Well, I will stick my foot in my mouth here, since you haven't gotten any answers yet.
The Convoy L2 host should be a good host for a thrower.
For a thrower, I would look for an XM-L or XM-L2 led that was "cool white", more output and it needs to be dedomed, so it will get a little "warmer tint" when dedomed.
The driver would probably be fine for two cells, but I have never used it. Maybe someone else will chime in.
All in all, I think the two cell way would be the better way. The single cell host won't be all that good of a thrower. If you went single cell, then look at something like a HD2010 for a host.
I'd go with a dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A. I've dedomed 1C's and the tint turns fairly green. Following RaceR86's advice I got some 1A tints for dedoming. Works great. No green tint. Cool leaning towards neutral white would be how I describe the tint with a decomed 1A. Best wishes on your project.
For the 2-cell thrower, I think I’ll stick with the L2. It has the option to take 26650’s should I ever take that route in the future. Also, I would like to keep the dome on for now. I have dedomed an LED before, but that was by accident.
As for the 1-cell thrower, I forgot I have an OEM Big Head K8 back home. I’ll use that in its shorty format and change the LED to an XP-G2.
I’ll order the parts within the next week or so. Gives the slow boat from wherever a chance to be delivered before I get back to Oz in mid-December.
its a tight fit but doable, I use a bit of kapton tape between driver and contact board just to be sure, its that tight, I also break up the thermal pad and work it in around the toroid coil and anywhere else I can to fill the cavity.
What I would then do is get a cw noctigon xpg2 20mm. drop it in some petrol to dedome it. then you want a bit of copper tube, split it an cut two strips as wide as the noctigon contact pads. pound that copper as thin as possible then trim it to give you two 3/8” strips.
the strips are going on the contact pads and the wires connect to the strips. this will allow you to get the reflector as low as possible, use a bit more kapton tape to insulate the electrical connections then screw the reflector down as much as possible.
you want to get the copper contacts as low as possible its important to get the xp-g2 right up in there.
Once you’ve done all that, you’ll have a pretty good thrower that’ll happily run on trustfire flame 26650 cells.
For the “single” cell thrower, I’d look at the zy-t08 or hd2010, the reflectors are not far off the diameter of the convoy l2 (the zy-t08 and by extension the hd2010 will sit bezel down inside the bezel of the l2), they take some work but they can be made to throw. The l4 has a c8 sized reflector, not bad, but not the best you can do either, it does however, look to be a really nicely specced light so I see no reason why an xp-g2 shouldn’t wake up the the lazy floody beam you get from an xm-l emitter.
I have been reading on a few of the 5A driver threads here. Someone mentioned that the driver that you use there is the same one that I posted in the OP, but it can be had cheaper at lightmalls as it is in a 5-pack and, personally speaking, I won’t need to pay for shipping it either from lightmalls.
As for the HD2010, I forgot about that classic light. It’ll be up for consideration. The 1-cell thrower project I’d like to do on the cheap as much as possible, so if the K8 is “ok” enough for it, then I’ll use that instead. I do like the fact that its driver from Richie086’s review has it driving the LED at 2.8A in the 1-cell format. Good enough for me when coupled with an XP-G2.
Order the Noctigons now. They'll probably take the longest to arrive. My IOS orders typically take a month to arrive. I'm still waiting for an order placed last August. Everything else can be ordered a week or two later.
I’ve not seen the lightmalls driver up close, the lightmalls picture show the small toroid driver that is commonly 3a, I think the large toroid is to cope with the increased load.
I also suggested the lck led driver because space really is tight in the l2 head and having fitted two of them, in two l2 hosts, I’m confident they will fit.
I think tom e has both the lightmalls and lck led drivers and said that they are identical so you should be fine, I’ve just no personal experience with them and prefer to recommend what I know will work.
Can we stop linking to this light. I cant afford it.
The Convoy lights get a good rap from a lot of members here. It would more than likely not be a thrower but with a3 or 5 amp driver and 2 cells you could put an MTG-2 in the L2.
I got the IOS 4.5A and LCK-LED 5A driver, and they appear to be the same, accept for current sense resistors. The lightmalls pack of 5 is a crap shoot - 2 different pictures, 2 different toroids. I haven't heard or read if anyone found out which it is, though for the price, my money is on the crappier small toroid, which btw, is the same as the FastTech driver here: fasttech-1143104-2-3-lithium-5-mode-3a. Also, same design, small toroid, different current sense resistors. The one I got from FT was 3 mode, not 5 mode as advertised.
I took a chance and ordered the 5 pack 5.A 3 mode from Lightmalls. It looks the same as the LCK-LED one. LCK says 3 mode, the first one I got was as described, all the others have been 5 mode. Lightmalls also has the 3.A version. They probably just used the same photos.
So you received the order and the 5A ones have the large toroid? This would make sense, but that's a great price. I'm confused about the modes - the Lightmalls or LCK-LED ones had 3 modes for the 1st one, then 5 mode for the rest?
The very first one I ordered from LCK was three mode. I used it in my TorchLite. All the others I have ordered since have come with five modes. I’m not the only member that has brought this up, others have been having the same problem.
I’ll back up tom and ouchyfoot, the last lck-led 5a driver I received about two months ago had 5 modes instead of 3.
I like the driver, works as described but I hate them D* flashy modes.
Shot lck-led a email over a month ago about the flashy 5 modes, No reply yet, and doubt they ever will, unless I get persistent. J)
and doubt they ever will, unless I get persistent. J)