Flashlight Firmware Repository

Thanks ToyKeeper. Looks like I have to figure out how to do this. By the way, is it possible that the LVP inside star_noinit doesn’t work as it should when you change the mode direction to high->low? I just swapped the 1 and –1 of mode direction in line #194 and #196, but that should make no difference to soldering star 3.

TK wrote:

ImA4Wheelr wrote:
I just don’t trust my sense of timing.


That’s what the metronome is for.

Sounds like a tool for a professional. My luck I would just get hypnotized and not realize my driver has a short.

EDIT: Finished the 3rd driver. Worked great. Seems like measuring capacitance of the OTC is a decent way to get reliable results when the LVP resistors are kept stock. By the way, I really love your BLF-A6 FW. I'm big on momentary switch lights. But I have to admit it, it feels like using a momentary switch. And the UI is really great. Who knew so much could be done with just one button.

It’s definitely possible that LVP won’t work with a different mode order. I haven’t really tested the various flavors of STAR very much. I’ve been meaning to go through every project and LVP-test it then add the results to the meta files, but I only got through a few before I got distracted…

As for modifying the PWM level directly… it’s easy in solid modes, not so easy in blinky modes. Basically replace the stuff about mode_idx with something about PWM_LVL. Like, if (PWM_LVL > 10) { PWM_LVL = PWM_LVL >> 1; } else { PWM_LVL = 0; and the sleep_mode stuff }

That should make it cut power in half each time it needs to step down, then eventually shut the light off. The double angle brackets do a bitwise shift to the right, which has the same effect as dividing by two.

NO KIDDING!! One hell of a job she did :)

Thanks again, ToyKeeper, I really appreciate your help. I’ll give it a try.

I am trying to use the start off time firmware for a 2 mode light with a twisty tail cap. The problem is I cant hardly twist this cap fast enough to get the mode to change. How would I edit the firmware to have the window where the mode changes be open longer?

I think the value you’re looking for is CAP_THRESHOLD.

You can either guess what value to use, or measure it by flashing ToyKeeper/battcheck/offtime-cap.hex . Basically, turn it on, turn it off, wait the amount of time you want to measure, and turn it on again. It’ll blink out the value it read from the capacitor, which can then be plugged into other code.

Nice trick. Sneaky girl you are. :)

Thanks TK

A lower number will give me a longer window right?

Yes, a lower number is a longer amount of time. The capacitor drains while it’s off, following a curve similar to 1/x — quickly at first, then slower and slower and sloooooooower.

So we know that heat can affect OTC timing with certain divider resistors, can heat also affect the LVP itself?

I’m using blf-a6. I tested values with my power supply and battcheck, then rechecked with an actual battery when stuff started acting weird.

This is what’s happening:

If I keep the light out of turbo, LVP steps in at about 3.1v (where i set it). When the light is hot, LVP seems to step in at 3.6v. I turn the light on turbo, the timer steps it down after 60 seconds, and it will stay on medium with no problem. But if I immediately bump it back to turbo, it lasts 5 seconds, then drops to medium for 5 seconds, then drops to low and stays there. It never drops to moon or shuts off. When i take the battery out, it’s right at 3.6v. If I wait for the light to cool down and put the same battery back in, it will work fine as long as I don’t use turbo.

I think the temperature may affect some other things too, but I haven’t been able to get it to do anything weird on purpose except for the OTC timing differences.

Battery voltage sag might be a factor too, but I don’t think it explains the whole story. I wonder how I might be able to control temperature for some voltage+heat tests…

That sounds a lot like battery voltage sag. The repeated step-down is probably LVP, but then the voltage recovers far enough that it won’t reach its shut-off point for a long long time. I suspect that it would stay on medium if bumped back up after low has been running for a while. It may also depend on changes made to the code, but it’s hard to say for sure.

You think it’s sagging half a volt? This is with a Samsung 25R at about 6amps. I’ve had some other funny stuff happen with blf-a6, but since nobody else reported it I just assumed it was hardware related. Just for the sake of more information I’ll try repeating tests with other firmwares.

I have a Roche F6 with a real-time green/orange/red voltage indicator, and when I run it at the highest mode (25R cell) I’ve seen it sag by half a volt. A full charge can sag into the orange range within seconds on turbo, but it recovers soon after I turn the level down.

If you’re taking the cell out before measuring its voltage, it has probably already recovered quite a bit during the seconds it takes to get the cell out. And if it’s a high-amp cell, there isn’t a lot of capacity left at 3.6V. It will sag really easily at that level, much more than it would sag when full.

During normal use, I see the indicator flicker quickly from green to orange when it’s about half full, even with a lowpass filter on the ADC readings. I can actually tell the voltage pretty well by the relative time spent at each color, since at first it blinks orange only a little but it gradually gets more orange and less green. The results tend to be pretty noisy, so on the battcheck firmware it averages quite a few samples for each readout. I wonder if you might be seeing step-down too soon due to noise instead of actual sag.

Hmm very interesting. I guess I didn’t realize it would sag that much.

Just a quite question. How difficult would it be to change BLF-A6 to work with momentary switch?

It would require a complete rewrite. Clicky switch code is structured very differently than e-switch code, and has very different requirements and techniques to make things work.

However, I’m hoping to get some bigger MCUs soon and start on a combined clicky-switch / e-switch firmware based on blf-a6.c and Ferrero_Rocher/Ramping_UI_table.c .

Ooo now that sounds interesting.

this BLF A6 driver is it possible to copy or flash it to any attiny13 IC or to any nangj 105 driver like 8*7135 or the likes ???