D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

Sweet, the board functioned as washer as well :+1:

Hey djozz, remind me where you get all these interesting colors?

What you have there is Manker’s version of the PCB, but functionally I think its identical to my Rev3 boards. You will need to find some 0805 LED’s, you will need an 0805 resistor somewhere around 500ohms for the driver, and between 1-20kohms for the tail. I recommend getting multiple values in that range so you can play with it to find a brightness you like. These are common parts, you can check the OP for links or just do an ebay search.

Or… after all your work to get one of these tailcap boards, you could toss it and order one of the newer, better pcb’s from Oshpark :smiley:

Chuckle. All I expected was an ordinary switch that would fit the host.

I’m guessing they’re scraping the bottom of various parts barrels when filling those host orders.

Oh well. Given my shaky hands, I suspect I’ll ruin one or two, then be waiting and hoping RMM or someone else, finds reason to build driver-and-switch combinations for sale to modders at my stick-it-together level ….

Thanks for the info. This stuff is always fun to watch, more so the more it gets past my reach.

It was asked to me by PM too by someone . It was a 100x gree-to-blue mix very leisure tossed loose in a small grip-bag by ebay-seller ledbaron. But the listing is gone now, and it appears that cyan 0603 or 0805 leds can’t be found on ebay anymore (or anywhere else?). Green, blue and ice-blue are easily found though, i.e. at lebaron (german seller).

So far the most I have ever used is 3 LED’s. For my next one I think I will use all 6 pads. I just can’t decide if I want to mix red and blue, or blue and green, or red and yellow.

I’d suggest to build three in the above colors. :slight_smile:

Fwiw Kaidomain has several different sized translucent tail caps including 8, 10, 13.6, 14, and 16mm.

I am in a similar LED delima myself.

Firstly, has anyone ordered LED’s from digikey? Any recommendations?

I am thinking I will grab these in a few colors to start out with, they have the highest MCD rating for the price/size so I figure they should net more light at low currents as well.

Next is color, I am thinking I would focus on green or blue/green combo as they should be the brightest for the least amount of power used since our eveys are more sensitive to those colors. Or is red just too good looking to pass up?

On the newer boards the power is so infinitesimal, just go with what color you want. Having said that, you could look at it from the angle that reds and oranges have a lower Vf, so they need less power to be as bright as the greens :wink:

I suppose so, I just tend to overthinks things to make sure I get the best possible setup, even on the little things.

Test it! Perceived brightness vs power draw at different input voltages

Oh I plan to, just like to know I have all the parts I would need ahead of time. I royally hate having to wait for parts in order to finish a project.

Then just get several values to start with.

Yeah, I am going to order some of each color.

No big deal, was just curious on peoples opinions for color and experience with LED models.

Every time this thread gets some attention, I start thinking about something I’d like to change. This time it’s to incorporate the header pins I got to use with the TripleStack.

So here is what I dub Rev5.3, Top and Bottom. The two boards are aligned so you can use header pins to connect them through the vias.

Top has Six LEDs, two channels, and two resistors for balancing colors. It also has a jumper pads to merge the two channels to bypass the resistors.

Bottom should be very familiar: two pots and the mini slide-switch to jump between them.


That feeling when you buy something and the very next day new updated version is released:

Lol sorry. If you actually ordered yesterday you can cancel as long as they haven’t been sent to fab yet.

There weren’t really any features added other than the pins anyways, so I wouldn’t feel too bad

They were assigned to panel in about 20 minutes from my payment and sent to fab. in less than a hour.
No speed limits for OSH park :smiley:

What switch can i use best for the 20mm rev4 ? I want to use them in a solarforce l2p tail, it has big square switch original.