MTN Electronics: LEDs - Batteries - Lights - Chargers - Hosts - Drivers - Components - 1-Stop-US Source

As Dale said the most common cause is a bad connection, usually either the driver retaining ring, the switch retaining ring, or the body threads which when either too loose or too tight cause problems such as forcing the mcpcb pads into contact with the reflector. Several places to look but start with the rings.

Ok, so was it something with 18 LED's? Ol news now...

Well today’s been a bust!No news from the Raspberry Pi foundation, and nothing from Richard. I,m going to bed early then. :frowning:

There is a new Convoy S11 host listed on the site, which I haven’t seen before… which would go nicely with a 22mm boost driver that’s been in the works for a while.

I think it’s going to be the boost driver announcement.

I don’t know what the news is, but RMM’s last post here suggested he was a bit overwhelmed… was recovering from a serious injury at the time, while also running a business, keeping a day job, and raising a family. Also possibly finishing law school or perhaps setting up a new legal practice or otherwise pursuing a pretty intensive career. Oh, and developing new hardware for BLF. That’s a lot even for the most motivated and energetic of people.

I did order some goodies from him at the end of Feb and his website had a popup saying he was going to be on break for a little bit, it took about a week before stuff shipped out but for a US shipper with quality products Im willing to wait.

Definitely not trying to pressure Richard, I’m just excited to see what the newest product is :smiley: Hopefully he wasn’t injured too badly, and he makes a very quick recovery!

I sent a message on MTN website, but I had a browser trouble on that moment so I don’t know if it was delivered or not.
Does anyone know if Richard is flashing Narsil or Anduril on his 15mm - 17mm drivers? I know it has the D4 UI V2, but no clue on the other firmware.

Appreciate any info on this :+1: Thanks in advance!

I know Richard doesn’t offer Narsil or Anduril as a general rule, he might could but he apparently prefers not to.

Thanks for your answer Dale !
I will have to try another option then, or stick with the D4 UI!!
Thanks again :wink:

MascaratumB, buy the stuff to flash your own. I’ve seen your mods I know you can do this easily.

It is especially easy with the way Richard solders on his chips because he leaves the legs raised up enough where the clip makes a good stable connection.

contactcr, I don’t know how to program and I am not familiar with those tools/programs that I’d need to use. I don’t doubt I’d be able to do it (eventually) but my lack of knowledge about many thing driver-related and programming related would make it a PITA for me and for those I would be constantly asking for help. Hence, my best solution so far is to get the drivers ready-to-use :zipper_mouth_face:

For example, I know that Lexel has drivers with those FW installed, but I need the spring part to be flat, without AMC chips, for a specific mod. MTN drivers meet the requirement of “flat back”, but no FW inside… I’ll solve it one way or another

Thanks for you words, though! :blush:

No programming required! TK has pre-compiled firmware “ready to go” on this page:

http://toykeeper.net/torches/fsm/

You pick a light that is most similar to yours (FET+1 for example) and you can also pick Q8 for example if it’s going in a big light or D4 if it’s going in a small hot rod so it will step down differently.

Takes only a few minutes. The hardest part is installing the USB driver because it’s not “plug and play” like other USB devices.

You are opening the gates of hell to me :person_facepalming: :smiley:
Well, now I will have to be searching for the tools for that… besides the drivers to be flashed :stuck_out_tongue:
I may be blaming it on you in some time, you know that, don’t you? :stuck_out_tongue:

I've discussed it with Richard in the past, about offering Narsil. He saw no volume for e-switch drivers - it's a small percentage of his business. As you can see in his flashlight and hosts, very little in e-switch's. It looks like he's got two e-switch hosts: the L6 and C8F.

He offers D4 V2 now. His concerns were UI simplicity and thermal regulation, this at least was back when I talked to him about it. D4 V2 is simpler than NarsilM or Anduril for sure.

Convoy, though is a great quality budget light, has been slow in supporting electronic switches - again, maybe it's simpler for a power switch, dunno. To me for years, and why I spent all that time&effort on my own to develop e-switch firmware, I find the e-switch based lights superior in several ways. Kind of like comparing analog to digital, or electronic ignitions to points - I see it as an evolution but there will always be preferences or sentiment for mechanical switch lights, some actually good reasons, like absolutely no parasitic drain and resulting risk of fully draining a cell.

Clip:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Programmer-Testing-Clip-SOP8-SOP-SOIC-8-SOIC8-DIP8-DIP-8-Pin-IC-Test-Clamp/32831113149.html

Wires:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/40pcs-20cm-2-54mm-1p-1p-Pin-Female-to-Female-Color-Breadboard-Cable-Jump-Wire-Jumper/32836050778.html

Programmer:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1pcs-USBASP-USBISP-AVR-Programmer-USB-ISP-USB-ASP-ATMEGA8-ATMEGA128-Support-Win7-64K/32835212571.html

Using the above equipment I stripped and soldered the leads directly on to the pins because those plastic female connectors are too wide for that clip. If you use more expensive clip you can probably directly plug them in like this:

You can search Pomona 5250 if you want the fancy clip but it’s like $15+ and doesn’t work any better once it’s all wired up

Depending on your version of Windows we can help you find the right drivers too.

If you end up doing it and get all the stuff in feel free to message me i’ll help!

Completely get your point about the e-switch lights, and also Richard’s, on offering or not more e-switch firmware! I normally prefer a mechanical switch light, because I am able to mod it more easily (either the switches or the drivers).
Recently I managed to buy an old Nitecore D10, piston drive mechanism, ramping UI and had the though of modding it with a more advanced FW (Narsil at first, as I don’t have any light with it, or Anduril, but I’ll have the FW3A when it is released).
Asked CRX about some tips on the mod and started my quest for a specific driver, with e-switch FW (that will probably work in the Piston Drive system), and no chips on the back.
Currently, MTN and Lexel are the options, with incompatible “options” each one. So I gotta see what will work. D4 UI is nice, I would just like to try another UI option!

Thanks in advance!

Shall I thank :partying_face: you or blame you :money_mouth_face: already? :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you very much for pointing these out for me!! I will take a look on them, and enter a new “not” budget zone of B L F :smiley:
I already pass nights modding and few sleep, now will be flashling :person_facepalming: :smiley:
Thanks, I may need some help when I get this! I’ll shoot a PM to you when it is time ! Gotta learn it first :wink: Thanks again!!! :beer: :beer: :beer:

It can be a little tricky though, since these builds were created for specific models and they might not work quite right in other hosts or on other drivers. There are often little details baked in which don’t translate well to other environments. For example, there is often a hardcoded “sane” level to help give the thermal algorithm some hints, and it’s calibrated for the heat-shedding capability of a specific host with specific emitters. Generally, each specific light’s response curves are hardcoded into its build, and the ramp shape won’t look right anywhere else.

For RMM, it’d probably be a pain for him to deal with. There’s a growing collection of build targets, and the code changes regularly, so there’s a lot of updating to do… and each driver would need a few different builds available for common types of hosts. RMM would probably need to maintain his own set of build targets to match his drivers. And it would only account for a small portion of sales, since people don’t buy a lot of e-switch drivers. It seems more common to reflash the driver which came with a light.

I try to make it reasonably easy to configure for arbitrary drivers and hosts, but it’s still not a trivial task.

Yea I try to pick a light of similar size/power and generally it’s good enough. (Q8 firmware on my C8F 21700’s has always worked fine)