The thermal algorithm in Anduril looks at the current temperature, the rate of change, and a sum of several recent readings, and makes a decision based on where it thinks the temperature will be in the near future. So if the light is heating up very quickly, it’ll predict a very high number and regulate downward. This is done to allow it to “steer into turns”, so to speak, on hot-rod lights like the Emisar D4.
Similarly, if the temperature is dropping quickly, it tries to adjust upward to keep the overall temperature close to the limit.
On top of that, it also has an extra cautionary clause on lights which heat up quickly. With this, at the slightest hint of overheating, it drops down to about 200% of the level which was found to be sustainable during testing… and doesn’t ever attempt to go back up above that level. It does normal regulation below that level though. So we end up with three ramp sections:
High to turbo: Easily-triggered quick ramp-down to high.
Medium to high: PID-like regulation.
Moon to medium: No regulation.
Lights with more thermal mass (like the Q8 and the SP36), or with less power (like the Emisar D1S) don’t have that top-most section… they do normal regulation all the way to the top. But it sounds like you’re seeing the quick ramp-down from turbo to high, which is triggered mostly by heating up quickly.
At some point I want to completely rewrite it, but it’s going to be a long, tedious, and frustrating process so I’ve been avoiding it.
IIRC, maukka received one with NarsilM, which uses a completely different thermal algorithm: Every N seconds, check current sensor value. If it’s higher than T, step down by a large amount. So maukka’s results here won’t be the same because his had different firmware.
I suppose you could remove the switch boot and then insert a circle of black paper into the top of the boot. the Switch may still light, but the paper should block the light so the button won’t light up.
She got the parasitic drain down pretty low, and just having the 2 of 4 switch LED's on doesn't take much juice. No surprise, but someone could actually measure the drain and post, if not done so already. I'd guess the results would be a year or two. Of course a higher capacity cell would be the best.
EDIT: For a PL47, just measured 0.08 mA (Fluke 175 model measures to 1/100th's of mA), which is 80 uA. So for a 4000 mAh cell, 4000/0.08 = 50000, which is in hours, 2083 days, 5.7 years. Not sure how accurate this is, it's not my usual meter, but it could be in the ballpark. If the drain is the same on a ROT66, triple that to 17 years for 3 4000 mAh cells.
If you want to do some sanity test of your own, let it sit for 10 days or so and measure the cell before/after. Swap cells if you are gonna use it.
Are we talking about the 4 switch leds only or also the 12 main auxiliary leds in the front? I would imagine 16 leds total would be a pretty good drain.
Of course they also act like a battery indicator and can also shut themselves off if the battery voltage gets too low. Still, it seems like a twist for mechanical lockout is a good idea. I always mechanically lock out my lights when I’m not using them for more than a couple hours.
Oooops! On a PL47, 7 clicks, followed by 7 clicks turns off 2 of the 4 switch LED's and all the front AUX LED's - think the ROT66 works the same? My ROT66 was before the added AUX LED's.
I think it’s because of the low voltage warning the main auxiliary leds can give that they are wired up directly to the battery. The side switch lights are wired to the mcu which has regulated voltage (regulated on the 2S and 4S drivers, I’m not sure about the 3v drivers).
If you don’t mind losing the low voltage warning, I believe you can wire the aux led board to the side switch lights in parallel. Then the 7 clicks will control them both. I think 2 of the 4 side switch lights are still wired direct. Those can be disconnected or wired in to the others.
You can always turn them off with a twist. Mechanical style. All e-switch lights have some amount of parasitic drain. The Thorfire S70S has a crazy high 4,430 micro amp drain and it only has a single green led switch light. Compare that to the Q8 at 123 microamps. So it’s best to always cut the power.
One possible option for turning off aux LED’s is a component called a bistable or latching reed switch. Some of those I’m finding spec sheets for are very small - about the size of a 1/4W resistor - but I’m not sure where to buy them.
It might be possible to wire one in series with the aux LED board, and if it can be located close to the lens, trigger it with a neodymium magnet.
Normal reed switches are momentary. Latching reed switches switch on or off depending on the direction of the magnetic field.
On Fireflies lights so far, the buttons have 4 LEDs:
2 LEDs: always on, hardwired to power
2 LEDs: wired to a MCU pin so the MCU can turn them on and off
… and the aux LED boards have more variety:
Always on, hardwired to power
Wired to a MCU pin so the MCU can turn them on and off
Wired to power and a MCU pin, so the MCU can tell it to turn on and off but it still gets power direct from the battery
The 2 controllable button LEDs could have low and high modes, but this option isn’t compiled into the firmware because Fireflies didn’t want it. It doesn’t really make much sense when the other 2 are always on.
The aux LED boards typically have potentiometers to manually adjust the brightness, and the adjustment range tends to go from ~200 uA to ~800 uA. However, the pots are physically inaccessible on some lights, like the PL47.
The aux LED boards also typically have their own built-in LVP:
Above ~3.3V: outer rings are lit up
~3.0V to ~3.3V: inner ring it up
Below ~3.0V: aux LEDs off
Because of the way this LVP function is implemented, and the way it attempts to regulate aux LED brightness, the aux LED boards cannot do low and high modes controlled by the MCU.
There is no LVP on the 2 hardwired button LEDs. Also, there is not yet any LVP in Anduril while it’s asleep, so if voltage drops too far during standby it won’t respond until after the user wakes it up. But the aux LED board LVP is always active, which helps a lot since it draws about 98% of the power during standby.
I must say that I’m very disappointed with ROT66. If I bought it in local store, I will return it.
The problem is that returning FL to China is too expensive. So I’m stuck with this FL.
Can you calculate, measure how much power do all blue leds and swich leds consume together?