I love that idea. I really hate finding the on/off button in the dark. That’s why I usually put a glow in dark sticker next to it on my lantern/lights, but the glow doesn’t lasted too long.
Excellent! I hope the firmware is changed to use all 7135’s on the highest mode, rather than leaving off the +1 channel like it does for the FET currently. For just three or four 7135’s (or even five, if another is added to the slave board too) I don’t think any fins are needed at all for the LEDs to stay cool. After all, with 5x 7135 on max, it’s only about 5.3w to 2x XP-L HD. Five watts won’t heat up much, will it? If fins are added, I think it would look better to have them arranged radially on the top heatsink.
The Q8 host already does have the lighted button. DBSAR would just be switching it from the stock green LEDs to amber or orange for better use as a firefly or night-light, rather than just an indicator/locator light. On my Q8, the green is very bright and easy to find, so even if the amber/orange turns out to be less bright, it will still be plenty.
It’s also the sleep effect of amber/yellow light, (it does help with falling asleep as yellow/amber light help the Circadian rhythm for sleeping, and blue light is the opposite & makes sleep more difficult.
Its likely the production driver for the lantern will have a different trace pattern to use four AMC7135, ( with a 5th & 6th likely left open for those who want to mod it more) and hopefully a new firmware can be developed for the lantern that runs with those, and some added special modes.
Thats great to hear on the firmware. What modes & groups have you set in the program? Once we can get a finalized driver that uses the 7135s, ( and hopefully either has the USB charging on board, (or wired for that to be a secondary board if needed) My skills are lacking when it comes to program flashing chips in that way, ( or have the tools as you mentioned.
It allows the user to set whatever mode group they want. At least, it lets them set the brightness of the lowest and highest level, and how many total steps there should be. The in-between levels will be spaced evenly on a visually-linear scale.
We haven’t really discussed yet what the defaults should be, but that should wait until after the driver is ready and we’ve had a chance to do some testing.
These are looking awesome. I think some of my family members could appreciate this lantern very much.
If I can add 6 more to my name. That would be great! I’m #37