D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

Gotcha. I thought I remembered someone else running into a similar problem before. Man, what a bugger to pin down!

This is my first post here, so I welcome everyone. My name is Adrian.
I’d like to add this switch to my s2 +. I added a bleeder to the driver, but it still does not work as it should. After switching off and on again, the mode changes to the next one. I’ve tried a bleeder 10k, 4k7, 1k, 750R, 680R, 470R, 240R and even 68R, but it still does not work. I am a beginner, so please be understanding and make suggestions.

What color leds do you using and what resistor values did you placed in the tailcap before them?

You need to wait about 5 seconds before turn off to memorize the last mode

Welcome to BLF Leviatan!

When contact is broken upon a switch (half)press, normally the driver measures the time before contact is resumed, if that is quick enough it interprets it as a switch to the next mode, if it is longer it interprets it as a switch-off. That timing is often influenced by the lighted switch assembly, and can be so off that even a long switch-off is still seen as a mode-change.
I have had drivers that I never got to work with lighted switches, I remember having trouble with 105C-type of drivers, but can’t remember how bad it was.

Being somewhat of a noob myself, is connecting the bleeder resistor between the spring (battery plus) and the star the same as connecting it to the ground (the flashlight body)? I thought the stars are used to change driver functions and perhaps that’s not connecting it to ground.

Leviatan, have to tried soldering the resistor between the spring and the outer ring (or you could solder it to the middle pin of 1 of those 7135s)?

Star #1 is directly connected to the grounding ring, it actually can’t be used for changing settings (whereas stars 2, 3, & 4 can be in your typical star firmware). That placement is exactly how I do all my 105c drivers.

This is the reason why drivers like Bistro HD OTSM were developed, the bleeder does not mess up the off timing as the MCU is powered on while the switch is half pressed

OTSM driver can be used with MOSFET or without, depending which mode group you use, but strobes use the FET

So if you use it with FET upgrading to a DTP LED board is nessesary if you put high drain cells in the light

There are two blue leds. 360R for each.

I can wait even 2 hours, but still mode is changed.

I never tried with such a low value in tailcap, the lowest was 2k

Did you test without the bleeder resistor?

I use normally 15K to 30K in the tailcap and 470R bleeder

Normal behavior of the memory of the 105

Turn on> wait over 5 seconds -> turn off -> turn on last mode
Turn on> wait less 5 seconds -> turn off -> turn on next mode

Or

Turn on> wait over 5 seconds -> tap (medium press) -> no change mode
Turn on> wait less 5 seconds -> tap (medium press) -> change mode

What is this?
These components do not remember that they are in my 105

These resistors (360R) were original there. Without bleeder, the modes do not change.

This driver doesn’t have a default firmware. It is a driver with proprietary software, and is specially modified for this.

I will try to replace the resistors.

I replaced the resistors. As a bleeder, I gave 240R, and for LED 4k7. I also tried 2k2 for led and it did not work. It works, but it is not bright…

I use 560 Ohm or 1K as bleeder and 4,7K to 47K at tailcap depends on what brightness I want. Blue leds are fine with 1K bleeder and 10 to 47K at tailcap.

With 2.2K and a transparent washer and tail boot it should be quite bright

The best way to get really bright tailcap is getting the washer replaced with a board so the LEDs are very close to switch cover

Lighted tail switch board replacing the washer around the switch

16mm

17mm
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/yplKNhqL

Tail board without balance resistors tested successfully
Pink and warm white in the 2 I tested

3x3mm Potentiometers will take a while from China

Have such boards ready but not yet the potentiometers

If you want very bright tail caps you have to go to Bistro HD OTSM drivers

I just want to say, “Don’t give up!”. I pretty much thought I should have yesterday, but kept tinkering anyways. According to the OP: “I’m sure there are some drivers that simply won’t work correctly at all after it is added.” I thought I found the driver/firmware that wasn’t compatible with a lighted switch.

This is what I was trying to add a lighted switch to: Moonlight Special 17mm Driver with the BLF A6 firmware.

I spent about 8 hours figuring out how to make this work. Part of my “fun” was when I asked my wife what color she would prefer in a tailcap. I had it working (for the most part) with yellow, but she thought green would look better. I found out that yellow is terribly inefficient - it requires a lot more current than green.

And in hindsight, green actually worked out better since I was not able to get yellow to work fully. I was able to get forward and reverse mode to work, but it never reset to no memory despite my efforts with various bleeder resistors. It always kept the reverse mode after it was turned off.

What was strange with this driver/firmware is that the normal 500-800 ohms for a bleeder resistor was not even close. I ended up with a 6.9K (22K and 10K ohms in parallel) ohm resistor.

Here are my notes testing the green LEDs, which shows my attempts with different resistors (I count 13 total):

Every attempt required me to solder a different resistor to the driver and test like this:

Here’s the resistor (combination) that eventually worked. Please note this is not the final installation:

Here are a lot of the resistors I was working with:

And finally, which makes this worth all the effort, here’s the switch with the green LEDs and a 47K ohm resistor:

I will post later once I get everything all cleaned up and put together. I’m thrilled I was eventually able to get this to work!

TA Bistro OTSM driver I build and sell have no problems with very low tail resistors, you could drive the LEDs with 5mA if desired

I also got a circular board that replaces the washer which makes a lot more light of the LEDs used
with 6 LEDs and has the option of 2 potentiometers as well balance resistors

In this picture external potentiometes as I am waiting for the 3x3mm ones to arrive

Pink and warm white

Wow, glad to see your persistence paid off!

I just built up about 10 this past week (Christmas orders for friends), but I have a pretty set standard for what I usually do. Typically just 105c drivers, Mtn FET+1, or BLF A6 drivers. I haven’t tried one of the OTSM drivers yet, but I’m sure they’re good stuff. And I always use the ring board that Lexel mentioned - those really do give good results.

Keep on modding!

Just FYI, GB sells a nice glowing tailcap package, including the transparent ring.

https://www.gearbest.com/flashlight-accessories/pp_1403798.html

Hello friends !
I ask advice how to make friends with six-voltage drivers type FX-6 , CF FX-17A , RNX-28A , FX-30 with illuminated buttons from OSH Park?