Texas Avenger 30mm & 46mm PCB's + lighted tailcap kits

PM incoming.

I have actually been putting together a little goodie bag for you to try out, I was gonna wait until I got another item done to send it out but not sure when the parts for it will be in. Got orders out everywhere and I don’t even remember half of them until they show up lol.

It was an early issue with Bistro, getting Turbo to run reliably. There were issues with the components used on the driver that caused the MCU to shift down to moon or low when trying to go into Turbo, even on a single emitter set-up. The release came out with the lights working, for the most part, but shifting to a triple flared up the issue again.

I use A6 firmware in my Quad’s because of this, as much as I’d prefer Bistro it’s just finicky to get everything working right with correct timings.

The Texas Avenger series promises to correct this, Del scoped out the issues and proper components were sourced, added, removed, relocated, tweaked, hammered and shellacqued. :wink:

I wish soft start were still in play as I liked that feature, it was an instant giveaway that Bistro was in progress…

Thanks!

Yeah, when you build them for yourself you don’t really notice the time it takes but when I started actually timing the process I was quite surprised to find it was taking over an hour for each driver at first.

By building them in batches and buying/making some jigs plus some experience I have cut the time down to 30-40 minutes now. So basically I am making just over minium wage on these lol.

Indeed, I have had no such issues with the Texas Avenger drivers even with triple XP-G3 lights (of which I plan to sell a few soon) running 16+ amps. The new components list by DEL truly make the drivers rock solid stable in my testing.

I also like the soft start, This is one of the features I want to add back into it if/when TK ever has time to implement the compacted code. It is simply out of space right now.

With the space gains she mentioned possible soft start, 31 mode groups, a larger ramp table and a few more fun strobe modes should all fit.

Although for those like yourself another possibility is to use a tiny85 instead of the 25 and then you will have plenty of room for everything you could dream of.

I suppose I could release a version of the firmware with less mode groups and soft start enabled. Hmm, something to think about.

I really love the 7 mode with reversing into hidden modes. Might would play with some crazy strobes on occasion but my memory makes it difficult to do that kind of thing, so a very elaborate firmware table is lost on me. I’ll set it and forget it.

I’ll take one 17mm TA with sir 800 FET and one SRK driver.

PM Sent.

Thanks, I am happy with how they have turned out so far. They could have never happened without the help of lots of others here.

TA, I’m in need of several of the 17mm version with your variant on Bistro. What I need is the full featured set up for use in a quad light. I don’t care about you building it, throw all the bits in a ziploc and mail em, I can build them myself no problemo. Can we do this? I’d use an L6 driver the same way, just set it up in the MCU and throw all the bits in a bag, I’ll take care of the rest. I need to get a top binned XHP-70 so I can mod the clear L6 for my son-in-law, he has need of a big boss light at work. (Actually, this one needs a ramping firmware, if you can do that, if not I can flash the MCU with my own.)

Holler at me and we’ll figure it out, Thanks! :smiley:

No particular hurry, sometime in the next hour is fine. (just messin with ya, need the light for my son-in-law for Christmas, the other’s are not pressing)

This is kind of the idea, lots and lots of options but most will set it how they want it and never touch it again. The idea is to have those options for everyone.

I do have a version of the firmware with 14 mode groups, a larger ramp table and soft start (I think) enabled. I will have to check into that again. I might add it to the release as an option if people want it. Basically it doesn’t have any of the mode groups after 14 IIRC and has soft start enabled.

Well, I should have a goodie bag of stuff headed your way shortly :partying_face:

Has anyone bought a tailcap yet? With how often I get requests, I would have expected those to fly off the shelf

edit: Oops, I see now that most are marked as ‘sold out’ I just didn’t remember seeing comments about them in this thread… so nevermind!

I sold 2 or 3 of them, all the sales so far have been through PM pretty much so this thread doesn’t get bumped much.

I have not had any further requests so I have not seen a reason to order more parts for them or the drivers.

I think people expect to be able to just buy the tailcap and don’t realize they need the matching driver to go with them in order for it to work properly.

I am interested in a couple of 17MM e-switch versions with Narsil firmware. I’d rather nor try to build them myself as I don’t see those tiny parts so well any more.

I ran out of 7135’s and don’t see myself ordering more of them at this point.

Due to the very low demand for these and the very high effort involved with making them I don’t think I will be making another batch.

I do have some left over PCB’s and other parts I could sell so you don’t have to wait on oshpark though. I would have to check how many.

Now I do have a LOT of lighted tailcap parts, switches, springs, LED’s, Pots ect. If anyone wants a lighted tailcap “kit” let me know. The one thing I don’t have many of are the PCB’s.

Put simply it is not worth the time involved with building these at this point. Which is fine, I never intended to make money off this project anyways.

As far as seeing the parts, I see a lot of people complain about this, do people try to assemble the drivers without a magnifier?

I have the older version of this without the lights and it makes it easy to see what you are doing. Just get yourself a pair of fine time tweezers:

http://www.harborfreight.com/magnifier-head-strap-with-lights-38896.html

I have a green convoy s2+ that woyld be cool with a green lighted tailcap. Do you have any available?

Due to the low interest and high amount of work involved with building these things by hand I do not think I will be making any more complete drivers or tailcaps to sell. It is simply not worth the time.

That said I do have some parts left over and will be selling “kits” to build your own tailcaps along with a few other items.

I have everything but the PCB’s here to build some green tailcaps. The PCB’s can be ordered from oshpark in the size you need.

Do you still have any of the TA driver “parts kits” to sell? I’m thinking about buying boards from Osh Park and a “parts kit” from you for building a D01 driver. Does it take the same parts list as the others?

I don’t have anymore complete kits, I am out of MCU’s, diodes and real low on FET’s, lots of resistors though. Most likely you will have to order the parts separately anyways. Use arrow with the free shipping and the cost works out well.

I do have some lighted tailcaps parts kits left though, lots of those.