D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

From my experience, blue requires less than half the current of orange.

Of the 4 variety of blues that I have, the highest is 0.21 mA and the lowest is 0.15 at 4.1 volts.

I try to keep all my different color lighted switches at the same relative brightness.

Hi, does anyone have experience with H17A driver from KD nor similar problem with me? I have a problem with the bleeder resistor value, which causing the memory mode didn’t work.

I tried from 220 until 1.36K Ohm for the bleeder, and 300, 330, 15K, 22K Ohm for the led resistor (they’re stock lighted tailcap from convoy & astrolux). None of the setup that I made make the memory mode back.

For reference, no bleeder and 300 or 330 Ohm led resistor sometimes work, but no longer after that the flashlight/emitter won’t turn on. And sometimes make the emitter and tail led blinking themself.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

I usually start with the switch LEDs. Figure out how bright you want the lighted tailcap by trying different resistors. And I found that different drivers may require different resistors for similar brightness.

Once you determined the brightness, then see how the driver behaves. Usually the issue is that the flashlight has next memory mode, which should be resolved with a bleeder resistor. I would start with a low resistor, like 220 ohms, and then increase until the driver works well. But some drivers will continue to have issues regardless of the bleeder resistor.

Thanks for the input NeutralFan! But after trying so many times with different value, I gave up on that. Even now without the bleeder resistor and non lighted switch, the memory mode has gone. Lol

Sorry to hear. Seems like you have some other issue with the driver.

Depending on what you want to do, you may want to consider a new Convoy driver that allows a lighted switch:

Yeah, thank you for the recommendation, NeutralFan! I might change back to the 3 modes “ramping” driver from Convoy for my use.

Been a while guys… Had the itch to build something after a FEW years.
illuminated Tailcap for an Eagle Eye X7

Some low current 0805 in 3Sand orange and these only needed 222 resistor to make the 2 pairs of 3 look Just Right.
No idea where I got them, sorry.
Think its the PD68 5.3 board




:+1: :sunglasses:
My last one was more than a year ago.

Added some E-sw LEDs to a recent L6 build also, but gave up after 6 resistor swaps… Still too bright IMO.


Never did put a bleed resistor in the X7 driver. Fet+1 Bistro. I need to trim the nipple inside the silicone button to make sure that is not causing some click speed issues first. Trimmed 2mm already… needs more.

Pilotdog68 has been missing for a year and a half. Has anyone heard from him?

Much better Now.


Note to SELF: when testing E-SW while using a bench PS on a 2S light, Set it’s voltage to 8.4… not 4.2
Save a lot of time. :innocent:

Don’t worry about me, I’ve just been out of the flashlight game. The manufacturers got so good modding lost its zing for me.

Funny coincidence I check back within a couple weeks of you asking though.

hello. this is my first post on this forum. i dont sign up for forums, typically a lurker. ive read quite a bit but still very new to electronics in general. flashlights are teaching me a lot for sure. i need some help with my tailswitch (led switch from simon for s2+/c8+, etc.) i popped it in and at first was bright then flickered to dim and is staying dim. for my s2+ and c8+. theyre both using the same drivers. qlite rev.a 87135 from richard. on the c8 driver it is now a 127135 and the s2+ which i have not done anything to yet (until i finish the c8) is a 10*7135. not sure if LEDs matter but s2 is the triple build with nichia 219c and c8 is single led thrower with xpl hi. ive noticed other posts talking about 221 resistor and saw the pic as well. the tailswitch really lights up well in the c8+ now and i love it but now i dont have modes. seems like its stuck at 100% or whatever mode i was in last before i made the change. i unfortuneatly do not have a multimeter yet to test anything with so im just tinkering untill something works. looking at this picture again it seems like that resistor is possibly getting a connection at the other peg to the left. would that cause this? i know this post is old so im not expecting much but any help is appreciated, thank you :slight_smile:

Please enjoy your time here, milkerman!

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That resistor looks out of place. Did you do that?

Have you tried swapping back to be regular tail switch? IIRC not all drivers work with the lighted tail switch, but I don’t remember why.

yes i did that. and it did increase my tailswitch brightness but at the cost of only having flashlight on at 100% when activated. the driver worked perfectly fine without the resistor, my issue was the tailswitch light is just too dim. it actually flickered to regular brightness for a moment then went back to dim when i put it in at first before i started this resistor thing. that happened with just about all my lights that operate off the qlite rev.a driver. there is nothin wrong with the lights. they all work normally with the regular tailswitch. im wondering, would ptting a resistor on the tailswitch side do what i want it to do? just make the tail light brighter? or thatll probably work but drain too much battery i assume

Oh, I don’t know too much about those. But the lighted tail switch has a resistor, right? If you want the switch light brighter then I would think stacking or swapping that resistor would be the way to go.

In my opinion that is too low.
It’s possible the low resistance is causing your mode switching issue.

In the picture you posted, the bleeder should go from the Positive Spring to the center pin on the 7135 chip because it connects directly to ground.

If the tailcap was lighting up before adding a bleeder, I’d only use a 680ish Ohm bleeder.

so im actually an idiot. i automatically assumed the flashlight wouldnt come out of 100% mode. i think it was factory reset when i added the resistor becausei tried entering programming and it worked out. now my problem is no memory which i believe someone else had similar issues on what im working with so ill have to read into that. i believe you are correct about the 221 resistor in it being too low. im scrapping old electronics over here so as soon as i come across something in the range of 5-700 or so i am going to try it out. i am eye balling my battery too to see what the drain is like. i have also since swapped out the resistor from the location it is in and put between the spring and star number 1. its a better spot.

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