BLF LT1 Lantern, Whining, Ranting about USB C port issues go here.

:slight_smile: Yes.

There are two stanards at play here I believe.
The USB-C mechanical design is one and the other is the USB version; 2. 3. 3.1 whatever

Perhaps our amateur lantern should not be sold to anyone who believes they themselves are professional grade. :person_facepalming:

Chill. This is not the only device with a C type USB port that fails on some tech point. It wasn’t the first, it won’t be the last.

Name 1 light which does this.

The SP36 and FT03 and several others experience the same issue.

I followed the Lantern thread from the first post. They delivered more than was promised originally with ONE exception: The out the door cost was desired (note I didn’t say promised) to be $40. That target was missed. I’m happy with the lantern and want to thank all of you folks that did the heavy lifting (and Sofirn as well). The budget part of the project was how much money you non-paid volunteers made on your hard work:-) (I’m joking… joking!!!)

Thank you all so much! Love the lantern, and the BLF wrapped batteries AmishBill did too are a fantastic addition. Great stuff!

Wellp, as long as it doesn’t spew toxic chemicals throughout your entire house when trying to charge it… :smiling_imp:

:wink:

Not only is the USB-C “totally wrong” the new Tesla pickup truck is ugly!!

Oh, don’t even get mr started on that ugly-ass thing…

Besides, hasn’t anyone ever seen “Monolith”?

Agreed that the target was missed, however in their defence, that target was set before a significant number of features were finalized. If I’m not mistaken, that target was set while the LED count was only 2 (maybe 4) and of a single color temperature. It was set before a charging circuit was decided upon. It was set before Toykeeper even developed the awesome features like candle, sunset and lightning…

I’m 100% fine with the slight bump in price considering all the awesome features I recieved. Given the choice I would have paid WAY more than what I did for the extra features that this lantern included.

correct. :+1: The 40-dollar original target was for a more basic design similar to the original V1 and V2 prototypes, (no tint ramping, only 2 or 4 LEDs, (the LT1 has 8) no configuration for charging rates and amp-draw rates, and a more basic firmware & driver, no button LED, and a standard 5-volt only USB micro charging.

Ok, enough whining, more doing. My LT1 arrived this morning, and before even switching it on for the first time, I modded it to solve the USB issue.
High-res gallery:

The USB specs demand CC1 and CC2 to be connected to ground with one 5.1kohm 10% resistor each.

Source:
!https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en574276

Here are the locations of the respecive contact pins:

Source:

Here’ what I did:
First, remove the driver board by unscrewing the retaining bolts and untwisting the twisted wires:

I carefully soldered 0.05mm² wires to CC1 and CC2. Not my proudest joints, but a firm tug confirmed a connection, and a DMM said the adjacent contacts did not get connected by accident. I used a Quicko T12 station with KF tip. Highly recommended.

To connect to ground, I did not use those tiny USB contacts, but a contact from a driver which happens to be connected to ground as well:

Next, I built a resistor. I carefully matched 3.3k and 1.8k resistors to get exactly 5.1kohm with about 1% tolerance. I took a slice of prototype strip board to mount the resistors on:

After tinning the boadd, I “glued” the resistors on top using what I assume to be AMTEC-NC-599 flux, If I was not defrauded:

I heated up the assembly with my 858D rework station:

I soldered on the wires:

I put it in clear shrink tube to avoid shorts, and glued it to a free place on the driver PCB using RTV silicone. The black wire could use some more slack though:

The wires get twisted and the driver bolted back on afterwards.

The only problem is that I cannot test it, as I do not have any USB C output device right now. Maybe I will check with the IT hardware guy in the new year.

Superb!!!

Then proceeds to plug it into usb-A anyway… lol

I’ve got a mix of standard and surface mount 5.1k resistors, an old soldering iron, and as of tonight, an LT1 to do un-neighborly things to.

I expect to have images and narration to post in a day or three.

I am unaware of this. Can someone school me about lights that usb charge that are dangerous?
Because I am considering a few.

Btw, my LT1 only whines on low levels when it is plugged in :smiley:

There is no dangerous issue with the LT1 USB-C design. the only issue is that the LT1 will not charge from a C to C type cable using a type C-only charger brick. Use the supplied A to C standard cable, ( or any other common standard USB-A to USB-C cable and charger devices and everything works good. The LT1 was designed to use the USB-C “port” because its more durable than the older USB-micro ports. ( and does not have the resistors in the port to “switch-on” the charging in the complex USB-C only chargers. The LT1 does not have fast-charging like phones, as it uses a regulated reliable TP5100 charge controller chip, configurable to either 0.75 amps or 1.5 amps maximum.

Quick question… using an A to C cable and a standard 5 volt A style block is good, but what about an A to C cable with a block that can do either 5 volts or 9 volts based on QC3.0 (?)? I assume that it will just run at 5 volts because there is no hardware in the LT1 to trigger the QC stuff?

Thanks Matt

The LT1 can accept any voltage from roughly 4.5 up to a maximum of 18 volts through the port, as the TP5100 has a good voltage range of regulation. To be safe though, i prefer to keep it in the 5 to 12 volt range from various sources. As for triggering the QC3.0 to charge at 9 volts, the LT1 don’t have the circuitry to set the charger, so it will be at the default 5 volt USB standard voltage.

A newt?