bistro-HD ready for trialing on Q8 (Update, present version works for TA SRK board, will update when I have Q8 circuit information)
Symmetry is not a reason I care about in the slightest. Personally I actually just don't like single-function eswitches, and this is why. You can long-press-off a click switch with a short action. Or you can short press a click-switch with a short action. The switch itself is just more functional, and now with OTSM caps, it's capable of about anything an e-switch is too. For me, I want to be able to bump the modes up. I almost never reverse down anyway.
Anyway, for anyone interested, I just re-worked/tested the eswitch build in bistro-HD. No lockout yet. That's next. It might take a little fiddling to coax into HD, but I have a plan to try. It should I think work on the Q8 as is now, unless there are some pins on the Q8 that do something I don't know. It's setup for a standard tripple-channel TA e-switch board. The right build to use is the bistro-eswitch-TA-HD.hex Not yet tried in a real light, so experimental, but it bench tests fine. You want the 1.5 build for now.
I got my shipping notice on the 29th for both my lights. Anybody on the East Coast US with a shipping timeline report? Has “2 weeks” been the average like most BG stuff? All my new batteries are here and are lonely.
Yes there seems to be about two weeks between email it is shipped and delivery.
But with the holidays now it is not clear at all, just think “it comes when it comes”
So you believe it is just a solder issue? You reused the same parts? Did this pcb have the brighter led on one side, or was it just the flakey led.
Just curious of your final thoughts.
Sorry, earlier post had more details. Yes - reused same exact parts. Didn't track the LED to the side, but this board always had one brighter than the other. It's pretty well known at this point that LED to LED variations will result in uneven brightness with them wired in parallel like this. You need one resistor per LED to get more even results.
As far as root cause, I cant say for certain -- may be some issue on the PCB that was dependent on the reflow/solder work, or could have been some contaminant that was somewhat conductive under low heat or movement, etc., or might be the quality of the reflow. Dunno for sure the exact cause, but I'd say it wasn't the parts and don't think it was the wiring or driver side, so in this area of the switch PCB and solder.
I just touched the tip of my iron the both ends of both LEDs and behold: there was light again! 30 minutes later, no more light. Really weird. The voltage across the LEDs is also lower now than before the fix.
Edit: Took some measurements. When the LEDs work, Vf is 2.23V. 30 minutes later, it is back down to 1.5-1.6V and there is no more light. It’s like there’s a bridge which slowly rebuilds itself while the LEDs are on. I’m leaning towards “faulty” LEDs.
Yes - I had the same result, works for a bit then fails again. When they are in a failed state, check for a short from grnd to V+ coming in to the resistor - I swore the DMM indicated a short, repeatable.
So the voltage from the MCU is a steady 2.2v, but somewhere a slight short develops around the switch area which causes the voltage to drop down to 1.6v?
That’s interesting.
No, there’s about 4V coming to the switch assembly (0.2V drop from the diode is about right). The voltage across the 15K resistor is 4V minus the LED Vf. I measured as high as 2.4V on the resistor when there is no light, and 1.7V when there is light.
That means higher current when there is no light. Which makes sense if the current is going around the LED somehow. Next thing I’ll try is removing or moving one of the LEDs which seems awfully close to the switch.
I don’t know very much about the chemistry involved in making an LED, but it seems like these little switch LEDs are possibly acting funny when they’re not fed enough current. Maybe they start to leak current past their internal parts. IDK. I’ll leave the technical stuff to others. Lol