Driver giveaway: Constant current 17mm drivers, winners (finally) announced, post #2.

BTW, these drivers won’t fit Emisar D1 because they are double-sided, will they?

I don’t have one so I can’t say. I tried a quick search for a photo showing the spring side of the D1 driver but couldn’t find one. I only found photos showing top side of driver so I can’t see what it is that prevents using double sided drivers in the D1.

I’ve now done some thermal throttling tests on the CN5711 (the 1.5A regulator on Slim-4). I did not test a floating regulator, I did the tests with a Slim-4 driver out on my wooden desk, not mounted in a flashlight host.

The amp measurements are from the power supply display, the volt measurements are with a DMM, the temperature measurements are with the 1634’s internal temp sensor. I set the digi-pot for a value that would regulate current to 0.75A, which is half of the CN5711 rating.

I first tested with power supply measured at 4.35V. Current drawn was 0.74A and voltage over LED was 2.87V. Initial startup the temp reading was 25C, after 5 min 58C, then no more increase after leaving it like this for 30 minutes. Current drawn throughout this test was 0.74A, so no throttling in these conditions.

I obviously have to turn it up a bit… I turned voltage up to a 6.3V, which is a little above max 6V rating. Voltage over LED was still at 2.87V throughout the test.
Initial startup the temp reading was 33C. The higher voltage most certainly impacts result, but it’s the increments that are of interest. Behold, after 20 seconds the regulator started throttling down. Throttling speed decreased as the current dropped.

Startup: 33C, 0.74A (no throttling)
20 sec: 60C, 0.7A
1 min: 81C, 0.5A
2 min: 86C, 0.46A
5 min: 87C, 0.44A
1 hour: 88C, 0.44A

I then lowered voltage to 5V and the current slowly increased and halted at about 0.7A, no change after 10 minutes. I lowered the voltage further down to 4.5V and the current increased back to the initial non-throttled 0.74A, no change after 30 minutes.

10 min at 5V: 82C, 0.7A
30 min at 4.5V: 73C, 0.74A (no throttling)

So in my books the temperature throttling of these regulators appears to work as advertised. With them I don’t really see the need of a temperature throttled mode as they appear to take care of it well enough themselves. I’ll still have overheating protection, especially with the Fat-3 on full blast, but for now my plans of implementing a thermal throttling routine appears to be unnecessary. Of coarse the temp measurements themselves have to be taken with a few buckets of salt but I trust them enough to be able to determine weather the temperature is increasing, decreasing or stable.

Edit: Edited so results are somewhat easier to read.

Very encouraging :smiley:

Here is D1S, I think they are the same:

I was afraid that D1 was too much optimised for size and that the extra 1mm would prevent battery contact.
But I can always make the contact ring a little higher…so it would work.
So I have a host. And I have a LED - White Flat. I would love to win a Slim-4. :slight_smile:

Well, my firmware preference is this:

  • I like having visually even spacing of modes.
  • I prefer mode order of Low to High
  • I prefer to have last-mode memory. But I can live without it.
  • If there’s no last-mode memory, then I want no more than 4 modes, including the Moonlight, or low-low mode. But with memory, there can be more middle modes.
  • I like to have access from off to both the lowest mode and the highest mode. These could be special click sequences, like click-hold or double-click.
  • I prefer single-click turn on in last used mode (with mode memory) or lowest mode (without mode memory), and also single click to turn off.
  • I prefer thermal regulation instead of timers.
  • I want LVP with a warning a few mV before cut-off.

I have some lights that don’t meet all my preferences, and I still like them and use them. But, the preferences are cumulative. The closer the lights are to my ideal set-up, the more I like them and the more often I use them.

1) Ramping
2) Levels - No flashy disco modes

3) Light levels ? Depends very much on the lights output capability …

3 Level
1% , 20% , 100%

4 Level
1% , 5% , 20% , 100%

5 Level
1% , 5% , 20% , 50% , 100%

6 Level
1% , 5% , 20% , 50% , 80% , 100%

5 Levels is rather optimum for me …
Though I really like lights that ramp …

Considering the relationship between driving current, related emitter output and the way humans perceive light intensity (sort of logarithmical way), noteworthy increases in output are required for noticeable, practical mode spacing. Starting off high mode (100%) and dividing it each subsequent time by 1/3 is a good way to attain a simple set of well spaced modes which can be rounded off with a super low mode. Let's say 100%, 33%, 11% and then some moonlight (0.1 - 0.5%) mode. Just an example.

Cheers

Count me in. I like the narsil firmware for the option of stepping or ramping, dr jones lucidrv for the ability to set the number of steps and tune the level of each step, and the max current configurability in the firmware used in the led4power ld drivers. For me, option of ramping or configurable steps, max current options, double click turbo, hold for moonlight, configurable thermal step down, configurable pwm fan control, and a jumper configurable 1s/2s would be the ultimate.

