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.
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
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.
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?
Already tried. I assembled the Convoy L2 with XHP 50.2 and the FX-6 driver. Two-channel board with OSH Park, LEDs nervously flicker
It is necessary to try the bypass resistor between the anode and the cathode, but with what resistance?
Here’s the final install of the green lighted switch in my Convoy S2+.
This is the 6.9K ohm bleeder resistor (4.7K and 2.2K in series) that worked with the RMM Moonlight Special driver with BLF A6 firmware. Certainly a lot higher than I would’ve ever imagined.
And here’s the 47K ohm resistor used in the lighted switch.
I measure 0.03 milliamps for the lighted switch. A lot lower than I was expecting since it’s plenty bright at night. Here’s how it compares to the Meteor M43 turned off (FYI, the M43 lighted switch gets brighter when the flashlight is turned on).
Yes, the reverse press works as it should along with all the other functions. I kept experimenting with different bleeder resistors until I found the right value.
Are you sure?
without bleeder resistor on driver it works with 3/5 fw but for BLF A6 and Biscotti it turns the driver next mode memory for me in all cases. So for biscotti I always use bleeder.
…the blf x5 and x6 came with this lighted tailcap and bistro driver but in fact the lighted tail works easier with the older blf-a6 driver that was never tuned for it. Essential for working without endless tuning of resistors is a single and high Vf emitter, like the XP-L Hi that was in the X5/X6 lights. Using it in a triple and/or with a low Vf led like the 219c or XP-L2 means trouble with resistor values, but the blf-a6 driver can be tuned well with some effort (the bistro driver that has the Attiny25 is quite hopeless and you end up with a very dim tail light).
