D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

OOOOOh, Frik’n cool djozz.
Realy awesome.

+1.
I dont understand whats going on but believe it could cause nightmares if not used with caution. :beer:

This is great! I’ve only built one of these tails and I liked it well enough, but mine, just like yours, would “drop” blue within a few cycles. After 30 seconds or so they basically became reds and greens only, mostly reds. I had no idea what caused it but never built another because of it. But now I do! Thank you!

I have Astrolux tailcap switch from BG, the switch comes with only 1 led and 1 resistor (blue 1206 led and 2K 0805 resistor).

Already installed (the same 1206 blue led and 2K resistor) another led and resistor on the other side so I can have balance light from the switch. The problem is, after installation, the original led is very dim, and the new led is bright. Check all solder and nothing wrong. Anyone can help? This is the switch board. Thanks.

Ryley, I may be way off here, so hopefully someone else can validate, but I think you only need one of the resistors.

Actually, I already tested that. Solder the led first with no resistor (only 1 resistor with 2 leds), the result is new led bright and original led very dim. After that I install the resistor, so 2 led and 2 resistor, but nothing change. Same result here.

If one of the leds is original and the other is from a different manufacturer, then that could be it. I would try matching the leds since they might have different internal resistance.

Thought about that too… but now since you mention it, I will try to change the original led. Thanks WillyD!

Would like to share few lights nothing fancy. currently not using any ring pcb/boards, using white 3D printed rings instead of the metal in convoy not so bright compared to rev2 board because of the ring blocking the light looking forward when rev2 boards arrived from OSH.
I have S2+ with metal tailcap, but i’ll wait for rev2 boards as without it the light is just too dim with low current.

Ultrafire 502B, Astrolux S41, BLF A6, Ultafire C8, Convoy C8, Ultrafire C8 (left to right)

Very cool pic, rizky!

thanks djozz.

Use two of the same LED, and probably only one resistor (will probably need some trial and error to get the right value).

Will do that tomorrow night, thanks TK.

Update :
You’re all correct TK and WillyD :smiley: I change the led with the same and now both are equally bright. Thanks!

Next on Solarforce L2M, still waiting the Osh board.

Just saw this djozz. That’s spectacular. Have you done power draw tests on those color changing LEDs? It’s this kind of stuff that makes me want to come out of modding retirement :heart_eyes:

Thanks pd, and now someone will have come up with yet another cool mod to definately get you back on the modding track. :partying_face:

The tail draws between 0.4 and 0.6 mA, so the Aspire 18350 cell that I use in the light drains in about 100 days.

I have EDC-ed it for two weeks now (a E2L triple with 219B SW40 R9080 makes a great EDC) and the only time the slow-disco-tail was a bit hindering was when camping on a camp site I had to find my way to the toilet in the middle of the night, I was glad no one saw me grabbing a colourful lighted thing out of my pocket and wonder what on earth that was. Once clicked on moon that solved the situation of course.

Rev4 19mm board for my shorty L2M finally arrived. Less then 3 weeks to Indonesia is fast enough. When inspecting the board, I realized that the led position is near the edge of the board which mean led almost underneath the tailcap body. So I think it will need led with larger emitting area to spread the light more, using 1206 smd led instead of 0805. The led pad is designed for 0805, have to solder at the edge of the pad to fit 1206.

Using 1206 smd in red and 2K resistor.
Bright enough and apparently the light is spread nicely. The interior of Solarforce tailcap is bare alumunium (not anodized), kind of reflective. So with the combination of bigger led and reflective tailcap interior, this is the result.

Hello too from Indonesia.

Glad to know there is Indonesian modder here :smiley: Btw, nice review Rizky.

got this today from OSH Park.
i should’ve ordered the top part only as i found out that i dont need the switch PCBs.
,

Salam kenal ya Om. :+1:

Warning, the following paragraph is a little bit of a rant, but I need to get it out of my system.

I spent a night and the better part of a day working on my Astrolux lighted switch in my JAXMAN E2L flashlight. I didn’t like that it only came with 1 LED, but it was better than a non-lighted switch. I spent a lot of effort previously figuring out how to make it work with the FET + 7135 driver, please see here: D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap. It was not a plug and play enhancement. Eventually the switch went bad (the flashlight started to flicker) so I needed to replace it with an Omten 1288. I also wanted to replace the LED so I bought an assortment of 0805 SMD resistors and LEDs. I thought it would be nice to have a green and a yellow LED on the switch. Seemed pretty simple, right? NO, NO, NO. The 2 LEDs have different forward voltages, so 1 was brighter than the other. So I switched to both being blue. I got the LEDs attached, experimented with different resistors to get the brightness (i.e. parasitic current) that I wanted, and replaced the switch. Everything seemed fine. Right? What could go wrong? I now have LEDs on both sides, nice and even. I put the switch back into the flashlight and nothing! It would not turn on. Did I put the switch on backwards? That is not even possible after I thought about it for awhile. Maybe the LEDs need to be turned around? So I did just that. Turned 1 LED the other direction and retried. Turned the other LED the other direction and retried. I kept experimenting. Then it dawned upon me that perhaps it was due to the new resistance/current of the switch that was causing problems with the driver. DING, DING, DING. So I tried a resistor that made the LED brighter, similar to the original brightness, and put everything back together. Seemed to work fine, but then the switch started to blink and the flashlight turned into next mode memory. So I tried an even lower resistor value. Everything seemed fine, yay! But then after about 30 minutes, the same thing happened. Argh! Finally, I figured, let’s try the original switch LED and resistor value. After all, it worked previously. And sure enough, that worked!

LESSON LEARNED, when working with lighted switches, it appears you must choose the switch LEDs and resistance AND then determine the value of the driver bleeder resistor, NOT the other way around. In order to use the new switch LEDs, I would need to change the bleeder resistor. I really don’t feel like taking apart the flashlight head, especially the way I soldered the resistor to the retaining ring. Maybe someday, but right now I’m glad to have my JAXMAN back, the lighted switch still looks good, and at least the new switch was successful.

Here’s what I was shooting for:

Here’s what I reverted back to (notice the same resistor value, but twice the current):