Attiny25/45/85 FW Development Thread

I've been working on and off (no pun intended Wink) on my enhanced version of e-switch, and after the bad ground fiasco, I ran into another frustrating issue, but I think finally this evening I fixed it, very happy now... SmileSmile Btw, the downloading is working like 100% reliable now - best it's ever worked, more reliable then I ever had with a 13A -- never seem to get a bad clip on. Amaz'n what a good ground will do...

TK - haven't had time to look at yours, sorry.

The problem I had was very intermittent, no apparent pattern that I could repeat it with, but it would flake out after switching from hi to OFF - sometimes it worked fine 10x in a row, then intermittently occur, sometimes resulting in a lock-up with the light ON or OFF - bazaar stuff. The changes that fixed it were:

  • eliminate possible redundant back to back output to the TCCR0A register to set PWM mode (FAST or PHASE)
  • clearing of the pressDuration variable in a couple more places, which seemed not necessary

I'm thinking the first fix in more explainable, though I'm not sure why. Then again, I've been testing for only a few minutes, doing all sorts of crazy things and can't reproduce it so far, doesn't mean it's truly fixed yet.

Enhanced features:

  • 8 mode sets to choose from, plus hi->lo option, plus mode memory
  • lock-out feature to disable possible inadvertent clicks (quick sequence of click-click-click&hold for 2 secs)
  • compile time option:

- for e-switch's with a tail power switch, mode settings available off the power switch

- or double blink for power-on (when using a tail lock-out, the blinks will occur to signal battery is connected)

Still need to add some things, but it's beyond a 25 now - needs a 45 or 85 to run.

FYI - my test light has been a SupFire M2-Z I bought from Richard for modding. Wow - what a deal. It's a perfect light for the lock-out feature: it has no tail switch and bare threads so impossible to lockout with unscrewing the tailcap. A 22 mm driver fits fine, has a nice threaded retainer ring, and a wired side switch mounted to the housing (stock driver is not needed. I used long LED wires so I could pop it out and re-program without much of a fuss, and could do basic testing with a battery wired direct to the driver and the driver wired in to the head, giving you full control with the side switch. I swapped the plastic reflector for an alum one (XP-R C8 style), and put in a XP-L V6 3D on a Noctigon - didn't worry bout bypassing springs yet.

I was gonna use a Crelant 7G2CS, but it turned out the driver shelf is way too wide and would interfere with components on the driver - I'd have to machine some material from the shelf (inside the pill) to fix it up. Might be easier to piggyback a driver, not sure yet.

These are the modes:

Mode Set Order

Mode Count

Mode Percentages

Notes

1

5

ml-2-10-40-full

10=max 7135, 40=mixed

2

4

ml-10-35-full

10=max 7135, 35=mixed

3

3

5-35-full

5=1/2 7135, 35=mixed

4

7

TK BLF A6 7 mode

moon plus 6 evenly spread

5

4

TK BLF A6 4 mode

no moon, 4 evenly spread

6

3

ml-10-full

moon, max 7135, max FET

7

2

10-full

max 7135, max FET

8

1

full only

(full is always max FET, no 7135)

I like those mode sets. Looking forward to seeing this stuff included in a light somewhere that we can buy for a budget price. :wink:

Interesting. And cool. And sorry, I haven’t had time to try yours out either. :slight_smile:
(I don’t even have a tiny25 hooked up to an e-switch yet, though I at least have the parts)

What I’m making is a little different… the 8 mode groups are simply 1 to 8 total modes, all evenly-spaced. Separate option for whether there should be a moon mode, so it actually does N+1 modes if moon is enabled. This means the BLF A6 defaults would be group 6 plus moon, or group 4 without moon.

Basically, pick how many modes you want, choose whether to add moon, choose low-to-high or high-to-low mode order, choose whether the “medium press” does reversing or not, choose whether to enable mode memory, choose a maximum temperature… etc. I’m hoping it can cover almost everyone’s preferences. I’m also hoping the missing parts will fit into the ~600 bytes I have left on the attiny25. If not though, I can cut a couple of space-hungry optional extras.

With OTC, LVP and e-switch all on one pin and dual switch firmware like this. I can see some very creative and exciting firmware being used in further group buys.

This link is current source, current BAT files for fuses, etc.: drive.google.com - eSwitchBrownOut. Again, need to do further enhancements, but this is current state. ZIP file contains full 6.2 project - didn't update to Atmel Studio 7.0 yet. I'ts built for the 85 but should work for the 45 as well.

