D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

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.

Does anybody know if this is where (circled in green) I should put the bleeder resistor on a my FET + 7135 Mountain Electronics 17DDm driver? Sorry to bug about this again, but I’m getting ready to start experimenting with different values and don’t want to screw up the driver. Here’s another picture that hopefully is clearer. Thanks to anyone that can help.

No, those pads wouldn’t be a good spot for the bleeder resistor… if you could even make one fit. Those pads are tiny

It needs a bleeder from BAT- to BAT+. From the outer contact ring to the inner wire hole, somehow. I don’t see an easy way to do that at the moment, but perhaps it’d be easier on the spring side? Or perhaps from the center hole to the 7135’s middle pin if you can do it without touching either of the other pins)?

If you have a floating resistor with wires on either end, it might be easier.

Like TK said, I find it easier to do on the spring side of those drivers. I scrape off a little solder mask from the large area and solder it there (click to see larger image)

Thank you TK and gchart. Agreed that there doesn’t look like there’s any place on the component side for a bleeder resistor.

So I tried different resistors on the spring side. First I tried a 680 ohm resistor and got the same result as the 328 ohm resistor. Then I tried a 220 ohm resistor and BAM, SUCCESS! Here’s my set-up. I didn’t want to put everything together to test each resistor, so I wired it up manually.

It was a challenge to stretch the solder from the spring to the resistor and the resistor to the retaining ring, but eventually I got it to work. To clean things up, I put the driver onto a drill and sanded down the solder that went onto the retainer ring.

I kept the 2K resistor on the switch and replaced the original LED with 2 0805 blue LEDs. I measured 0.56 mA for the tailcap.

It looked fine before, but now that it has 2 LEDs it looks so much better. I feel proud that I was able to make this work.

That looks really nice. It’s good to know you solved the problem. This will be helpful for when I start taking baby steps to learn how to light up a switch. From what I have read so far, people have different methods for soldering the tiny components. When you added that resistor to the driver spring side, and replaced the switch LEDs, did you use an iron or hot air, or something else?

Just another data point, but I also always add my bleeder to the spring side of those mtnelec boards. Its just the easiest place to do it.

Both of those things should be done with an iron. The soldering on the spring side of the driver is wide open so there’s plenty of room to work with a fine-tipped iron, which is definitely the easiest way to do that. Plus it lets you “stretch” your solder a bit if you don’t want to fool with scraping off mask.

Replacing the LEDs on the switch board should also be done with a fine-tipped iron, but for a different reason. You really don’t want to point hot air anywhere near that big plastic switch. This kills the switch. Given the choice I use hot air to swap around tiny LEDs and resistors, so having hot air available is really handy, but in this case its the wrong choice. Stick to an iron even though its pretty fiddly and annoying.

Agreed with what emarkd said, but with 1 caveat. Since my driver was soldered to the retaining ring, I needed to use a medium tip with my soldering iron in order to melt the solder. A small tip wouldn’t do it.

I used a precision tweezers to pull the bleeder resistor from the melted solder in the spring area. I stretched the solder as much as possible else if there was too much of a gap I couldn’t stretch the solder on the retaining ring side. There was much trial and error and I went thru a couple resistors since they looked a little burned.

I also use 2 soldering irons to remove LEDs and resistors from the switch board. Put an iron on each side of the component, melt the solder, and like a tweezers, grab the component off the board. And to remove the leftover solder, I melt the solder and quickly swipe it with a toothpick.

Just purchased some boards from oshpark, can’t wait for the mailman to come and deliver me the package.

Received mine today and just find out that I only purchase the O shaped PCBs (washer?).
Now I need to do another purchase to get the switchboard :person_facepalming:

There is no need to buy the other PCBs too, if you dont want to use a poti. You only have to Connect each end of the Switch with your washer-PCB.

Thanks for your advise, Wieselflinkpro.

I tried it but still failed. Here’s what have I done:

1. Soldered 3 SMD LEDs to channel 1.
2. Tested the LEDs, all three can shine together if I direct drive any one of them.
3. Soldered the B pin to bypass because I use no pots.

Now I have difficulties connecting the washer PCB to my switch board (Manker E14), tried several ways but still failed.

Here’s my connection scheme, I hope somebody could help me understand this wiring thing.

Thanks!

It’s been a little while, but I cooked up another one over the weekend. A Convoy M1 with an XP-L V6 5000K and a nanjg105c driver with Babka firmware. Used a 750 ohm bleeder on the driver. For the tailcap, I used 6 green LEDs on a Rev5.3 board, bridged to a single channel using a 20K ohm resistor. It’s bright. I haven’t measured amp draw, but with a 20K ohm I doubt it’d be much.

^

Nice work there. I see some blue. Before reading your post, I thought you had a green switch cover with some blue emitters underneath.

Is that OSH board the board that normally has the switch installed on it? I have never looked at those. If it is, you seem to be connecting one switch board to another switch board. Maybe the pic just doesn't show the hole in the center for the switch's button.

I think Wieselflinkpro was saying that you can hook your switch (with it's own PCB as you have pictured) directly to the board that has the emitters and resistors. He called your washer pcb because it looks a little like a washer with a hole in the center.

Please excuse me if I'm totally missing something. I didn't try to dig back into posts to get the back story.