Sofirn SP10 Pro (AA/14500/Andúril 2) - now available!

FWIW I would likely only use 14500, AA compatibility would only be a bonus for gifting purposes. If the AA leads to poor low level flickering I would rather not even have it and focus on maximum efficiency 14500 support.

it is Anduril that has a problem with low level flickering, using LiIon.

AA is not the cause of Andurils inability to support flicker free firefly levels.

I’ll amend my statement, If the low levels are flickering I am out. :slight_smile: Like I assume most of us I use the lowest levels most frequently. If it isn’t in a blinky mode, it shouldn’t.

Would NarsilM V1.2 / V1.3 work with SP10S? Will there also be increased chances of flickering low level modes as stated for Andúril? How about RampingIOS V2/V3 which seems to be a stripped version of Andúril?

Hum, I guess I will have to put some things in perspective here jon_slider :wink:
1 - “Anduril is not suitable for AA” - That’s why the team is working on it, to make it suitable for AA batteries (if it becomes feasible technically and technologically). And if this is accomplished, we may be seeing a breakthrough in flashlight “world”, specially emerging from a flashlight forum and a small flashlight company :wink:

2 - “Anduril is not suitable for flicker free firefly levels” - Although I am not expert on this, I do believe that the people working on this driver will probably test the driver/FW to avoid that the lowest levels will have flickers, even working with AAs. I think that maybe we will not get extreme moonlight levels, but I’d be ‘happy’ if the lowest levels are close to the ones in the FWxA flashlights or even similar to those in allowed by the Bistro HD OTSM.

3 - “Anduril is full of blinky and clicky stuff that I dont want.” - I may agree with you on this, although having a candle mode could be nice on a AA light :wink:

4 - “The Nitecore D10 Piston Drive UI is a ramping UI, like Anduril, but it does not require LiIon, and it does support firefly levels.” - Although it may depend on the model we have, my D10 lowest more on AA battery still produces more light than my Tool AA with Bistro HD OTSM (on 14500), being both levels good Moonlight levels, but not Firefly. Still, both these 2 flashlights produce more light than the Sofirn SP10A on its almost firefly level. A true firefly mode on a AA light can be found on the Reylights (that supports AAs and 14500s).

Sofirn SP10A >>>> Tool AA >>>> Nitecore D10 (all in their lowest possible levels)

This said, I guess some concerns are natural, other are more preferences of course, but there seems to be a long way to go adpating this firmware to AA batteries, and we may be surprised by the end of it :student:

I trust the people involved in this project, and thank them for the time invested in it. I am sure they will get us a good compromise between quality - power - usability - efficiency - looks - price :wink:

Think of it as easy-access candle-mode. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey, you already got it! <snark/>

you are right :slight_smile:
My D10 lowest mode is 1 lumen with sw45k
it is actually the D11.2 firmware that produces 0.01 lumens minimum

> having a candle mode could be nice

not for me :slight_smile:
to me, candle mode is just a fancy word for flicker, it has no real resemblance to a real candle

> I’d be ‘happy’ if the lowest levels are close to the ones in the FWxA flashlights

clearly you, and others who “love anduril” do not require firefly :slight_smile:

carry on… this is not the droid Im looking for

This is really an issue with driver design (and instability at very low outputs) rather than the firmware. Anudril itself uses PWM fast enough to be completely imperceptible at every step AFAIK.

I don’t see why Anudril couldn’t be adapted to a driver that solved that issue - however lights and drivers with extremely low moonlight that is flicker free generally aren’t cheap, because the drivers that can accomplish this are difficult to engineer and more expensive to produce.

The entire point of this light is to get Anduril on a AA-sized light, so not sure what the purpose of criticizing the blinky modes of Anduril (which I woud rather do without personally too) would be??

The firmware doesn’t care for the power supply.

Why not? It just tells the driver “I want 1/1024 brightness” and the driver is responsible for reaching that goal. Don’t confuse bad driver design with the firmware.

Then don’t buy a light with such modes or don’t use them. This project is all about developing a driver that supports Anduril.

But it is not Anduril.

It’s all about the driver. If it can power the microcontroller, it could potentially run Anduril. Just that Anduril is developed for ATtiny microcontrollers.

See above, this has nothing to do with the firmware, but with driver design.


