The flashlight was sent to me by Convoy for review.
Here's the flashlight's page: Convoy S12
The Convoy S12 arrived in a simple cardboard box.
No fancy packaging, which is totally acceptable considering the quality and pricing of the brand's flashlights.
The S12 has a very nice, matte black anodization.
Here's a closer look at the head's mildly deep heat-sinking grooves.
The machining is very good and the design of the heatsink also creates an anti-roll surface.
The head's lens is protected by a polished, heavy metal bezel.
Of course, the most exciting thing in the flashlight is its triple emitter setup.
Contradictory to most triple flashlights, the S12 it using a smooth metal reflector.
Both Nichia 219C and SST-20 emitter options are available. In this setup I have chosen the SST-20 4000K.
The rear switch is reverse-clicky.
Thanks to the protruding metal flaps, the flashlight can tail stand.
The head houses the 6A constant current driver which is held in place via a brass retainer ring.
A spring bypass has been performed by the factory to increase efficiency.
Here's a close-up look at the other side of the driver.
The tail also comes with a spring bypass and a brass retaining ring.
Here's the tail completely taken apart.
And a couple of shots of the switch PCB.
The threads of the flashlight are super smooth.
The tail's threads are square cut and anodized, which allows the flashlight to be mechanically locked out.
The head's threads are also square cut and very clean.
User Interface
The S12 comes with a very simple UI.
Here's all the supported actions:
Turn on/off: Single press Mode cycle: Half press (Low > Med > High > Turbo > Low > ... )
Mode memory is present.
The flashlight will start blinking once the battery's voltage is lower than 3.2V (on Turbo/High) or 3.0V (on Medium/Low).
Output I measured the output of the Convoy S12 using an Imalent 21700 cell.
Here's the output along with the corresponding current draw.
Being operated by a mechanical switch, there's no parasitic drain while the flashlight is off.
Power and Thermal Regulation Here's a V/A graph that I created using my bench PSU.
What we can see in the graph:
Turbo is regulated down to 3.7V
Once the battery < 3.7V Turbo's output is proportional to the input voltage.
High, Medium and Low are fully regulated for the whole span of the operating voltage.
And here's a Thermal Regulation graph of Turbo.
What we can see in the graph:
Turbo's full output is sustained for 3 mins.
After the 3 min mark, the output starts to slowly stepdown in order to keep the temperature stable.
At the 5min mark, the stepdown is complete.
The stepped down brightness is 1000 lumen and is fully sustainable.
The flashlight's head and body never got too hot to touch.
Beamshots
For the last part, here's a wall beamshot just so you can see the profile of the beam (the color rendering is not totally accurate).
I will add some outdoor beamshots as soon as I can pay a visit to my village :)
Do you have the opportunity to measure the temperature of the head and body of a flashlight after 20 minutes of operation at a brightness of 1000 lumens?
2541 Lumen yes!! Within my range expectation. This was 4000k, not to mention 5000k, I sure they will be happy to hear it. Still awaiting S12 to arrived…
Apart from brightness, the current regulation seem to be pretty well hand. Constantly slow as can been seen amp/v graph. Good efficiency.
Next thing I want hear is how much can it throw. I been known SST20 for it throwish, but I really expect it to flood though due to its triple led. Can it handle mid throw range?
Awesom light from convoy anyway! Well craftmanship and I devote it sexy body
How is 2500 lumens possible with 3x SST-20 4000K 95CRI if tests have shown a single emitter does around 537 lumens @ 2A? According to those tests this light should do about 1500-1600 lumens @ 6A.
I have a Jaxman E2L with 3x SST-20 3000K 95CRI and a LD-B4 driver set to 6A max current. The 3000K LED’s emits around 1350 lumens with a Carclo 10511 optic installed.
Well, it seem pretty much high indeed for 6amp driver. Don’t know how to say. But he seem to use Imalent 21700 battery I’m not really sure if that relate with higher lumen.
Probably it should be around 1800ish lumen, it been mention before…
You can use a battery that can supply 30A, it won’t make a difference. This is a regulated driver from Convoy. I have a few, and I’ve never seen them pull more than 6A. There’s something wrong with his measurements.
My FW3C also has the SST-20 3000K from BlueSwordM group buy and on turbo it obviously runs full FET and it draws 14.1A (4.7A per LED) on turbo with a fresh 30Q cell. Not even that light does 2500 lumens. I measured around 2130 lumens.
If not battery, how about this one he mention…possible make a different? I still doubt though. Unlike other reflector which is using aluminium part. Or else he could possibly wrong.3
Guys now that I am looking at the output numbers,they indeed seem a bit high.
I am speculating that I might have forgotten to adjust the final numbers using the correction factor I use in all of my tests
I will take another set of measurements and report back tomorrow night!
Great review man, thank you. I got the Nichia version @ 4k, warmer than what I’m used to but am getting used to it. Beautiful beam quality and a good looking light too. I like the idea of the simple 4 speed UI but for my applications I need another gear a 3.5 or medium high up around 60% (mode 3 is only 30%) especially for lean hot rods like this that might quickly need turbo relief. Brings up another thing, my model does not seem to step down at all and will keep turbo going until I cry uncle and turn it down (or put it down). I don’t mind that though and the tail switch is stiff and well protected. Might be a fire hazard with a side switch light. Anyway I like it, it’s a keeper. Unlike my M4U which despite a better UI (but still with the 4 speed problem) is way too weak for my hand to gravitate towards it at walk time. So many better compact combo/throwers at similar value.
@Tangra have you tried this light? Is spot large enough and spill soft?
Will Nichia 219C have similar output as SST20?
If I’m calculating correctly this one has about 140lm/W, it’s far more then XHP50.2 inside KDIY KF8 (108)…
I’m not really sure if that relate with higher lumen.