D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

That is very cool gchart, does any light have such a clear voltage readout?

Nicely gone gchart. :beer: Is there a very simple way to explain how it works?

There’s a bit more detail in the post linked above, but in essence… It uses an MCU to take periodic voltage readings (using internal VREF) and set the 8 LEDs which are on separate I/O channels. It goes to sleep and periodically wakes up to take another reading.

Nice but, as it is, I think it lacks continuity. I mean, the amount of lighted leds versus voltage is way off. Taking a look at some typical cell discharge curves (Batteries & Chargers @ lygte-info.dk) can help with the voltage steps for a better capacity/energy to amount of lighted leds mapping.

P.S.: if the animation somehow gets in the way of practical usage, I'd remove it.

Thanks. You said it perfectly. So its using something I have very little of (a brain) to turn the leds on and off. :+1:

I wouldn’t say that, I’ve seen some of your creations!

I’m really learning this MCU stuff as I go. I have a background in computers/coding, but nothing like microcontrollers. And this is using the new AVR Tiny-1 series which doesn’t have quite as much background or documentation floating around as the older ones (13A, 25, 85, etc)

It appears the learning is coming along nicely. Again well done. :beer:

Give that man (gchart) a Bells! :beer:

That’s really cool. Which tiny-1 MCU are you using? How are you getting it to work? I haven’t really looked into the software toolchain or the hardware adapters for those, other than periodically checking to see if it’s supported yet in Debian… which it isn’t.

Some of BLF’s circuit designers would really like to use it though, and it’s only really being held back by toolchain and firmware support.

Hey TK! Great questions. I’m a Linux guy, but honestly I’ve been using Windows (my first Windows installation for almost 20 years!) with Atmel Studio 7. So far I’ve programmed the 412, 416, and 817. I’ve compiled code for them on Linux, but haven’t flashed using Linux yet. I intend to try that soon.

I think this stuff warrants it’s own thread to help stay focused and drive learning about these chips. I’ll probably start one in the next day or so to share code samples, tips on getting started, and my overall thoughts.

Side note, but I really wish Atmel Studio was available on Linux and Mac. It’s been great having a proper IDE, nice debugging tools, fuse selection dialogs, etc. Up to this point, I’ve just been using Linux text editors to do AVR programming (Viva Pico!)

Really sorry to revive this thread, but is there a 19mm version of the Rev5 bottom board? I'll be using it with the Big Switch top board (forward clicky switch) but my host only takes 19mm tailswitch boards.

Was trying to make my own in Altium Designer but I have no clue what I'm doing lol please help

Is this what you need OSH Park ~
It was mentioned in the first post and referenced to post #1064

By asking for the “bottom board”, I’m assuming that’s the switch board (tail spring on one side, switch on the other).

While I haven’t seen an Oshpark posting for that, I’ll say that I’ve probably made 50+ illuminated tailcaps and have never once used one of the bottom boards. Unless you’re going for the potentiometer-under-spring functionally, I don’t see any reason in replacing the switch board.

I think I'm a bit confused here, how is the power supplied to the ring board (top) if you don't use the base switch PCB which has the through holes for the wire?

You can run wires directly from the new PCB to the existing one (I solder mine directly to the legs of the switch)

Does polarity matter or can I use either contact on the switch for the + and - on the ring board?

The switch has no polarity, it can go either way.
But I’m not clear how this is being wired in and polarity does matter with the leds so wait for gchart to answer.

On your switch board, one side will have vias (the holes) on the outer ring. That’s your positive side.

Ohh, I see now. Thanks you guys! Will be building this into a laser so hopefully this works.

There is no reason to be sorry about that.