【convoy】H4 and B35AM options are updated

Yeah, I worked for a place that made POS equipment (no, actually POS, as in point-of-sale), and to the outside observer, the place was the definition of hypocrisy.

The owners loved to flaunt their “status” and “wealth”, but treated all their underlings as coolie labor. Might be shocking to us who call the boss “Bob” or “Pete” or “Jane”, but there, that behavior/attitude is the norm. “Know your place.”

What got me, though, is that I was tasked with repurposing one of their controller boards to do something specific as a one-off project, on a rather strict deadline as the owner was going back overseas for a while and wanted to take the prototype with him.

Okay, no prob. It’s a highly integrated 8x51 variant, lots of peripherals on-board, let me have a look at some existing code so I wouldn’t have to “reinvent the wheel” (setting up all memory-maps, port addresses, interrupts, etc.). Ohhhh, no. Ohhhhh, Hell no. Those are secret, and you don’t have “clearance” to look at that! All this from a piss-ant company of a coupla dozen people total.

Umm, okay, so how do you expect me to write firmware to do what you want, in such a short timeframe? Well, you have books and manuals, you can look it up, no? Again, back to the reinventing-the-wheel part. Hell, I wasn’t even given a schematic to see what lines from the µC were connected to the outside world; I was expected to visually trace the board to find out what went where. They wanted me to (selectively) reverse-engineer one of their boards, so they wouldn’t have to show me so much as a line of source-code or even top-level schematic of the donk.

I said screw that, I’ll write it in C and send signals to the printer-port. Pick ’em off the ribbon-cable…

The fun part, though? They did their own bit of REing competitors’ boards, trashed hard-disks deliberately (destructive testing by giving ’em heat-stroke) then returned them under warranty, pir8ed M$ licenses to install Windows on embedded systems (buy 100, install 1000), etc.

Oh, and then after I “unthinkingly” trashed dead HDs instead of returning them to stock (to be returned to the mfr under warranty), they tried to stick me personally for the cost of the drives! I had enough at that point, and even tried ratting ’em out to M$, but they’d have none of it, and expected me to pretty much prepare their case for them, else they weren’t interested. :person_facepalming:

Anyway, in earlier conversations with the chief engineer or lead engineer or whatever he was, he unabashedly said it’s SOP. Pir8 stuff from all over, keep your stuff secret (or try to), no such thing as “ethics”. Just the way of doing business. In fact, it’s not even seen as doing anything wrong, but is expected. As in, he wasn’t trying to defend their actions in any way (as he saw nothing wrong with them, thus nothing to defend), and was surprised that I had an issue with it.

It’s a cultural thing, I guess. Again, just the standard way of doing business. Takes a while to wrap your head around it. Kinda like watching the dog licking himself right in front of you when you’re watching teevee. You call out “Hey, stop that!”, and the dog gives you this “What’s your problem?” look.

Ok, that's pretty bad. Mostly the small guys I've worked for were basically honest, innovative, trying their best to bring something new to the market. But I've heard other stories around, too.

Knew a fairly big local distributor of computers/parts/etc. that used to go "shopping" thru his warehouse for stuff he'd sell on the side, then write it off as employee theft, and meanwhile having cameras and security everywhere to be sure nothing disappears.

Lightbringer - didn't realize you were in the biz. Been doing this stuff wayyy too long, since 78, and bought the original IBM PC for like $3500 just to play with. Ended up being a good investment though.

Thanks for your explanation, there is indeed such an objective fact in China.

I will continue to communicate with the driver manufacturer

I got a reply.
Although the same function has been achieved, driver manufacturer does not use the existing open source code because of the different circuit principle. This circuit currently uses code written by the driver manufacturer itself.

The component in this picture is MOS FET AON7524, I will announce the MCU model later.

RENESAS R5F10Y14/16 RL78/G10 ?
https://www.renesas.com/us/en/doc/products/mpumcu/doc/rl78/r01ds0207ej0310-rl78g10.pdf

I earlier asked if it’s the same “Biscotti” driver (as used in the Convoy C8+ with Biscotti firmware).

Based on this explanation, the SST40 “Biscotti” is not the same “Biscotti” but “something similar function”.

I’m curious then, would it also have the same 12- mode groups, enable/disable mode memory? Or maybe just “something similar” in concept?

Would be good if someone has already gotten the “SST40-Biscotti” driver and put it to the test.

(As of the moment, our country is in lockdown, so most overseas sellers have stopped shipping to our country for a full month now and may still not be able to do so in another 2 weeks…) [eg. Banggood says “No shipping method available” for ALL products now, whereas before, only “pure battery products” have “No shipping method available”]

HT45F3420 10-pin MSOP :open_mouth:

So it’s a Biscotti clone, but not Biscotti. And given that information is being withheld, I can’t modify it and flash my own version like I’ve been able to with Biscotti (custom modes etc).

Thanks, no thanks.

(I’d strongly suggest using another name - even “Biscuit (Biscotti-clone)” or similar. Because it’s not the same firmware.)

I agree. Knowing whether we can use our own customized variants is a big deal and re-using the name may mislead people to think that it’s possible.

i have no difficulty with delivery to Philippines.
Even mailing a mask is no problem.
the function is the same instead of “similar” :slight_smile:

This was my mistake. At first, I thought that the driver manufacturer used the biscotti code. Later, I realized that it was the code he wrote himself.
I havent given a name to this, so simply call it 12 groups sst40 driver

1 Thank

No probs Simon - we can all get blindsided.

Smells like surströmming, sorry to say.

So who is going to dump the MCU's code?

I did notice a difference with mine but wasn’t sure if it was just a quirk with my build (used it in a photo red triple). When set to the five mode group, there seems to be a large jump between modes 2 & 3. My other Biscotti drivers have very linear mode spacing. Not really a complaint, just an observation.

I have a quirk in a 20mm “SST40” driver that I recently bought from your AE store. Between modes 1 and 2 there is a bright “pre-flash”. Is this normal? Anybody else experiencing this? It’s installed in an S21a running a triple XPL_HD from an LG M50.

Simon, what’s the order code (or at least CRI bin, the 16th digit which can be B, H, or U) for the XHP35 HI 4000K B4-40E?

I asked this to Simon nearly two weeks ago via message in AliExpress. I told him that, according to datasheet, a B4-40E should be U CRI code or CRI90+, whereas the D2-1A (6500K) should be H CRI code or CRI80+. Simon replied “uh, sorry, the LED I sell is not high CRI LED”. Confusing, I know.

This may be caused by a high internal resistance somewhere, or it may be a driver problem.