Thanks for the suggestions, looking at them all. Keep’em coming!

My firmware has the ability to select number of modes (currently up to 6) and adjust them to your liking. All your other preferences are already in my “normal” firmware, I just have to wrap it all together. It’s basically the setup menu system I am currently working on.

From that photo it looks like it should fit, I can’t see why it wouldn’t.

The regulators I’ve used in Fat-3 and Slim-4 are rated for max 6 volts so I haven’t made a 2S version. They seem to be able to handle more, but how much more I don’t yet know, maybe I’ll test a few to death and see.

These drivers are based on a previous driver design where I used CAT4104 regulators. I’ve used CAT4104s on 4S XHP35 HI configuration with this light: Mod: BMF SRK v2 Roche Edition (Rebuilt into triple XHP 35 HI) - #18 by Mike_C
They work pretty well, but for 1S I prefer these CN571x regulators by far. They are much cheaper and handle heat much better than the CAT4104s. The 4104s have thermal shutdown, not throttling like the CN571x. It’s annoying when a few of them overheat and enter the cycle of overheating and cooling. If LED vf is much lower than battery voltage they overheat rather quickly.

Normally in the host, with battery inserted and body fully screwed-in the spring is fully or nearly fully compressed, it’s basically flat. So any component being as high as a flattened lens or nearly as high may collide with battery.

I haven’t measured what “nearly” is in the “nearly fully compressed” though. All I know is that it’s a small value.

What’s the spring on the tailcap like? Can you replace it with a smaller one to ease the load on the front spring? I’ll be installing a small Nanjg style spring on each of these drivers, it’s the only spring that will fit. They can be shortened if needed I guess.

Edit: possibly them small brass pucks could work… I have a few, gotta check when I get home.

It’s the same spring on both sides, 1 mm compressed. I guess I could halve the space used on one side with a solid contact. Maybe I could gain another fraction of mm by replacing the fibreglass PCB with a solid copper sheet at the tail. But it would be easier to just add a piece of solid wire like people who add clips do:

So…one way or another I can make it work. :slight_smile:

Isn’t the construction of D1 and D4 similar regarding the driver part?
If yes, a double sided driver can be used, I did this in my D4 RGBW mod, see link below.
But the stock driver is 22 mm in diameter.

Just a question to anyone and everyone who likes moon mode with a “traditional” mode up/down interface. Is it preferred to have moon mode only accessible with a shortcut? If so, what shortcut? I’d like to know for both E-switch and off-switch/clicky lights. Or do people prefer to have moon mode in the regular mode cycle?

I have 2 different perceptions on this, through the use of different lights:
a) using the S2+ with guppy3drv FW + forward clicky switch (that I mentioned before), I do like having moonlight on the regular cycle mode as I can have a momentary ON by half pressing the tail of the flashlight (with memory turned OFF, if I release the switch it always starts on ML);

b) in another situation, using the Olight S1R Baton or the Olight M2R Warrior, both have the option to access moonlight from a long click&hold when OFF. When advancing the modes (ML > L > M….) , the ML is no longer on the way unless you switch the light OFF and then do the click & hold again.

I find both situations very useful although very different, once on the first we have a momentary clicky switch (the way I use it: 3 or 4 modes + turbo with double click, with ML on the regular cycle) and on the second an e-switch (ML only accessible from click & hold from OFF and then out of the regular cycle).

If I had to chose, I guess a shortcut from OFF to ML is always a good thing to have, with the possibility to advance further on the modes and then letting ML out of the cycle (as Olight does). But always with the possibility to access ML from OFF.

Also, Emisar D4 , with ramping IOS, has that possibility, to click & hold from OFF and starting to ramp from the lowest level.

In my opinion, that is a nice feature to have, as a configurable memory (so that we can set the light to start on the lowest, highest or last used mode) :wink:

This exactly. I like the click-hold from off shortcut to Moonlight and thereafter normal modes (without Moonlight in the cycle). It would also be great if it were possible to go two directions through modes, especially in cases of more than four modes being available. In that scenario, being able to hit Moonlight by cycling backwards into it would also be nice.

Click hold for moonlight is good then forward cycle low medium high. Alternative moon on then L/M1/M2 in cycle double click to high. Keep the blinkies or add another cycle mode three clicks from moon for blinky modes only. (slim4)

My favourite is starting ML and going up, with direct shortcut to moon.
I also find it useful to have direct shortcuts to:

  • turbo
  • maximum thermally sustainable mode

I guess the last one could simply be a configurable “favourite mode”.