Close enough……or what…
First NovaTac/Lume 1
Close enough……or what…
First NovaTac/Lume 1
You took so long I had to do my own!
It’s close enough IMO. So close in fact you have to wonder if this is how they intended it.
KB, now fix the flashing key. Cut those traces and cross some wires
You took so long I had to do my own!
**It’s close enough IMO. So close in fact you have to wonder if this is how they intended it.
Yep… :+1: I have to agree… Lexel sent me a boat load of different micro resistors for these or his boards, I might mess around with the last driver, lowering the green and maybe the red a tiny bit more? Winter is coming…
KB, now fix the flashing key. Cut those traces and cross some wires :innocent:
Hmmm……… I sure would like to get rid of this useless :rage: “MUGGLE MODE” :rage:
Another option with the provided resistors would be to use the 330Ω on the green, the 100Ω on the red and just solder bridge the blue. Would that fry the blue?
Hello everyone,
I'm glad some people have received their boards! Unfortunately I personally haven't yet received mine yet, though they are in the mail and I should receive them sometime today hopefully.. I see that there has been a good amount of feedback so far so here are my comments.
Could this be used with very low vF LEDs, like red for example?
Yes the system should work with red LEDs. However, you should make sure that FET is disabled; this can be easily done by changing the config files (e.g. change the ramping tables) and reflashing the firmware so that the FET is never used. The system will run in buck-mode for the entire range if red LEDs are used.
Is there a newer datasheet? https://cdn.shopifycdn.net/s/files/1/0031/0155/6806/files/LUME1-FW3X_Datasheet_-_PRELIMINARY.pdf
Yes there is, please see my github for the latest versions. https://github.com/loneoceans/lume1-fw3x-anduril/
I installed one of the drivers I received yesterday. It is definitely not the easiest but doable. 1) start by filing down the pcb cut marks. 2) My FW3A had a flat lip on one side of the PCB, but Lume1 did not. If you don’t file it down, the driver does not sit properly. The circuit still works fine, but you will have a 1mm gap once you screw on the tube. I filed it down to the inner ring on the pcb, and then it fit just fine. 3) I used 0.3mm (28awg) enameled wire for RGB wire, marked them ahead with sharpie dots to distinguish later. 4) You absolutely have to have the original mcpcb. I had a noctigon mcpcb with sliced dogfarts, and did not have the right wire routing for secondary PCB to sit properly. So I switched over to original FW3A mcpcb with SW45K flowed. 5) It is a major PITA to make sure that the secondary LED pcb sits properly. It does not need to be flush with the mcpbc (I was not able to), but it needs to be as close as possible. In then end I had about a mm of gap and the optic sat nicely. 6) By the time I got to wiring the secondary LEDs, the sharpie dots were already cleaned out. However, it is ok if that happens - put together the battery tube, and test out the primary LED. Once you verify it works, turn it off and then start probing the secondary led wires with a voltmeter, you will find that one pair has some voltage between them on the order of volts. Between those, the (-) polarity is K on the secondary PCB, and the remaining three wires are RGB. Now, the modes are cyclic, so I honestly think it is not important how you wire between RGB wires, all permutations are valid, they just change the blinking order. I wired them randomly, and the flashlight seems to be working quite nicely so far. In the end, I have a FW3A with a buck boost driver supplemented with a FET for DD and SW45K. It is the almost the same size as my SW45K SC64C LE (not McBob version, my DIY version, but definitely inspired by him) and a similar efficiency for most lo-mid modes, but with a much more powerful hi-mode. Honestly, this is quite the holy grail for me, thanks lone ocean. Next, I’ll switch over my FW3C to Lume1 and the sliced dogfarts which are another favorite of mine for when I prefer purer white of sliced LH351D over rosy 219B.
Thanks for the detailed feedback gokalpm. I'm glad you were able to get it working well in the end.
- I did not design the PCB with cutout because newer versions of the FW3x flashlights no longer have the notch, so I was told by Neal to make a round PCB. Filing would work to fit the older ones.
- The RGB aux board was designed for the Lumintop MCPCB not the Noctigon one
- The aux LED board should sit flush on top of the MCPCB. The Lume1 datasheet has an assembly section on how I put things together, and things to take note of as well.
