Shorten your 7135s for space-constrained mods!

After noticing in my EC11 x-ray picture that the 7135 regulators appeared to be mostly empty inside, I ran an experiment to see how much of the package is empty plastic, and how tall the internal wirebonds are. I think this information will be useful in some very space-constrained mods such as the EX11, which is what the board I used was designed for.


I tested these two types of 7135 regulator. I have been unable to find manufacturer info about these, so I call them Crappy Sailboat (left) and Raptor Claw (right). Crappy Sailboat is terrible and won’t dim very low due to slow turn-on, and I have been having a really hard time finding Raptor Claw anywhere (if you have any you want to sell, contact me please).


Here’s the test setup - it’s the main board of my MELD-EX board for Nitecore EX11s, with regulators for R, G, &B. It’s programmed to just run lava lamp mode to see if the colors are working. There are two Crappy Sailboats and one Raptor Claw.


It’s wired to an XML color with all the wires going to the back of the board to leave the top clear.

The regulators start at 1.60mm tall. I turned it on and started filing.


The first one to die is Raptor Claw, at 1.03mm.


It is destroyed, as expected, by breaking through a wire bond, which you can see clearly.


The first Crappy Sailboat dies at 0.94mm (the one on the right). You can see that I simultaneously broke through two wirebonds, and at this height the other one (left) now has one wirebond exposed, but not broken. This is encouraging information about the consistency of the wirebond height inside these.


In this image, one of them is still functional at 0.94mm tall. I replaced one of the dead ones to get a height comparison.

Based on this test it looks like you can get away with sanding down to ~1.1mm with Raptor Claws and ~1.0mm with Crappy Sailboats and the regulators will still work.

Fasttech has the ‘raptor claw’ (PD) 7135.

Not anymore!

I emailed fasttech about it, requesting to buy that one specifically (after I received the other from them) and they replied:

Since then I’ve been placing smaller test orders from various places. My first order of ten from fasttech was RC but the second was CS

Now that’s some dedication !
I always admire your electronics skills man, good job !

Nice testing tterev3. :+1:

Interesting.

Thanks for the test! And your nicknames are great! They stuck with me right away. So when you replied with RC and CS, I knew exactly what you were talking about without have to go back and reference the abbreviations. Nice work! :beer:

Strange… When was this?
And did you look for 350mA or 380mA?
Recently got 100 of these 350mA:
https://www.fasttech.com/product/1124300
Look here for pics, also about sanding / filing down:

I got these:

(some are from an other batch)

I ordered 100 packs from them on 1/31 and 2/7, both were Crappy Sailboats. All 350mA

Hmmm… i ordered them on January the 7th…
I don’t want Crappy Sailboats either…

Your pcb/ufo looks like it crash landed into your digital calipers trailing flaming led wires.

…so i search for ‘7135’ on AliExpress, and most of the pictures show the Raptor Claw chips…

I’ll bet sanding the bottom layer would drop the top chip enough for bent pins to actually make contact making the solder connection much easier on stacked set ups.

…but it seems “original Addtek” have the best reputation, they cost more too…

So what should i be looking for when i run out of Raptor Claws?

Easiest way to stack (for me) is removing centre pin and super-glueing one (with pins bent down) on top of another.
Then you don’t have to worry about accidentally bridging pins and holding the 7135 in place.
Yes, there’s still that tiny gap, but that’s not a big problem.

It is for me. Having them touch so the solder clings easily to both would take care it. I’m glad you do it well though.

I just received my last order of 100pcs of these regulators and i got “Raptor Claws”. I ordered these April 8th from Fasttech. So it looks like it’s a little lottery for what you get.

Thanks for the update, i’ll put them back on my wishlist.

I found manufacturer of Crappy Sailbot. It’s Chinese company QX Micro Devices Co., LTD

Here is product page:
http://www.qxmd.com.cn/en/?product/QX7135.html

Qrappy Xailboat…