Recently I bought all the parts to make a pair of Convoy M1s from Mountain electronics. They're both fitted with a tailcap spring bypass, H17F drivers (with carefully duplicated programming), and a Sanyo GA battery. The only difference between them is the emitter. One has a Cree XP-L V6 3D and the other a Nichia 219c D320.
At the moment, the brightest setting on both is '22', which, according to the driver documentation is regulated at 3.04A.
I've had both semi-turbo and turbo active on both but tbh it really didn't make much difference.
In fact, there's not a ton of difference at all. I think the Cree is brighter at 22, but it's not night and day.
I expected more, to be honest, but I'm new at this. Would you more experienced peeps expect similarity? Do I need to switch to a 30Q or VTC6 to appreciate the difference in Semi and Turbo? Is there likely to be a difference in runtime?
Both lights work well- they're bright, and small, and will be useful. I'm trying to decide which one to keep and which one to give to my dad, but again, there's not a lot of difference!
You may only see 5A max on turbo in a well built single emitter. The GA should pull that.
Use a Meter and Short thick wires 10-12AWG stranded silicone adapted to the meter to test the tail current.
When deciding which to keep, shine on turbo, to an area and see which one reflects less off surfaces. You may notice the Nichia will not seem as bright but that may be because the tint does not reflect as much. Hard reflections off surfaces will appear brighter but also impairs the actual clarity of what you see. I think you will choose the Nichia after some time using both. Nichia will also have less artifacts around the hot spot.
You may want to consider the XP-L HI in the M1 as Lexel said. I am not a fan of the XP-L with the cut sides in a reflector light. XM-L with a fully rounded dome will also look better. Yet the smaller XP-L HI will get more distance.
Switching to a 30q or vtc battery won’t make a difference in brightness. In a 3 amp regulated light. The ga cell can snooze through 3 amps. If they had fet drivers you’d see around 5 amps. More from the nichia but they would get hot quickly. For a general purpose light 3 amps is fine. I personally like the xpl v6 3d LEDs. So I’d keep that one. But just my preference.
The H17F does have a FET for direct drive, but the output wasn't visibly brighter with either unit on those settings so I just deleted those modes from the roster. It did heat more rapidly, but not much more came out the front so why bother?
I was surprised by that as well tbh- the emitter curves seem to imply that there should be more output moving from 3A to 5+
This is pretty normal for single emitter lights. Turbo is not generally notably brighter to the human eye.
For example I generally get around ~800-1000 lumens @ 2.5A regulated but around ~1300-1600 in turbo. To the human eye that is not all that noticeable in most cases. I rarely use turbo due to this.
Now the XP-L2 can reach 2000 lumens in turbo, so it is one that I will use turbo as it is noticeably brighter.
As far as which one to keep, Whatever one you like. Neither is “better” then the other one. The nichia should have a bit nicer tine but that is subjective. The largest difference will be the hot spot size. The 219c should throw a bit further with a smaller hotspot but the XP-L should be a bit floodier.
I personally keep an XP-L2 M1 in the console of my car, I like the beam pattern with the OP reflector.