I’ll add a bunch of commentary and tips but here’s album from my build today:
For those of you that have installed this in your lights. Are your green aux leds much brighter than the red and blue leds? I just installed this driver rgb board in my light. The mixed, red-green and blue-green, colors look solid green instead of yellow and teal like my other lights. The resistor on the green channel has a value of 100ohm. Does anyone know what the correct value should be? I checked some of my other lights and they have 120ohm resistors for the green channel.
That's unfortunate to hear.. :( If you scroll back in this thread a while back when I got the first proto samples from Neal (the green PCBs), I found the resistors chosen to be non-ideal and made the Aux LEDs far too bright, and specifically requested them to be changed. I think Lumintop probably wanted really bright AUX lights, but that was not what I think they should be because I prefer the AUX LEDs to be very dim.
Personally, my recommended resistor values are:
1.8k for Red and Blue
5.6k for Green
These values allow for a good change in brightness when using the 'dim' AUX settings in Anduril as well (especially the breathing rainbow mode which I use most often), and they work really well in the nighttime, but will not be very visible in the daytime. These values are listed in the datasheet on Github too.
Instead of replacing resistors, swaping wires from driver to aux board could fix this issue?
Green and blue wire swap?
LED intensity is controlled by the resistors, so swapping wires from driver to aux board will not change the brightness, but will change the ordering instead.
Another option with the provided resistors would be to use the 330Ω on the green, the 100Ω on the red and just solder bridge the blue. Would that fry the blue?
No please do not use a solder bridge! I'll need to ask Neal why Lumintop didn't change the resistors to what I specified.
Those tiny RGB pads do make this 100x harder. I know nothing about PCB design, I only wonder if maybe the K pad could be relocated and then spread out the RGB pads evenly in the same spot.
When I designed this board, it was immediately after I designed the Lume1 board, which I assemble and solder by hand. The actual driver board has smaller components so the LED pads seem easy in comparison, but you are right that normally this would be a challenging job because they're tightly spaced. [Update: it's done! https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/mtHUb4gp]
I quite like the bright aux that can be seen during the day. For night time, he dim setting is dim enough. I wish it was balanced though… I believe even with the swapping around of the resistors, the green is still brighter and the blue dimmer than the red. I think I may try 75Ω for the blue (since no resistor at all is a no go), 160Ω for the red and 330Ω for the green. I have ordered some 0402 resistors to try.
As someone who has never soldered anything before, it sounds like the aux lights are going to be out of the question, which is fine. Is just the driver swap fairly easy? What’s the process? Unsolder the wires from the mcpcb, remove the driver, unsolder the wires from the driver, solder the wires to the new driver, install the driver, solder the wires to the mcpcb?
As someone who has never soldered anything before, it sounds like the aux lights are going to be out of the question, which is fine. Is just the driver swap fairly easy? What’s the process? Unsolder the wires from the mcpcb, remove the driver, unsolder the wires from the driver, solder the wires to the new driver, install the driver, solder the wires to the mcpcb?
Yes. As some others mentioned if you have a first batch FW3A with the dog eared driver slant you will need to re-create that “slant” in the new driver with sand paper or a file.
If you have a new batch FW3A with MCPCB screw you just need to check for any long burs coming from where that hole is tapped into driver cavity (honestly I forgot to even check mine).
Soldering to the driver itself is a piece of cake, the pads are large.
Soldering to the MCPCB is harder but as long as you have a clean, blunt tip and either A) some fresh leaded solder or B) flux paste you can probably do that too without much trouble.
I wouldn’t ordinarily re-use wires but in this case you could get away with it. They are good quality. Lumintop thermal paste is questionable but adequate. Those would be two “extra” things I always do because I have all the stuff for it already.
Wow, that is a good looking board Nice work loneoceans!
Those tiny RGB pads do make this 100x harder. I know nothing about PCB design, I only wonder if maybe the K pad could be relocated and then spread out the RGB pads evenly in the same spot.
I have a lot of soldering experience, and those RGB pads look great. My advice is to tin the pads and wires first while using plenty of flux. The connections should be a piece of cake at that point.
I have just casual experience during past 2 years and did it so it’s doable for sure.
It still requires working with 6 wires, 4 of which are very small, steady hands, good eyes or magnification, etc.
