making a small batch of Texas Avenger "TA" Drivers fully tested running Bistro or Narsil, Clicky or E-switch, SIR800

See where Tom said adding LVP to NarsilTriple means losing LED indicator support? I don’t know what LED he means.

I though there were 2. One was a power indicator (green) and one was a low voltage indicator (red). Or whatever colors you want.

You can use all dfunctions in 1S configuration as it used the Vcc for LVP.

The driver has one pad for as bleeder resistor, which can be used for Power indicator LED if the resistor is only soldered to positive side then to LED and cathode of LED to other pad of bleeder resistor
when the switch PCB had already LED and resistor you can solder the leads just to the pads of the bleeder resistor

The driver has an indicator LED that needs to add a resistor to a pad connected to pin 7 R2 pad, the negative to R2 ground pad
If the indicator LED has already a resistor on the switch PCB just solder the leads to R2 pads

You can place the LEDs where you want, but there are no specific pads for LEDs on the board, best is to place the smd LED directly under the switch cover.

If you want me solder resistors, leads and LEDs on the driver I need to order LEDs and this will add some cost
Also if I order those from China the shipping time might delay your driver

I’m sorry, I may not be making things clear.

I was asking about the firmware support, not anything on the driver.

I should probably ask Tom E.

The firmware supports an indicator/locator LED as described in the manual feed from MCU pin 7

some quoted from manual:
“An Indicator LED (SMD LED) is supported as a locator LED and low voltage indicator
The functions of the indicator LED are also availiable on the main LED, but you can configure it to indicator only, both or main LED only
The locator can be enabled ”Enable/disable the Locator LED feature (locate the flashlight in the dark)”

So you can use the indicator LED maybe as well as power LED
“Indicator LED
When enabled, the Indicator LED can be used for the following:

- to locate the flashlight in the dark (Locator feature)

- to blink out the battery level

  • as a secondary indicator of blinking when the main LED blinks
    When the Locator feature is enabled, the LED can be temporarily turned OFF (only in Mode Sets), with the main LED OFF, 1
    quick click followed by a click&hold til the main LED goes off. To toggle it back on, repeat the same procedure (OFF -> quick
    click, click&hold). Note the locator feature is turned OFF when the light is in Lock-Out.”

so the locator needs to be enabled after you turned off the light via Eswitch manually, this does not fit what you want

A power on LED just needs to be connected to positive from battery and the ground
those connections are availiable on the bleeder resistor pad

I checked on the L6 e-swich leds and they share the ground with the e-switch.
That should mean that you only need to run two extra leads from the driver board, one from R2 positive and one from bleeder positive.
Or am i completely wrong? :smiley:

Okay, I think I understand. I just need a power on LED so I know the rear switch is on and also to help me find the side switch. It seems I can add that circuit myself.

you are right
just add the resistors and run 2 wires to the eswitch for both LEDs
Keep in mind that if resistors are applied on the driver they have to be only soldered on one pad or you cut the trace from 2. pad

Ok I am ready to pull the trigger and start order the Oshpark boards

Please write me a PN with what you definately want to order so I can give you my paypal address and give you payment details

springs and AMCs are already ordered

Oh boy, must have missed this. I have, and been testing Narsil for 2 channel with support for both R1/R2 and the internal 1.1V ref (compile switch), so think it should go easy in NarsilTriple 3 channel.

Interesting, glad to see some people are interested in this. I think people were just a bit shy of a new driver when I was offering them. Glad to see someone else picking up the mantle and offering these.

I had really wanted to get a batch of these machine made to drastically reduce costs but there never appeared to be the demand for it. I have just been using A6 drivers myself lately, I kinda burnt myself out building the ~100 or so drivers I did build for my lights last year.

FYI, you can get the larger PCB’s from a few places for much cheaper per PCB then oshpark. The smaller pcb’s are still cheaper with oshpark.

I tried both of the following places with good results. They took about the same time to arrive and were both what I ordered. I could recommend either of them based on the 1 order I made with each. These drop the price per PCB down to about $1.25-1.50 each for the 30mm+ sizes this is a pretty big savings.

