*BLF LT1 Lantern Project) (updated Nov,17,2020)

I noticed I’m not on the interest list… but I’m doing the firmware so I should probably be on the list. Miller? :wink:

It’s a linear FET, not a buck driver. Runtimes should still be very long though.

It’ll mostly depend on what DBSAR wants, but for now I’m planning on porting Anduril to it and adjusting the default settings. So you’ll most likely get lightning storm mode, and candle flicker mode, and maybe other stuff. If it has a switch LED it’ll be possible to set the switch LED to high/low/off when the main emitter is off.

This also means you can have a mode group or ramping, and the mode group can be whatever you want… as long as you want 2 or more evenly-spaced levels in sorted order. Want 3 steps? Use 3 steps. Want 18 steps? Use 18 steps. Don’t like moon? Raise the floor. Etc.

Thermal regulation likely won’t even be relevant, so it’s not waiting on me to tweak that for better behavior. Mostly, I’m just waiting for hardware so I can add support for it. It’ll have to use a pin for voltage measurement like on older BLF drivers, and the power control is a little different, and it’ll need ramp adjustments and stuff. But that shouldn’t be hard.

I'd be keen for one.

The USB implementation is especially important, everything runs via USB these days, would be great if it could also act as a USB battery bank/5V power source for other devices.

I am very open to having mode “sets” and hidden options that can make the lantern very versatile, and to make it fill as many of BLF members mode likes too. After so much testing with the prototype, ( and all the othr lanterns i modded & built using different drivers and mode firmware, I feel as long as the main default mode is the most used: “Moonlight -Low-Medium-High” set, and other sets can be including a ramping set, and sets including the lightening effect mode, and a candle flicker mode.

Maybe something like this below:

Mode set #1 Moon, Low, Med, High (DEFAULT)
Mode set #2 Moon, Ramping from 5% to 100%
Mode set #3 Low, High, strobe, SOS, 2second-Beacon, 4second “lighthouse” (meaning 4-seconds off, 1 second on for marine/ onboard boat safety beacon use)
Mode set #4 Moonlight, Low, Candle flicker, Lightening-effect, etc.

And if its not to difficult or complex a battery-voltage check hidden mode option?

Having a USB charging and charger output option on this lantern would definitely be a real great benefit for off grid & camping use, especially if high-capacity cells are used, (3500mah or higher X-4 ) it would be a powerful powerbank & a long run time lantern. The ability to charge a phone & run a lantern and even be charged via solar charger at the same time would make it the perfect long term off grid or long duration expedition valuable tool.

Well, battcheck is “hidden” on 3-clicks-from-off, if that counts. The blinkies aren’t part of any mode groups; they’re off in their own separate part of the UI. Specifically, it has two blinky groups tied to triple-click:

  • Click 3 times from “off”: Battcheck, sunset mode, adjustable-speed beacon, tempcheck.
  • Click 3 times from “off” but hold the third click: Biking, tactical strobe, motion-freezing strobe, lightning storm, candle flicker. Remembers which one was used last. Everything except lightning is adjustable.

Instead of a 2-second and 4-second beacon, it has an adjustable-speed beacon where you tell it how many seconds each cycle should take.

SOS doesn’t exist but is easy to add… if anyone cares. The most interest I’ve seen in it is speculation that someone somewhere might care.

Everything related to 1 or 2 clicks is a shortcut to regular output modes. 3 clicks for blinkies, 4 clicks for lockout, 5 clicks for momentary, 6 clicks for muggle mode.

There are basically two regular-output UIs — smooth ramping or a mode group. They use the same actions for the same purposes, but one is smooth while the other has a specfic number of discrete levels. Those actions are:

From off:

  • 1 click: Turn on at memorized level.
  • Hold: Turn on at lowest level. Keep holding to get brighter.
  • 2 clicks: Turn on at ceiling level. Repeat to go to full turbo, if it’s higher than the ceiling. Once at full turbo, repeat to go back to memorized level.
  • 2 clicks, but hold second click: Turn on at ceiling, then keep holding to get dimmer.

While on:

  • 1 click: Off.
  • Hold: Increase brightness. Release and hold again to decrease.
  • 2 clicks: Toggle between turbo and memorized level.
  • 2 clicks, but hold second click: Decrease brightness.
  • 3 clicks: Toggle between smooth ramping and mode group.
  • 4 clicks: Configure current mode — floor, ceiling, and (if relevant) number of steps.