I think you take it for granted some if you are experienced with tools and probably young. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be made easier for DIY if its possible (and it was it seems cause the new revision seems better)
That’s unfortunate to hear… If you scroll back in this thread a while back when I got the first proto samples from Neal (the green PCBs), I found the resistors chosen to be non-ideal and made the Aux LEDs far too bright, and specifically requested them to be changed. I think Lumintop probably wanted really bright AUX lights, but that was not what I think they should be because I prefer the AUX LEDs to be very dim.
Personally, my recommended resistor values are:
1.8k for Red and Blue
5.6k for GreenThese values allow for a good change in brightness when using the ‘dim’ AUX settings in Anduril as well (especially the breathing rainbow mode which I use most often), and they work really well in the nighttime, but will not be very visible in the daytime. These values are listed in the datasheet on Github too.
It seems that the examples of the values I see here so far for the AUX board resistors are lower than the ones above. I also like the very dim AUX LED’s. I hope the recommended values above will bring very dim like tritium at the low setting and brighter at the high setting as close as to the moon mode.
There were some issues in the prototype that I need to sort out, though most of them are cosmetic. For example, while electrically the PCB is good, I wasn’t pleased with the overall finish of the PCB soldermask, HASL, and silkscreen. Likewise, there were some component swaps that Neal’s team made to reduce BOM cost, the most obvious is the sense resistor (confusingly a slightly higher value was used). I’m in the process of discussing these with Neal so hopefully we can get an excellent product to everyone. I’m suggesting to Neal to have a matte black soldermask with ENIG gold finish, or at least the same as the stock driver (purple with ENIG) - if you have other opinions please drop a message to Neal as well.
I was checking around this thread for more about with the AUX board. I just happened to notice something else. The higher value for the sense resistor was used in the prototype. I am guessing the sense resistor is the big one with the “R 020” label. What did the higher value do? Did it simply limit the current even further for the TURBO mode?
Lets move on from 219B. The prototype used it and people have been building them for years.
Yes. It is time to move on from 219B. Indeed, the prototype has been built with them (and several others). There have been no problems. So, my questions now are more for the curiosity. I will go ahead and use 219B.
Thanks.
@contactcr, Don’t work on them one at a time like through-hole components, work them all at once until the last moment.
1) With a dab of solder flux on your finger, scrub it onto all 4 pads at once.
2) With a small drop of solder on the solder iron tip, brush back-and-forth across all 4 pads at once a few times. Individual older domes will form over each pad. If any of them connect, repeat with less solder on the iron. Wiping perpendicular can fix it too. Eventually they will all have individual domes.
3) Tin each wire by rolling the wire over a solder drop on the iron’s tip.
4) Trim the wires if you stripped and tinned too much.
5) Hold a tinned wire on top of the correct solder dome. Tap with solder iron corner to add heat. The tinned wire should sink into the dome. Repeat for all wires/domes.
6) Done.
I have already done precisely this but I will elaborate since the combined information will be helpful to others.
In addition to the above:
- The right wire length helps tremendously
- When you feed your wires through consider how they will be attached to the boards so you aren’t crossing them over each other above the PCB (it probably wont fit otherwise)
- If your wire will retain any shape at all consider bending it a little into position so you aren’t trying to juggle tweezers, a clean iron tip, steady hand, etc.
Got 1 set in today - dunno when I'll get a chance to install it, hoping soon! I got 2 FW3A's
I did my FW3C today, and did a few improvements, took some images.
For the resistors, I ended up using r=330 b=330 and g=680 or 1k. It definitely tooks much better, especially with 1k.
I only had 0804 at hand, so I had to improvise the fit. The green fits sideways, but the blue needs to stay flat to clear the optics. Note that the image below was before I figured this out.
I also twised the ends of the enameled wires differently this time, instead of marking with sharpie. Worked nicely.
Installed sliced dogfarts as I previously mentioned. Absolutely fabulous leds, massively underrated.
I installed my Lume1 driver earlier today, I love the idea of a buck/boost for the FW3A, but I have encountered a bit of a problem. I am experiencing visible PWM until level ~20, I am not particularly sensitive to it, but on the very low levels it has an almost candle like flicker.
I am assuming that I received a dud, but I am curious if anyone else is experiencing something similar.