Update 10/08 eve:

Got in more improvements, bug fixes, and test hours (well, maybe minutes...).

  • Broke out moonlight mode as a separate config setting so it's more flexible, more mode set options, so now there are 64 combos total!
  • re-ordered the sets of modes so 1 click is a 1 mode set, 2 clicks a 2 mode set, 3 clicks a 3 mode set, etc. This is good up til 6 clicks, but 7 clicks is a different 3 mode set, and 8 clicks is a different 4 mode set
  • played with the timing of blinks and quick clicks for the lock-out setting and clearing - think it's easier now to do
  • Bug Fix: if the light is in mode 1, could not get into strobe -- fixed that now
  • expanded the stored config settings from one byte to two bytes. Wear leveling uses a 128 byte EPROM buffer, so it rotates around 64 times.
  • added a "Turbo timeout" setting to the config settings, so now there are 5 settings in config mode:
    1. mode sets of 1 to 8 sets (1 to 8 clicks)
    2. moonlight mode is toggled
    3. mode ordering is reversed
    4. mode memory is toggles
    5. turbo timeout, where: 1 click disabled it, 2=30 secs, 3=60 secs, 4=90 secs, 5=2 mins, 6=3 mins, 7=5 mins, 8=10 mins

Tried to make config mode easy to access, and easy to set values or skip values.

  • To enter config mode from OFF or ON, hold the button for 2 seconds (acknowledged by two slow blinks)
  • you are now in mode set selection, 1-8 clicks to choose your mode set or no click to skip
  • in 4 seconds with no clicks, the setting times out and two slow blinks indicate you are in the next setting (moonlight)
  • 1 click toggles moonlight enabled or disabled
  • again 4 seconds with no clicks, the setting times out and two slow blinks indicate you are in the next setting (mode ordering)
  • 1 click toggles the current mode ordering setting (lo->hi or hi->lo)
  • again 4 seconds with no clicks, the setting times out and two slow blinks indicate you are in the next setting (mode memory)
  • 1 click toggles the mode memory ON or OFF setting
  • again 4 seconds with no clicks, the setting times out and two slow blinks indicate you are in the next setting (turbo timeout)
  • 1 click turns OFF turbo timout, 2-8 clcisk chooses the time to use for turbo timeout (as listed above)
  • again 4 seconds with no clicks, the setting times out and three slow blinks indicate you are done, and back to normal mode of OFF

Did you still keep a version that fits on the 25? I foolishly only bought 25’s instead of larger models, but I’m looking for a good FW for my 7G3CS.

Ohhh - I'm up to bout 2500 bytes - blew past the 25... Still have the e-switch and brownout power switch support version which fits in a 25 though, just no config settings in the UI.

I’m going to have to order some 85V’s soon to try some of these firmware’s out. I’m still waiting form my 25’s to arrive.

That UI sounds great! And I like the way config works. Some will say it takes too much time. But really, how often will you config your flashlight? 8)

Ohhh - bout the time it takes... There's a shortcut built in. If you always wait for each setting to time out, yes, it would take at least 20 seconds (4secs x 5) to complete. But, instead of waiting if you click&hold, it skips to the next setting. So using the shortcut, it's pretty quick. I pretty much always use this shortcut now when I'm testing, and I've been doin lots of testing...

An issue with many firmware versions that support configuration, is the # of continuous fast clicks you have to do to get into configuration. With this, all you have to do is press and hold for 2 seconds, and you're in.

I was thinking of adding an "abort", so another words, if all you want to do is toggle moonlight mode, after you did moonlight toggle, you could bail out of configuration mode altogether, quickly. I think I can still do this with an extra long click&hold - it shouldn't interfere with anything and should be pretty quick, like 1 second or so, and is consistent with how this UI works (an extra long click in normal operation is strobe mode).

Also when you are in configuration settings, a click will always cause a blink, so you get feedback/acknowledgment that you did the click.

Biggest issue I can see with this is losing track of where you are -- in which one of the 5 settings. Originally was thinking of varying the blinks between settings, ex: entering setting #1: 1 blink, entering setting #2: 2 blinks, etc. I decided to just use 2 blinks for each setting entry because I thought the blink count itself would be hard for the user to count/track themselves, and also though one blink to start this doesn't feel right. I could of course use a different timed blink sequence to indicate you are entering configuration mode though, then do the 1 blink for the first setting - that would help.

There's lots of ways of doing all this of course...

