Oh that is an old post.
Narsil has ramping implemented very nice:
Ramping Operation
From OFF, click&hold ramps up with a pause at moon level — click to turn ON at last level
From ON, click&hold ramps up or down, toggling direction unless paused for at least 1.2 sec – click to turn OFF
Double-click from OFF or ON to turn on max level (the max level does not override the last level)
Triple-click from OFF or ON to engage Battery Check mode
4X-click from OFF or ON to Lock-Out the light
When at max level, a double-click will turn the 1st Strobe ON
When in Strobe, clicks without pausing will skip to the next special mode (strobe or beacon). The special mode navigation works just like normal mode set operation: click&hold goes to the previous special mode, paused in a mode will lock it in
In Battery check mode, a double-click blinks out temperature in Celsius, another double-click blinks out the firmware version # (v1.3 is 1 blink followed by 3 more)
Please add me for another one, making it a total of 4.
I am already in the list at 980, 985 and 986.
Thank you in advance and congratulations on the great progress the project is making.
I can barely wait, but after the latest reports I am absolutely sure it will be more than worth the wait.
IDK what you mean Lexel, for in what do “normal Narsil” and the Narsil V1.3 in the Q8 samples differ?
I know ramping goes smooth and graduate without hickups or jumps. It is a joy to use!
I recal 150 steps
Some more testing done, this time the config under modes
Mode sets
ramping yes no, works like a charm
choose mode sets, works like a charm
moon mode yes no, works like a charm
mode order,
mode memory yes no, works like a charm
moon level, works like a charm, set it back to pwm3 works like a charm
thermal timed stepdown
1 disable, when I want to select this, it does thermal stepdown (blinking and on turboto set temp, click and it continues with config setting 8
2 temperature, I click twice at this config setting, it blinks and continues with confid setting 8 strange, it steps down after one minute now, had that setup earlier to test)
3 timed, set it at 1 minute works very nice, this i prefer.
Seems unable to disable at all (is this really bad? Yeah I know a bug so not good but still these bugs are not the worst things that can happen.)
Can’t test anymore now, my wife is taking pics of pics (yeah really from old photo albums) and the tripod mounted Q8 is ideal for her to light under the camera, ramping makes it easy to use the proper light level.
Report back later on the strobe functions,but yes some buggy things, not the end of the world though.
heh wanted to respond with “yeah that it must be done right with a good light as result” but that would also be the case when only 10 people wanted it, so it tells me that th effort put into it up to now was not in vain
Lexel, I hope Fritz answered it, or that TK can chime in for I cant help you with the tool or table
All I see is the result and it is like a fast sunrise, smooth and natural feeling.
To address the comment about the spread of ramping level brightness, when I created the ramping tables, I definitely gave preference to the 7135. I do not agree a considerable amount of entries should be given to the FET, just like we do in sets of fixed modes. For example, for a FET+1, you got 5 modes - 3 of them are in the 7135, two in the FET.
I believe the low levels are more useful in having more choices for. Just like I can't find a 70% or 80% mode useful. Highest I would go with a 2nd brightest mode would be 65%, and that's for 7-8 modes in a set. For 6 modes, 40% is the 2nd highest.
I could be totally wrong about the theoretical spreading pure eye perception of brightness, but this is how I always defined mode sets since I started defining my own, over 4 years ago, and really though that's how most of our mode sets were done by the community in general - much better than most stock mode sets.
The good thing is, of course, it's open source, there's a Python app available, written by ToyKeeper, here in the Flashlight Firmware Repository, to generate your own tables and I document the Python command parameters for the tables I generated. Unfortunately it's so not easy to simply download a replacement table - the firmware must be re-compiled and downloaded.
Also I just haven't had the time to experiment with different table settings much. My goal was making it smooth as possible, and weighted more towards the low end.
Just for my understanding, and to kill time, the Q8 driver is considered a dual channel, right?
It uses the single 7135 (350 milliamps?) current regulator for the light levels under 350 milliamp, then the brighter levels switch (maybe the 7135 is still in use?) to using the FET from there all the way to max 20 amps. Is this correct? (This is the FET+1)
To veer away from the Q8 for a second, FET drivers that have 9 of the 7135 would be considered triple channel where a single 7135 chip controls the levels up to 350 mA.
Then the other 8 7135 chips come into play for the levels from 350 mA to 3,150 mA (350×8=2,800+350=3,150).
Then for levels above 3,150 mA the FET takes over.
I hadn’t ever looked at “BLF” in Morse code before. It seems to be one of the easiest patterns possible, almost like 1 2 3… kinda neat.
_ . . .
. _ . .
. . _ .
Continuing the pattern, the next letter would be V … but I don’t know what the V would mean.
About the ramp shape, it’s right there in Narsil.c linked a few posts ago.
The tool to calculate ramps is bin/level_calc.py in the firmware repository. It has lots of options (some of which require small code edits), but by default it uses the cube-root model for estimating what would be “visually linear”. To change the ramp shape, edit power() and invpower() at the bottom.
In my testing, I’ve found Narsil’s ramp to be very very smooth. I can’t tell where the FET comes on, and it appears to ramp at a constant speed. It might be a little slower on the FET portion, but mine (SRK w/ Q8 driver) is 3000 lumens instead of 6000, so on the real Q8 I think it would be just about right.
Tom has fixed the bugs!
If somebody is able to help test this latest version that would be awesome!
What is also awesome is that you TK seemed to have read my mind from the future (well when you posted that Morse it was future now it is present) for seeing that pattern I wanted to see what the next was and you already looked it up