ITead - A bit higher quality possibly but also a bit higher cost.

Maker Studio

I have a few 30mm PCB’s and 46mm 2s/4s drivers left over from my order if anyone wants them quicker and cheaper then oshpark.

Did anyone remember (or figure out) what size driver the Courui D01 has? The question was asked earlier here, but I don’t remember it being answered.

Edit: I just looked it up. From this thread:

Do you have a driver board that size?

The TAD01 was made for the D01, while I don’t know of anyone having tried it yet, it should work it in by the measurements fine.

I personally piggybacked a driver onto the stock pcb as I didn’t feel like spending the $15 just to order the PCB’s.

It is running narsil with an XP-l HI throwing right at 1000m.

Hi,

For all the narsil drivers I want to point out,
temperature threshold can be choosen as you want.

With a Triple on a small host a lower temperature is like 55°C advised, as the temperature still rises when the light dstarts to step down

With a single LED in a medium or large host its better to go to 60°C or above

if you are using DTP stars the body can be too hot too hold without damaging the light
Djozz told me he uses on all his lights 70°C

Well damnit i wasnt gonna make any changes… :person_facepalming:

Set mine to 70°C then haha

Ordered some stuff
just for parts about 340€
for Digikey i wait for some guys on german TLF to complete the order, they deliver within 3 working days

There is no need to pre-set the thermal settings. There is a calibration mode in the menu that allows the user to set the max temp they want at any time or disable it altogether. It is all listed in the Bistro manual, all the menu options are the same except for the mode groups.

Also that define for the tempreture in the code is not directly related to degrees. I think every 4 digits is 1c IIRC, better to just leave it set to something like 75-85 which is pretty safe in most lights and let people calibrate it as needed once installed.

I have updated my version of the mode groups a bit for my personal drivers, switched some things around to what I think is a bit more universal set of modes. Basically added a few mode groups with a midrange mode between the bank of 7135’s and turbo for triples/quads and new low Vf LED’s. They get too hot in small hosts if in full turbo so a midrange point is nice to manage heat. I have not uploaded this version of the firmware because I have not been able to get the files transferred to my PC for upload. I can try to do this if people want it.

Texas Ace
The Temp setup is for Narsil Triple v1.3 and higher

Tom E implemented Temperature protection in this versions, but has not an option to configure it in settings like in Bistro

The higher price for Narsil is mainly because its more work doing the temperature calibration, optional resistor for indicator LED and user requested settings that need to be set in Amtel Studio for each driver individually

I am happy to get the updated Bistro to flash on all drivers, as the parts and boards will take some time you dont need to rush it
I also thought of getting a few more modes for triples that do only 7135 bank plus 50% FET for heat control

Ah, I missed that it was for narsil. I have not really messed with it much, V1.2 is all I use since it still supports the voltage divider. It looks like the latest version might offer this again though.

I got a lot chat with Tom E discussing Narsil improovements

He is busy with Q8 Narsil, but he will update Narsil Triple with a switch to get 2S LVP or indicator LED on Pin 7 so it can be choosen between these 2 features

Atm for 2S LVP there is only a fallback to v1.2 loosing temperature and indicator LED

I updated the TA Bistro, it is in the same link as before in the OP.

Only change is the addition of a v1.2 version of the firmware, the modes are changed slightly to a bit better spacing and options IMHO. Particularly for low Vf LED’s. It gives a midrange mode that is much easier heat wise then full turbo in several mode groups.

I found myself wanting this in a few lights that were simply too hot in turbo and not as bright as they could be in the 7135 bank mode.

I might make one more change to the mode groups at some point, I wish I had made group 15 without level 4 as the first mode, just use moon and then skip to 1x 7135 as I prefer 4 modes on my lights, more just gets annoying IMO. Plus I like having all my lights the same to make it easier to know when I am in the highest mode in each one.

The “old” version still works fine, I just figured I would toss this up as I prefer these mode groups myself.