Maybe jon_slider refers to the recent issues with the KR4? The driver uses a FET as a linear current regulator. Its main component next to the FET is an opamp. This opamp gets it’s reference voltage from Anduril via a low-pass filter / integrator. For every linear regulator you have to set a lower and upper bound in the design. Level 1 and 2 out of 150 set the reference to 0 V. At this level the opamp is not able to maintain stable regulation.

How could this have been fixed? By using two regulators. One for very low currents, one for higher currents. But this needs more space on the PCB, increases the BOM and thus is more expensive.

You've posted this several times, in various threads, since at least last year. (I've also attempted to gently correct you before.) I don't care if you dislike Anduril (you've mentioned blinkies and complexity before which are very valid points in their own right), but I ask that you stop spreading false information about it.

It is not an Anduril problem. It is a driver problem. It is consistently difficult to achieve very low levels using the traditional 7135 and/or FET design. The lowest lows of all my flashlights are as follows:

  1. Absolute lowest: Jetbeam RRT01
  2. SC62(w)
  3. Nitecore EX11.2 on 16340
  4. FW3A and Emisar D4 (pretty even match, actual usability is indistinguishable but I'm sure the lumen count is technically different)
  5. Several lights I've modded to use the "Moonlight Special" driver
  6. My modded Convoy L6
  7. A bunch of other FET/7135-driver lights that don't have a dedicated 1x7135 channel for moonlight

(Note: IIRC there's one or more Manker AA/AAA lights that have a pretty low moonlight)

Notice the common factor between 1, 2, and 3? They don't use FET/7135 driver styles. (The tradeoff, of course, is that 7135/FET is very simple and cheap.)

For a more technical view of things... My understanding is that, in general, you can only effectively run these things so low. You also talk about "flicker-free" low modes, which is fun. I'm not aware of other good ways to control a single 7135's output besides PWM, but I'm starting to get out of my depth there. Anyway, as I understand it, you can only PWM it so much before you start to get some disgusting flicker going on. PWM itself isn't necessarily bad, because it can be done on the scale of thousands of cycles per second, speeds where you'd be lucky to catch it on a camera. But to get down to the ultra lows without switching driver technologies, the PWM gets into lower frequencies.

Also, the KR4 driver in particular has a further limitation on moonlight, which has been gone over a few times: some part of the driver (the MCU or the FET I think, but I'm too lazy to look it up again) doesn't officially support the current of, as I recall, the lowest two configured ramp levels. So by default it ships with the minimum ramp (and therefore lowest mode) as ramp level 3. This can be configured lower but may land anywhere in the range of "works fine what's the problem" to "just doesn't power on at that level", with a lot of in-between landing at "turns on visibly slowly, almost ramping up to the moonlight". This is, again, a driver issue rather than an Anduril issue.

Edit: SammysHP covered some of the finer points in an excellent post above.

Yeah, this. In fact it’s so difficult to design and/or expensive to build drivers that can do this properly, that LoneOceans neglected to address it in his lume1 driver “to keep this as simple as possible and to keep the BOM cost down without sacrificing on the engineering”.

I have 3 stock lights and 1 modded light with Anduril, and none of them flickers! So, I guess I didn’t get those issues with my lights :wink:

Sublumen Moonlight works fine on my Anduril lights. Use it every evening.

Now you got me envious :wink:
I still didn’t give up on getting one of those :+1:

Hum, I guess it is not just flickering , but I do recognize that it is not like a real candle! Nothing will ever look like a real candle, specially because of the fire’s “tint” and the flame’s random movements :wink:

Well, I do like and use firefly modes, as you know from our conversations about the RRT01.
At the same time, I admit that a good moonlight level (even if not as low as the RRT01 or the Reylight) would be good in this project.
This is a personal preference and opinion, of course, but I guess the the achievement or not of a firefly level shouldn’t hinder this project from being done.
And I like anduril, I confess :innocent: Even if it is not perfect :smiling_imp:

thanks guys :slight_smile:

I stand corrected,

With the right driver, Anduril will run on AA at firefly levels, with no flicker…

:beer:

If you’ve experienced this with the KR4 you’re not alone though. Like SammysHP said due to the driver itself very low levels can be unstable. Just how low it will stay stable depends on the individual light because of variances in the driver components.

Thanks for popping my balloon…

:smiley: