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

No worries. As you might have guessed from above posts, I’m moving away from the 1634. Do you need any 1634s? I can send a few your way, no cost to you. I have quite a lot of them, I don’t predict ever using them all.

Congratulations to all the winners :partying_face:

Sorry for the late reply, I wasn’t receiving the alerts on e-mail!

And thank you for choosing me :partying_face: Really, thank you!
And congrats to the other winners :wink:

I don’t mind getting the 1634s and see how they work! I will give the feedback here when I receive it =)
Thanks and let me know what shall I do meanwhile!

Thanks for your input! Your input and videos about clicky switch functionality had a significant influence on my firmware.

Are you going to be using this driver in a clicky switch light, or one with an E-switch? I ask because changing UIs and settings is a little more tedious with clicky switch. It’s easy to accidentally turn off the light when doing multiple short off presses, and doing that will botch the sequence. It’s certainly doable, I do it, but how easy it is largely depends on the switch. Because of this it’s better I take the time to setup all clicky drivers to the user’s preferences from the start.

I’ll update post #2 with UI options later this evening. I have an embarrassingly large amount of UIs and settings to choose from so I’ll try to keep it short.

Thanks Mike! I am glad it helped :wink: Currently I wouldn’t be able to do those videos as I damaged the driver with the Crescendo UI :person_facepalming: Don’t ask, don’t tell!… So I’m glad I did them in time :smiley:

I will probably use it as clicky switch because it is easier for me to mod lights that use a pill and clicky switch! I assume the diameter is 17mm, right? If smaller I also have some candidates for it :partying_face:

Depending on the driver’s “architecture”, I could use it on the BlitzWolf BW-ET1 (e-switch), but that probably requires a good syntony between driver shape and host, which is difficult due to the host :zipper_mouth_face:

So clicky switch is probably the best choice so that I don’t damage it :smiley:

BTW, it is “made” for reverse switches, right? Anyway, the light I will probably use it in is fit for reverse (a Convoy S2+ Desert Tan with metal button), not forward switch, so there will be no issues!!

I am not sure how, but I missed this thread from day one. I had to take a break from lights, modding lights and building drivers. But, now I am back and ready to roll.

I realize I am way to late to jump into this GAW, that is fine as I just hope that these drivers come to be. As much as I love the concept of the OMG FET+x 7135 drivers and as much as I love the latest firmwares from TK… there are many times that I fall back on fully regulated drivers for efficiency or because I do not want to cook a single led.

A 3 amp driver is great for a long running EDC, but the 4.5 or 5 amp driver is something that I really like the sounds of. I still use a bunch of 219b R9080 leds in my builds and mods for others and from time to time I still build P60 modules. In either case a full on FET is not a good idea, and I am not a fan of PWM as it finds the strangest times to be ever so slightly visible even though PWM frequencies have gone up to levels that are very hard to detect.

Moonlight? You are a man after my own heart! Maybe I am odd, but I think every light that may be carried must have a good moonlight mode. I like a moonlight mode that is so low that you can look at the die and not feel any eye strain, not leave any spots in your vision in total darkness and will not fully wake you at any time. New lights of any quality and value claim to have “moonlight” modes. Somewhere along the way that term has had subtle changes in translation. The new crop of truly wonderful lights like the FW3A, D4V2 and such have a low mode, not a moonlight mode! When I think moonligh, I think of lights like the ReyLight Pineapple, the triple 219b’s that I build with the H17f driver and Zebralight’s ultra low modes where the leds are on but are at such a low level that they really do only push light out 4 or 5 feet when your eyes are dark adjusted. Many of the new lights make me whence when I turn them on a 2:30am to get up.

Firmware… I really love a ramping driver! But, I think that there should be direct access to lowest and highest output modes from a single switch and I think that the light needs to have a memory mode as well. Again, if it is an EDC, I should be able to set it to the lowest or nearly lowest mode, place it on the nightstand and not have to think about how to get to the lowest mode at 2:30am. Thus the memory with a full range of output as it provides a single click to turn on the lowest mode as it would have been memorize at turnoff before bed. I do like set modes from time to time. The problem I find with set modes is that they are not always the best values for the build. So, one ends up building the driver, flashing the driver, building the light only to find that they need to take it apart again to reflash the driver because the mode spacing is not optimal for that build.

Odd modes… I think that every light should have 1 special mode… something like a bike flasher as in low/high levels with a duty cycle that favors the low level output. Why… I live in a tiny rural town with few street lights and it gets really dark. When I walk, I like to clip one on a pocket somewhere so I do not get run over! I really like the H17f for this, it has a level of output variability to it’s flasher mode. Meaning… the top does not have to be 100% and the bottom is variable with the top. It does not take full power. There is a process among drivers called target fixation. This is a bad thing, if you draw to much attention to yourself visually, a driver will work so hard in their mind to avoid you that they actually fixate on you and drive toward you. This more often than not results in motorcycle drives being hit. This is were the variable output is nice.

Mike, I hope that this makes sense… I also hope that there is some value in something I have said.

Matt

To be honest, I would have been a little disappointing if you didn’t use it in a clicky, I want you to try what you have influenced :smiley:

Driver diameter is 17mm, drivers are dual sided (components on both sides) and can only fit a small Nanjg/Q-lite size springs. I use reverse clicky myself, but by looking it your videos at least some functionality works with either.

Makes sense! All modes in my firmware are fully adjustable/programmable. I have mode memory (actually a few different mode memory choices). The only thing I don’t have in the current 1634 driver firmware is blinkies. I’ll be making beacon and bike modes, I was going to make it for 1634 drivers but didn’t get around to it before switching MCU yet again, so that will be for the 3217 versions.

Been a through a bunch of MCUs now… 13a, 85, 84, 841, 1634 and now 3217. I think it will stop with 3217, at least for quite some time. It has more pins and memory than I can use… but I’m just sounding like a broken record now.

Look forward to being able to get my hands on these when they go production. I am almost 54 yo and my uncorrected eyesight is 20/800 and 20/850, corrected 20/30 to 20/35 depending upon the day. It really takes work for me to build drivers now, must have good magnification just to begin to think about building them. More options are always a good thing.

Ahah, clicky switch it is :wink: I am more comfortable with those anyway!!
That’s fine too, in the S2+ there is no problem when using double sided drivers, so I will use it in a new pill I will make just with this driver. Maybe on a Triple or with a single Luxeon V2 :wink:

Or…maybe I can use it in the Convoy T2, in case the double sided fits well :smiley:

Will you solder the spring on it? If possible, that would be better, so that I don’t mess with the heat in the components…I may be sloppy in spring soldering :zipper_mouth_face:

Thanks again :wink:

I’ve made the GND ring rather thick so they fit in all my convoy lights without needing to file down the retaining ring. I’ll put on a spring for anyone that wants it.

Aw, this is so nice, Thanks Mike for choosing me :blush:
I am just not sure if like more E-switch od dual switch option !?
Slim-4 it will be in any case because “more current” is how I roll these days :sunglasses:
And I wouldn’t mind getting 1634 version.

Congrats to other winners as well :+1:

If you want the MOST current, you should get the FAT-3, because it has a FET at the top end. The Slim-4 has higher regulated output, because it has another 1.5A regulator where the Fat-3 has a FET.

Yes, Fat-3 is regulated up to 3 amps, then FET for full blast. However, Tom Tom suggestion there might be some limitations with the FET I chose. In post #25 he wrote:

I haven’t tested this much so I can’t really comment, but don’t count on the FET mode to pack as much punch as most other BLF drivers with full blast FET modes.

I’m still interested, thanks for choosing me!

I’ve gotta reread this thread to figure out what UI I want, probably go with a slim 4 in some dual switch configuration (gotta pick out a good host too). Thanks for the new project, I was clearing up the last of what’s on my bench and needed something new.

One question for now:how does LVP operate? Does it [any of the UI’s] have any sort of battery voltage readout or just protection when it’s getting low?

E-switch or dual switch doesn’t really matter, it’s fairly easy to re-configure the settings. I’ve updated post #2 with more information. Basically just let me know what switch configuration and which UI you want the light to be set in, and you can change later if you want. It’s only those with clicky/off switch choice that I wan’t to make sure everything is set right because re-configuring isn’t quite as easy.

Cool. Nice to see people are still interested, it’s been a while. I did pick you for your dual switch comments so I was hoping you’d want to try it out in dual switch configuration.

I’m not a fan of auto step down, so I’ve only implemented auto step down from boost/turbo mode. All other modes will just warn for low voltage/high temp, or shut off for critical. Voltage and temperature monitoring options can be re-configured.

I do have a battery readout function. You can choose between 1 to 5 blinks, or two digit readout by blinks. So far I have only implemented battery read out from off though, currently no option to check while it’s running. I have a very easy method in my code to add short cuts though, so I can compile your firmware with a short cut for battery check if you want it.

Hmmm. After looking at my list of lights I want to mod in the dual switch category I may have to rethink… Every one of them will require a custom made-specifically-for-that-host-pcb.

One option is to make my own boards for your circuit, strip your driver and build it on my board but I think that kinda makes it so you dont get much actual feedback / data since it’s introducing huge variables (my PCB design) so I’m not sure I really want to do that.

Give me a few days to mull it over. May just go with a standard clicky variant. Do you have any host suggestions for a dual switch light with 17mm driver? On my want to build list I currently have a few sofirns which all take odd-shape drivers with daughter boards and a klarus ST15r which will need the charger integrated into its driver.

Yes please, a spring would be good! Otherwise I may damage it (as I did before with other drivers) :person_facepalming:

Thank you :wink:

Not really. I’ve been using a L4 for dual switch testing with a larger diameter driver med specifically for it. No need to dig up a 17mm compatible dual switch for this driver, go with a single switch host if that’s what you have.

Unless you have a L4 of coarse… I have two Convoy L4s and three driver boards. I could build the third L4 driver and send it your way.