Ever since I received my s2+ I think from gearbest, it has had a loud whine on low, and medium mode. not on high mode.
Is this normal? do qlite rev drivers from mtn do this? I cant stand the sound. I avoid using it.
That’s PWM noise and it is normal for qlite drivers with the stock firmware.
An actual Qlite should have the PWM frequency at 19KHz, which most normal humans can't hear. It's the drivers with 9.4KHz PWM that make the godawful noise.
Does the noise come from spring resonance and if so would a spring bypass dampen it or change the resonant frequency?
This was common with the counterfeit convoys with the cheaper driver and the hair-thin spring. Take a look at the spring of your driver, if it’s not stiff as qlite’s spring should be then you got the lower quality driver. A spring change or bypass should help but it won’t entirely remove the noise as even with the high frequency qlite the noise can be audible.
The noise is common in the real Convoys (with Qlites) too.
My spring seems to be pretty stuff, it’s a blue s2+. It has the 3/5 mode driver 8X7135
If I put a qlite with guppydrv in, will it still whine ?
How old are you? When we get older, we lose the ability to hear higher frequencies, so maybe in 30 years it won’t bother you.
I’m 38 and still hear all the ultrasonic sounds that others don’t.
I’ve built a couple of lights using the genuine Qlite drivers from Mountain, and I don’t hear whine from those. The Nanjg 105C drivers are bad about whine, mostly on Medium for me though…
I’m 25, the whine is very loud to me, only in that light though
The Convoy S2+ with 8*7135AMC has a Nanjg 105C driver, it has a short stiff spring and is soldered into the pill.
The spring is so short it hardly is worth the trouble of bypassing it, according to djozz. Maybe the driver is not fully set into the pill and has a small gap that makes it possible to resonate. I have desoldered the pill and fastened it with a retainer ring that was hollowed out at the inside. There is hardly any whine left.
It’s one of life’s great mysteries. :question:
My blue S2+ with a 2.8A driver whines like crazy, especially on medium, yet only when I have it in 18350 mode with the short tube. With the stock tube and an 18650 it’s virtually silent. Go figure.
It came from Banggood and the driver has the stiff spring.
Look at both versions while the light is standing on the head and with the tailcap removed. My guess is that the battery in the 18650 version is sticking out further. Which means that the 18650 battery presses harder on the driver when the tailcap is screwed in.
I thought that may have been the difference but turns out it’s the other way around. The 18650 battery sits lower in the tube than the 18350. Weird.
This whole thing is a mystery haha
The driver seems solders on both sides, why would they not have made sure it was tight before soldering? There is no retaining ring that I am aware of
Make sure everything is clean and tight. I don’t own an S+ so don’t know the insides but check everything from pill to tailcap. Power up the pill while it is out of the light see if it still hums. Clean and assemble and with the tailcap removed, connect cell to body tube with a screwdriver (or something) and check for hum.
I don’t think it is from poor driver seating in most cases. My S2+ with 3xAMC has audible whine in low and medium, being 3x it has the factory retaining ring which I have removed and tightened a few times with no difference. After a couple hours of use I have learned to live with the noise and rarely find it irritating now.
You must have just been deafened by it, no way it is not irritating haha
Bingo! Tightening the pill down a fraction of a turn did the trick. The whine is now inaudible unless I hold the torch to my ear.
As to the difference between the long and short tubes, I guess the extra mass of the longer tube was having a dampening effect?
Different resonant frequency? Who knows. Anyway the whine is gone so I’m a happy bunny, thanks.
To tighten pill do I need to break the solder on the sides of driver?