June 11, 2017 Convoy M1 Quad

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Well, today seemed like a good day to build my second Convoy M1 Quad. So I headed out to the shop and proceeded to carve an aluminum (shocker, right?) heat sink/spacer to fill the head of the new M1 I just got from Simon. At the same time, I’m trying the new Nichia 319 for the first time. I like to fit the heat sink to all the contours inside the head, also allowing the quad optic to seat flush at the top of the sink so it’s fully supported and the sink is up against the glass lens. So that’s how I went about this one…

The emitter shelf is cut to fit Richards new quad board, with the walls tapered to clear the TIR’s within the quad optic…

Always an interesting challenge to get all the dimensions right, tapers and all, so that the heat sink mates to all surfaces inside the head. Especially with one arm severely limited! lol! I have a Dr.’s appt. tomorrow and another on the 21st with the surgeon, hoping to get this thing wound up soon, but now I really don’t know when surgery will be done. So here I am, doing what I do.

The bottom of the heat sink mates up nicely with the stock emitter shelf…

Ended up being a nice fit, quite pleased…


Richards new Quad MCPCB and a Carclo spot optic…

The MCPCB fits snugly into the base of the sink, almost zero play, while the optic fits flush at the top of the sink when the legs are mated to the mcpcb. This allows the glass lens to be pressed into the sealing o-ring with nice uniform pressure. :wink:


I got it assembled with a freshly built A17DD S-08 driver utilizing the Vishay SiR020DP FET and 20 ga leads. I used Arctic Silver to glue the heat sink into the head so it’s a permanent resident. The mcpcb has Arctic Alumina Thermal Paste so if necessary it can be removed easily for updates. (wasn’t sure how this new Nichia 319 was gonna act. :wink: )

I’ll get some pics of the finished light later on (am whipped, arm is fussin at me really good by now)

So how does it work, you might ask? Well, it’s a monster! :smiley:

With a freshly charged 3000mAh Efest 18650 I get these numbers…

0.005A for 0.69 Lumens
0.02A for 6.486
0.14A for 57.615
0.55A for 230.805
3.21A for 1090.20
9.00A for 2518.5
18.22A for 4591.95

Wasn’t expecting THAT! nearly 4600 lumens from a Convoy M1, WOW! Gotta love it when a plan comes together… :wink:

Assembled and wowing…




Thanks Simon, excellent little light and a superb finish! And thanks to you too Richard, awesome quad boards and they do indeed work amazingly well with the new Nichia 319, thanks for supplying those as well. :slight_smile: Still thankful to Wight for his work on the orginal FET+1 boards and ToyKeeper for the incredible A6 firmware, love to be able to back into a lesser mode and avoid that 18A hit up on top. So many amazing people on this forum, just love building these little monsters! lol

2

Now that’s truly a monster! Nice work as usual dale.

3

Nice result and nice machining! It definitely does increase the difficulty when you try to fill all of the available volume in the head with the spacer.

4

Nice fitting work! Quite a sleeper:-)

I have a question though: I have built one 319 triple (3000K 80CRI) and was quite put off by a distinct yellow center in the hotspot. I would like to know if that was these specific leds and colour temperature or that it is an unpleasant general feature of the 319 ? Could you check if there is any of that in your beam?

5

Beautiful work. I need one, the M1 is my favorite light. Do you have a drawing for the aluminum spacer? I might try to make one myself.

6

Yeah Jos, it’s like that in this one too. Somewhat like the XP-G3, Nichia style.

Jensen, I just made it on the fly to fit this light, sorry.

In level 6 I can hold onto it for a couple of minutes, hot but not quite burning up until then. On level 7, about 30 seconds, 35, and you just gotta shut it down. That’s at a near 80º ambient.

7

Nice build :+1:

Does the 319 suffer from this in reflectored lights?

8

There, fixed that for ya!

9

I got a few extra 319’s to play with, haven’t put one in a reflectored light yet. Richard cautions against using a single emitter with an FET driver, so it’d be wise to either control the FET with a reduced max through PWM or otherwise limit total output with a regulated driver. The hex shaped die should mate up well with a reflector, the low Vf will just require attention.

10

I built a 319 5000k triple and have the same egg yolk beam. Not a big fan…I still prefer 219c D320.

11

In your opinion, is the 319T superior to the 219C D320 70cri in a multi-emitter light?

12

Holy shit that’s impressive. Nice skills Dale. Now that’s a pocket rocket

13

Hahaha :smiley:

14

Nice machining Dale. Well done and thanks for posting it up and sharing your thoughts. :+1:

15

Well, I’ve built quads with the 219 before and only saw around 4000 lumens (EDIT: just remembered that was in a 35mm CUTE-4, this is the considerably smaller 24mm Carclo), didn’t have the odd beam profile though. So this new 319 delivers more and probably an overall better beam shape, but there are the inconsistencies of color, tradeoffs. Both are low Vf emitters, so either way the amp draw is going to be high. I think I might prefer to use the new XP-L W2 2B that allows the TIR to fit the domed emitter, this delivers good output without overdriving the emitters to such a heat producing event.

This was a fun experiment though, for sure. My first 319 experience.

16

I had an Eagle Eye X6 host sitting here so I built it up with Wight’s PZL driver and TK’s A6 firmware, used a Nichia 319 emitter in it. The beam profile is UGLY. That center section from a smooth mirrored reflector just really sucks. So I’m gonna have to say this new Nichia 319 really needs an orange peel or equivalent reflector.

17

Thanks for that :+1:

18

Fixed the beam profile problem, the Nichia 319 seems to really like Illuminations Machines diamond faceted reflector. :smiley:

19

That looks cool, nice even beam now?

20

How bad was the beam?