s…
The triple sst-20 S12 will have a less throw cause of the 3 tiny reflectors, it’ll also have “pedals” in the beam pattern from where the 3 reflector cups overlap creating a non-round spill beam. It will, again because of the sst-20’s have much higher CRI (up to >95CRI depending on which bin, I didn’t see that listed but you can usually specify when ordering from simon) and also because it has 3 of the most efficient led’s will stay in regulation longer and be more efficient overall and create less heat for a given lumen output.
The M21b with its sst-40 in a single larger reflector will have lower CRI but a more throwey, intense beam. It’ll also make a lot of heat especially at max (6A).
Both should have similar outputs (atleast visually it won’t be much of a difference lumen wise from 3xSST-20’s vs 1xSST-40)
Thank you.
What do you mean by “stay in regulation longer”?
So the only advantage of the single LED is
Less heat at max for the single LED doesn’t seem like an advantage if the triple LED can produce the same amount of light more efficiently.
Who is Simon? This light is available on aliexpress, banggood and many other sites. Should I buy directly from him?
The M21B is significantly throwier. zeroair got something like 400m+ on his. It will also have less even light distribution since it is a single emitter light with a larger reflector:emitter ratio.
Simon is the owner and operator of Convoy. I would buy from the official Convoy store on AliExpress, although some of his lights are exclusive to BangGood (I think the M21B is).
There’s an M21B on the convoy store.
$22.29 SST-40 in 6500K or 5000K. I’ve been trying to decide between the M21A/C8+ vs M21B vs L21A. So many lights, so little allowance.
Me too!! Do they both use the same 20mm driver?
I had the same question. After digging I can say that M21A is slightly larger and more heavy compared to M21B. M21A has more throw.
M21A is the 21700 version of a C8+, while the M21B is the 21700 version of a M1.
More leds with the same power is more efficiency. Probably like 25% more for 3, but it depends. I prefer multiled TIR lights for general use due to smooth wide beam, but they have no throw so they are useless for shooting or searchlights.
I doubt the light you are asking about will be smooth since it’s not TIR.
Does simon do any custom jobs? Like changing a flashlight out to orange peel instead of smooth? If so best way to contact him? “customer support” or something else?
Thanks!
He sure does. You can ask for specific emitters, reflectors, driver configurations, and even tail boot color 
I like my M21B very much, and S12 as well, or even more. It just depends on what you need. Nice neutral tint and much throw? M21B SST40 5000K. More flooded beam and high CRI? S12 with Nichia or SST20 4000K. But if you really want a flood beam from M21B, you can ask Simon to change reflector to OP, or if he doesn’t have it, you can also add Dc-Fix to make the beam more even.
You can ask him by clicking “Contact” on the product page, under the flashlight photo.
What is Dc-Fix? Edit, never-mind I found it:
You guys are awesome
Bummer customer support said only smooth reflector.
There are only smooth available for the M1 and M21B, I think the M2 uses the same model of reflector as well.
Really? Wow. My M1 (purchased in 2017) has the OP reflector and I hadn’t even requested it, so I figured it was the default.
Interesting, I searched for an OP to put in my M21B and couldn’t find a single light in the family using it. I would guess they went out of production before the X-PL HI version (which doesn’t really need it) was released.
S12: Any opinions on choosing between 4,000k 219C and SST-20?
I think the Nichia will be floodier and run hotter. What about tint and total output? I’m also looking for some beamshot comparisons between the two.
Not exactly what you requested... but here is a beamshot comparison for the Convoy S12 with SST20-4000k and Convoy S12 with Nichia 219C-5700k:
Left: S12 (3x SST20 4000k) / Right: S12 (3x Nichia 219C 5700k)
