6th Annual Scratch Made Light Contest - Flashy Mike's machined project

Prototype in operation:

Looks really good, though it’s quite a bit different optically. Both because the shims block light going sideways and because light that goes down towards the light hits reflector and has a chance of escaping up (though has a good chance of eventually hitting the shim as well).

If you’re not concerned about losses from the light hitting the body, I expect your light to work well. :+1:

Last weekend I wrote a new firmware for this light (from the scratch, as required :smiley: ) and I’ m pretty satisfied with the outcome. It also includes the gimmick I announced in my first post, which hasn’t been realized in BLF before, AFAIK.

And I got some of the components but I’m still waiting for more parts I ordered in China. I should start with the printing within the next days since it will probably last several days for all components, even if everything works out well in the first attempt (what I don’t expect).

Btw. there is another board on the way, any idea what it is supposed to do?

Uhh… nope! :person_facepalming:

Got the boards this afternoon:


One more try? :wink:

That’s the spirit :slight_smile:

RX TX? Maybe something with a transmitter and receiver setup?

Nope. I’m still a dummy. The one on the left looks like a driver, but I still don’t know what the “new” board is. :person_facepalming:

Populated but not tested yet:

Thijsco19, you are close.

Okay, it has a trace that looks like an antenna. So, it’s a wifi module? Bluetooth?

Bluetooth Low Energy

Say wha? :open_mouth:
I always love to learn with these mods/builds :blush:

Dang, just noticed the 7135 I used for this build are not best. They need a minimum pwm value of 10 to light up the 7 XM-L2 in my test head. Fortunately I provided a 3rd channel (resistor) for (energy saving) ultra low moon with sleeping MCU. Firmware needs a fix though in order to allow a smooth transition from 1st channel (1x7135) to second channel (5x7135) and vice versa.

That is some awesome creativity :+1:

Be careful with that BLE module, I had one I was trying to hook up to my laptop (to rename and setup with AT commands) and I powered the board up from a li-ion battery (that wasn’t even full) and the module outputted a huge spike on the 5v line and killed my laptops USB circuitry. I looked it up and that computer had USB over-voltage protection to 13.5v so the pulse must of been higher than that!

It works fine in operation but the only way I configure them anymore (config requires AT commands over its UART) is by hooking them up threw a powered USB 3.0 hub to protect my [new] computer

Not good. Are you talking about exactly this module (WT51822-S4AT)? I know the NRF51 has a buck DC-DC converter on board but there must be a serious hardware flaw in the NRF chip to make this happen. How do you know it was an excess voltage spike?
Btw., I only reconfigured this module once with AT commands but it didn’t remember the new settings after power cycling. Have to try another module.

Edit:
Any special reason why you powered the module externally? I used a common USB serial adapter which supplies Vcc by itself.

Very cool.

This looks like black magic to me. :beer:

Yes same module, I picked it cause I like Nordic semi RF stuff but not like the chip manufacturer has anything to do with these type of Chinese modules… They don’t have any clue, they just build these things based off the recommended best-practice circuit diagram in the Nordic datasheet and slap the cheapest components available on the dang things. Live and learn.

It was in a laptop and when it happened the entire USB bus died including the built in track pad which is technically a USB device. Upon getting the new main board for it I followed the old ones USB traces to a pair of cracked in half zener diodes.

Cause I like doing things the hard way I guess lol. I was having trouble establishing a connection with it [AT session] and one suggestion was to power the board on its own to allow it to be running then trigger a reset and try again but the moment I triggered the reset the spike happened.