The default can be moon/low/med/high, and regular use can be explained in just 8 words: Click for on/off, hold to change brightness.

Please add me to the list as well

That mode set up is good. As long as the default is the 4-modes, ( which seems to be the most used mode-type i have tested and used in the field in a lantern) I’m not sure if a “turbo” mode is practical with a lantern as with lanterns they are usually continuous-run lights, and turbo would overheat the LED heatsink head after some time. (unless the turbo mode can be set to drop to the default high mode after a maximum of 1 minute.) i found during tests that even a XM-L2 run at 1.07 amps for 30 minutes continuously or more heats up the large solid aluminum heatsink head to 60 plus degrees C. (which is somewhat hot to the touch for a child if one did touch the lantern.

Could you add me to list please

I’m with these two. :slight_smile:

I have four Q8’s and I love them. The default ramping mode is perfect for my use. That said, the ramping mode you describe seems to work pretty much the same as Narsil in my Q8 with some extra blinkie settings for good measure. Am I right about this?

If I had known about this lantern project I would have only bought two Q8’s and gotten two or three of the lanterns. My reason for getting the extra Q8’s was for emergency lighting with a diffuser, basically a poor mans lantern.

I can’t wait for this one!

This would be nice and much better than the generic black.

Henry Ford once said when he introduced the Model-T… ” You can have it in any color you want, as long as its black.” :smiley:

All jokes aside & i agree with you, i’m not sure if it will increase cost much, but depending on the manufacturer adding some color variations would make it more interesting for sales.

My vote would go for British Racing Green

Thanks for the inputs David!

The layout of the BQ chip and related components is very restrictive, but I could maybe swing it if I flip that part of the circuit 180 degrees. Was even considering having only a 4-6 pads for the brass ring in that case, spaced equally for better stability. Will give it another go.

As you mentioned 4-layer is the other way out. That does take complexity and cost up a notch, especially for the blind/buried vias we need. We would need to talk to the manufacturer before we go this way.

Given that a separate small PCB is going to be needed for the USB connectors, would there be any merit in including some or all of the powerbank/charger function onto this PCB, if it would make the main PCB and brass ring easier ?

It might be more cost effective than e.g. a 4 layer main PCB, or extra machining of the brass ring and special masking and assembly processes.

Please could consideration be given to mechanical reverse polarity/short circuit protection, I note that we have now had a report of this occurring “in the field” on a Q8.

A remote control using RF “plipper” would also be a great feature if possible.

Do you think this is worth eliminating the possibility of using flat-top cells?

Narsil was the sword of Isildur, which once defeated Sauron. Andúril was the sword of Aragorn, the blade Narsil reforged. If it looks similar, it’s because it is.

Basic operation hasn’t changed much, but it has changed:

  • “Hold” always goes up… unless it was already at maximum or it has been less than a second since the last ramp-up. So, no need to remember which way the ramp is going.
  • “Click, release, hold” was added, and always ramps down. No need to ramp up first.
  • The mode group UI is exactly the same as the ramping UI, except with stair-steps instead of a smooth ramp. No need to remember two different UIs.
  • Accepts slower clicks (~0.4s instead of ~0.3s), since people were having trouble with that.

So, usage is very very similar. However, under the hood it’s completely different, a from-scratch rewrite using totally different abstractions.

One of the bigger UI changes is how things are configured. Instead of one large config mode, config settings are attached to the mode they affect. To change a config option, go to the mode you want to configure and then either hold the button (for things like strobe speed)… or click three times (for numeric config settings) then click N times (to set the value to N). For example:

  • Want to change the bike flasher brightness? Go to bike mode and hold the button.
  • Want to change the beacon timing? Go to beacon mode, triple-click to enter beacon config, then click N times to set the cycle to N seconds.
  • Want to change the button brightness for soft lockout mode? Go to lockout then click three times to cycle it between low, high, and off.
  • Want to change between smooth ramp and mode group? Go to a normal illumination mode then click three times.

There are also a variety of other little details changed, like the soft lockout mode also acts as a momentary moon mode so you don’t have to unlock the light to see while digging through a bag or something. And moon should get about 3X to 4X as much runtime, with more stable brightness, due to under-clocking the MCU at the lowest levels.

Er, it uses the same BAT+ contact ring design as the Q8… which means no truly flat-top cells should work. It could perhaps have a plastic ring for some sort of mechanical reverse polarity protection, but it would restrict cell choice even more.

To eliminate the contact ring, it’d need an almost complete redesign.