Here's the latest doc/notes link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1IxYZuk4DjcTUc5Z3ZkV3lsQnM/view?usp=sharing

This will eventually become the manual...

I spent a little time reading the manual tonight, and got temperature measurement working. I’m not 100% sure I’m doing it right, but at least it works. I get a value of 74 for room temperature and 82 after holding a hair dryer up to the driver for a while. Seems like a narrower spread than I expected, but it’s enough for my purposes.

Then I added thermal step-down (and step-up) to bistro.c. When the driver is heated, it’ll step down until the temperature is below the threshold. When the driver is colder, it will step back up until it either gets back to the original level or it gets too hot again. It currently has 64 steps in this thermal ramp.

I haven’t tested it in an actual light, but it works well with a hair dryer controlling the heat.

Let’s see… I also added a pseudo-random strobe, but it’s mostly just a proof of concept and the randomizer doesn’t seem very good because the ROM contents are less chaotic than I had hoped. And there are some other recent additions, like letting the user choose two or three levels of offtime (enable medium press?), and volts+tenths in battcheck mode.

The latest build is 1564 bytes, though some of that is extra junk which will probably be taken out later. I set 2048 as my limit so it will work on attiny25.

I didn’t feel like stopping yet, so I got the thermal calibration mode working too. Basically, go to config mode, wait for the relevant option to scroll by, turn the light off. It’ll turn on in turbo next time, measuring temperature and saving the value until you turn it off. After a power cycle, it’ll then use the new value as its threshold.

Again, only hair-dryer testing. But if I calibrate it to room temperature, it thinks it’s always over-heating so every mode steps down until it hits moon. If I heat it up during calibration, everything works fine afterward (but steps down when the hair dryer is on it, and back up when the dryer is removed).

With the work being done by both Tom E and ToyKeeper, we’ll be seeing some amazing new drivers in the (hopefully near) future!

It can be hard to follow incremental threads, so here’s a summary of what the ‘bistro’ code does now. Basically, what’s on the menu so far? These things are already working:

  • Choice of 1 to 8 regular modes, plus an optional moon.
  • Choice of low-to-high or high-to-low order.
  • Mode memory, or not.
  • Reversing via medium-press, or not. (requires OTC)
  • Thermal step-down with an easy self-calibration mode to let each person set their heat threshold. Only works in regular modes though; blinkies are not temperature-regulated.
  • 64 brightness levels available, though they’re only normally seen during thermal step-down.
  • Soft start on regular modes.
  • Hidden modes when medium-press is enabled:
    • Two-speed police-style strobe.
    • Volts+tenths style battery indicator.
    • Bike flasher.
  • Most of the code is abstracted to eventually work on either a single-channel or dual-channel (FET+7135) driver.

It’s not done yet, and I know of at least a few things which need to be fixed (like LVP), but it’s getting there. I’m basically putting in as much as I can fit in 2048 bytes. Hopefully it can cover most people’s needs for a clicky-switch light.

Sounds pretty fabulous

These are toggled through the config mode? Same 15 fast click to enter config as blf-a6?

Yes, same method for entering config mode. Fast-tap anywhere between 15 and 30 times (until it stops lighting up) then leave it on.

The config mode makes the timing and counting a little easier now though. Instead of “blink, blink, pause…” for each option it now blinks a number then kind of “buzzes” for a bit to show where the click window is. Click during the “buzz”.

Before:

  1. blink, blink, pause
  2. blink, blink, pause
  3. exit

After:

  1. blink buzz, pause
  2. bl-blink buzz, pause
  3. bl-bl-blink buzz, pause
  4. bl-bl-bl-blink buzz, pause
  5. bl-bl-bl-bl-blink buzz, pause
  6. exit

Some of these options invoke a special secondary mode. Like, to select a mode group, it will go into a beacon-like mode where it’ll slowly blink 8 times then pause, then repeat. Turn the light off after N blinks if you want mode group number N. Or, for the thermal calibration, it’ll turn on in turbo and wait for you to turn the light off to set the maximum allowed temperature.

Eventually I’ll try to make a diagram again, but I haven’t yet.

Bistro revision 185 won’t build for me.

I did try out r175 but only briefly. I’ve been sick and had to work up energy just to download, build, flash. :Sp Also I didn’t / don’t see tk-random.h in the repository so I removed random_strobe.

Oops, I completely forgot to add the random header. Fixed.

About the warning, it’s not a fatal error, is it? For me, it doesn’t prevent gcc from compiling. In any case, adding the missing ‘const’ fixed it, and I re-pushed the changes.