D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

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):

It took you just a night and a day to figure that out? Then you did well, I admire your steep learning curve. :slight_smile: It took me longer to learn all that. Nothing is easy with lighted tailcaps, everything depends on everything.

Congratulations on the succesfull result!

NF you were persistent and got it working, good work. Clean too. :+1:

Your yellow version Astrolux board is different than I have seen so far with single LED.

Mine have a different look and came with 2 LEDs and 2 individual 15K (18C) resistors one on each LED path. These I bought separately off BG. I have installed a few if these into the EE X2R without any driver resistor mods.
I also have a black BLF version that has one LED and completely different paths that my Yellow. Yet it does have 2 paths on either side of the SW, they seem to be linked at each pad corresponding to the other side. Some light also came withe the black board ( BLF DL036_K6) bare no lighting on them.

Your Yellow seems like the Black ones I have as you can use one resistor to both LEDs.

That are lots of boards. Keren!
:+1:

A lot is never enough for an addict :smiley:

1 is too many and 1000 is never enough.

For those that are interested, Banggood is apparently now selling the Astrolux lighted switch with 2 LEDs. I asked them about this when I started having problems with my switch and they confirmed that their new stock has 2 LEDs. There are numerous complaints on their website about receiving the switch with only 1 LED. Even their title now states 2 LEDs: “Astrolux SC/SS BLF X5/X6 Flashlight 2LED Lighting Switch For DIY”. I’m tempted to try it out with my JAXMAN, but I think there is a very low chance that it would match up with the driver. But, I should get 1 anyways for my next mod.

I finally got around to measuring the current of the lighted tailcap in my JAXMAN E2L flashlight. I was concerned about the 1.46mA that I measured with just a battery (#1585 ). That seemed rather high compared to what others have reported here. The tailcap does not seem that extra bright, it actually seems just about right. So I removed the flashlight head, connected a wire between the battery and the driver spring, and stuck my DMM between the driver retaining ring and the battery tube. I measured 0.51mA – much better!

BTW, I ordered the Austrolux lighted switch with 2 LEDs. I’m hoping that since my current and the new switch are both specified to work with the driver in the BLF X6/X5 and Astrolux SC/SS/S2/S3 flashlights, the new switch should also work in my E2L. I’ll report back once I’ve tested it.

The new Austrolux lighted switch came today and I immediately tested it with my JAXMAN E2L flashlight. And guess what? It didn’t quite work. The switch did come with 2 LEDs (and 2 1K ohm resistors), so that’s good, and the brightness seemed about right. With the flashlight on, the mode switching works great. The issue is that when I turn it off it does not revert back to the lowest mode, but instead only goes back to the next lower mode like a medium press. So rather than being complacent with my working 1 LED switch, I’m going to start over from scratch. I’m up for the challenge!

Is this where (circled in green) I can put an SMD 0805 bleeder resistor on my FET + 7135 Mountain Electronics 17DDm driver? As you may recall, on the right is where the resistor currently resides (not pretty :person_facepalming: ).

Thanks for letting us know about your experience with the BG lighted tailcap. I definitely want to try adding a lighted tail switch to a couple lights, but I don’t think my current equipment or skill set would allow me to build one myself. So I have been holding back on trying the BG one because I read somewhere here they were only 1 LED at some point. It’s nice to know they have 2 now.

Here’s the latest Banggood Astrolux lighted switch. Not a bad deal considering 2 LEDs and a double spring. It still looks like a no-brand switch, which I will be replacing with a Omten 1288.