Even dumber design, then. You have to charge a separate lithium-ion battery in the tailcap, every time you change the āmainā battery? I donāt believe it.
I think theyāre faulty units. The ācharge the tailcap capacitorā is a dumb excuse.
WTH? Nobody makes a flashlight electronic switch like that. Why would they? A li-ion battery would eventually require replacement, having far less lifespan than a capacitor. And a tiny li-ion battery sandwiched inside a tail switch certainly wouldnāt be user serviceable.
See paragraphs [0011] to [0014] if you understand electronics and can get past the machine translation.
EDIT: added pic from T18 in the other thread. Note thereās one more component on the other side of the board (the MOS?) that matches what I can see at the base of the spring on my MassDrop light.
I just got my order for 10 Supercaps today from arrow electronics for building Loneoceans GFS16 FET switches. Ordered a few for spares.
The Seiko Supercaps are tiny and look just like a coin battery. Its only 4.8 mm in diameter. https://www.arrow.com/en/products/xh414hg-iv01e/seiko-instruments-inc
It could be the same one used in these tool switches, I will check next time I take one apart.
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Edit: I can confirm it is this exact SC, the Seiko XH414HG-IV01E.
if itās a supercap then it should charge in seconds, not minutes
and something doesnāt make sense.
if it needs to be charged before use then it means thereās no battery inside?
and there was never a battery inside, no testing with a battery at all?
either that or the supercap lost itās charge. so that means that thiswill just drain the battery all the time.
probably not a good idea to make switches like this
Charge time will depend on how much current is provided. The current could be quite low if the supercapacitor is in series with a large resistor (e.g., R3 and the BAT in the patent schematic).
Yup. A supercap is certainly not low self-discharge. It will continue to drain the battery as it continuously needs to be topped up with charge. You have maybe a month of shelf-life before your battery is drained by the supercap.
Yup. This stupid flashlight design.
Everyone else seems to be able to design lights with switches that can run off the main battery, and donāt need to be charged for an hour before you use it.
I still think the units must be faulty. Iām having a really difficult time believing anyone would design such a ridiculous switch.
Iām not sure your speculation matches what others have experienced with these switches that seem to have been used for over 4 years. Hereās a comment in the other thread
I'd like to know the parasitic drain of the switch assembly, but like I said, my (crude) multimeter measures nothing.
Note if parasitic drain is an issue and I need to leave the light sit for a month, it's easy to lock out by loosening the head 1/4 turn.
What I like most about the eswitch on these Tools, is that it seems like it would be nearly impossible to have them come on in your pocket at any level other than low, which means that youād have a long time to discover it before the battery could be drained to an extreme degree.
I think that the UI is a bit awkward, but itās very good for assuring only low mode turn-ons in the pocket. Any accidental turn-ons seem pretty unlikely with these switches, anyway, since theyāre not proud of the tail cap.
I dont think this is the exact circuit for the tool. Notice the schematic has 2 diodes D1, D2 the tool has 1 and the schematic has 3 resistors and the tool only has two.
The tool probably is real similar but maybe with a updated IC that doesnāt require as many extrernal components. As you stated R3 should be the current limiting resistor for charging the SC. In the GFS16 it also has a current limiting resistor for charging. I set mine at 100 ohms and it takes about 45 seconds to charge up enough to start turning on the fet. I donāt know what value resistor the tool uses but it could probably be lowered slightly to improve the time it takes to charge.
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Iām not sure what all the fuss is about with the switch charging times, mine works from shipped state in about a minute of the battery being inserted.
Once the SC is charged its good to go. To me its the whole reason this light is so appealing to me. Its a cool innovative design with low resistance switch with almost no parasitic drain that very few lights offer. I dont know exactly how much it does draws once charged if any. The reason it has almost no parasitic drain is that nothing is using any energy while itās waiting for user input from the switch. Its idle with the SC charged. Then once you hit the switch the SC supplyās the circuit enough to turn on.
No mcu using power waiting for user input from one ground pin to turn on and run the code. The tool switch is a very effecient cool design in my opinion. It even has a Super Capacitor, what could be cooler than that.
Yeah. Somehow this is being blown out of proportion. Even mine took maybe a few minutes to work normal. Even if it takes hours for the first time, I personally donāt see that as an issue.