Fireflies E07 preview

Yeah Narsil seems to handle very low output better than Anduril. My Narsil ROT66 with the 219Bs gets impossibly low and doens’t flicker.

noboneshotdog

I guess I could be the first then. I just received a reply from Jack. He said yes I could and just send him an email after I order the light, with the order #.

I wish I new what I know now when I ordered my PL47. I would have ordered it the same way.

Nice did you initialy ask through email or BLF private message? What’s the best way to get in contact with him?

Thanks for the test… yes e07 is brighter than d4s. E07 have more leds… that make sense.

noboneshotdog

Email.

It seems to be related to the individual 7135 chip used. Some do it, some don’t. Or at least, some do it enough to be noticeable, while others have a much much more subtle effect.

In any case, I think I found a way to reduce it further, and sent an update to Fireflies. Hopefully it will be used in lights which haven’t been assembled yet.

It is also possible to make moon lower and smoother by increasing the MCU clock speed, but that makes it use 3X as much power to produce 1/3rd as much light, and it also makes the moon mode a lot more sensitive to small changes in hardware and battery voltage.

TK,

All my MTN FET+1’s do this. I could test on those at some point if you have time and make build for me to test on my C8F. I think I usually use a Q8 hex file.

I bought some new 7135’s but it just seems like such a pain to swap them rather than just use floor 3

If you have hardware which can reliably hit the issue, it’d be helpful to get test results for a new build. I haven’t been able to test very well because I don’t have lights with flicker problems.

http://toykeeper.net/torches/fsm/anduril.2019-01-05.blf-q8.hex

Seems to be fixed for my case. FWIW, I believe this is one of the 380mAh 7135’s that Richard uses.

before:

MTN-20DDm
1 lux - floor 1, anduril-old (lots of flicker)
1 lux - floor 2, anduril-old (lots of flicker)
9 lux - floor 3, anduril-old (no flicker)

flash:

avrdude -c usbasp -p t85 -u -U lfuse:w:0xe2:m -U hfuse:w:0xdf:m -U efuse:w:0xff:m -Uflash:w:anduril.2019-01-05.blf-q8.hex

after:

between 0-1 lux - floor 1, anduril-new (NO flicker)
mostly 1 lux - floor 2, anduril-new (NO flicker)
9 lux - floor 3, anduril-new (NO flicker)

With that said 1 lux on my setup = so low you would need to be within 1 ft of something to see. You probably couldn’t even see your own feet at this level. Floor 3 (9 lux) I estimate to be half a lumen.

Thanks! It’s helpful to know it works!

BTW, there should be no difference between ramp step 1 and 2. The bottom of the ramp doesn’t have enough resolution to get exactly the levels it wants, so the bottom few levels are repeated. It varies per model of light, but for example, the bottom of the Q8 ramp looks like this:

1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,17,19,20,22,24,26,29,31,34,36,39,42,…

The processor’s clock speed changes a couple times toward the bottom to make things more stable and more efficient, and I put the clock speed boundaries in parts of the ramp where the numbers have a gap. For example, where it jumps from 10 to 12, that’s where it goes up to the full clock speed. It’s the least noticeable place to put the speed difference, since the analog properties of the circuit blur the edges of each pulse and turn the “12” into something more like “11.5”.

That makes sense. I never saw much of any difference before or after for 1 and 2 and the light meter would not settle on even 1 lux.

I still do not see a purpose for such a low level (1 or 2). It’s so low the head of your flashlight will nearly cover the usable space you would be able to see. A novelty really. However, that’s exactly what makes Anduril so cool. You can configure the lowest level!

To put this into perspective:

Emisar D1 is 15 lux
Sofirn Q8 is 6 lux
D4S is 6 lux
E07 219B is 1 lux (no flicker)
S2+ triple w/ LED4Power driver is 9 lux

Toykeeper, is it possible for you to revise Anduril to give us double click from off to Turbo? Currenty there’s no way to go direct to turbo and it often registers a triple click if I don’t time the clicks right when I want to go from off to turbo. It’s very annoying especially when I blast turbo very often from off. I really miss that ability in RampIOS and Narsil.

I am confused, what’s the behaviour in Andúril with a double click from off? To go to the ceiling tha was set instead of full turbo?

Yes double-click goes to ramp ceiling. You have to double click again to go to turbo.

On my rot66b I set ramp ceiling to max so double click from off goes to turbo if I remember correctly. Maybe not the best solution if you don't want a max ramp ceiling.

The intended solution for that is… set the ceiling to turbo. It doesn’t even have to be both ceilings; there can be one set at turbo and one set to a more reasonable level. I’d suggest setting the stepped ramp ceiling to turbo, because with steps it’s also easy to hit a lower level consistently.

On most lights, I use the smooth ramp indoors and the stepped ramp outdoors. People can configure it however they like, of course, but this is the setup I’ve found works best for me.

Using quality 350mA 7135 chips will solve most of the issue. The 380’s are actually cherry picked 350’s and as such can be unstable. Or so I’ve read… I’ve found it to be true and prefer to use the 350’s whenever possible on the single +1 7135 channel.

Anyone know what "muggle" mode is in anduril? I tried it but it just seemed to act weird.

Reduced output (i think), less modes/features:

Muggle mode:

* 1 click: On / off.

* Hold: Ramp up / down.

* 6 clicks: Exit muggle mode.

Thanks contactcr! At first I didn't realize I had it Muggle mode and double clicking or ramping would not go to turbo or anything remotely bright and I thought something was malfunctioning.