DIY Driver East-092 style (AMC7135 and DMG6968U)

not to go off topic but when finished as a open source software would anyone no where to send to get made ? id like to get some made and for u guys as well ?

Awesome stuff. Sadly, if this is DIY I’ll never get one. I just don’t have those skills.

if i find time to do some research and with the creator permeation ill try to find a company to make the board and just sell to who ever ?

My skills are fledgling but I figure that as long as I can get parts and a diagram or set of instructions usefull to a non-electrical engineer- then I will get better with each build. After a few burns and some less than ideal builds I’ll get it. I think it would be really something to assemble all on my own.

dct33, I’ll bet you have more skills than you let on.

I thought a direct connection from another mcu leg to the led, so that the mcu can drive the led by itself with some mA. That’s because the LEDs will see very short spikes of full current maybe 6A or so in moonlight. Which is not optimal and often these tiny controllers have more legs than we need so it came to my mind.

Thanks for the link with explanation of the anti parallel diode, I doubt it is necessary but as it is an additional protection it is quite nice.

What is with a battery protection?
Just a voltage divider, read out by the mcus adc like on the nanjg boards?

The FET with the smallest Ron I could find was the irl3803.

I talked with pilot last week and he too uses allegro, I have also the plan/wish to learn how to use this’s one day.

Nitro,

That would be great. Yes I can provide the bill of materials and procedure on how to program.

:beer:

tivo i sent u a pm about your driver

Any chance of somebody collecting all the assorted parts and selling them in kit form? Assembly is easy - smear some paste around, drop parts into place, hit it with some hot air - ordering small quantities of the parts that only cost so little from all over, seems like one person doing the ordering then reselling everything together would be much more efficient. ;)

once i hear back from tivo i might hear back on a quote on some boards :slight_smile:

If you’re just using paste and hot air then shoot, I’d be in for a couple kits if available. But I’m looking for 2x18650 drivers mostly.

Yes, really easy. I use a butane soldering iron with no tip installed, it has a catalyst honeycomb thing inside that burns the butane so no flame comes out the end. Apply paste to all the pads with a toothpick (and in most cases it doesn't have to be precise, surface tension when it melts will pull the solder onto the pads and off anything on the board that isn't a pad), plop the components in place, then move the hot air around evenly over the board, components and everything, and when it gets hot enough the solder melts. Surface tension will snap the components into place on the pads, so alignment there doesn't have to be perfect either. Really neat to watch, the melting flashes across the board like a shockwave when it goes.

Shockwave? Sounds pretty cool! I’ve used hot air to clear boards before, but this sounds even better. Now that I think of it, I could re-flow emitters with the heat gun too. Probably run the heat from the bottom though. Then again, I might miss sharing the flashlight experience with my wife and her frying pan. :smiley:

It's actually easier to put stuff together with hot air than it is to salvage stuff off a used PCB with hot air. Much easier. I think mostly because factory-made stuff uses lead free solder that needs way more heat, scorching can be an issue. Even flooding with flux and melting in some leaded solder before starting with the hot air doesn't always make it go smoothly.

The gate doesn’t need a pull-down if the processor output pin is driving he gate low (i.e. not an open-drain output).

In Eagle, you draw the board outline on the DIMENSION layer. You can make it any shape you want. Draw it with a .001” wide line so any confusion about routing the board to the inside/enter/outside of the line is of no consequence.

ThanksTexaspyro. Yes it’s not an open drain output. I think the purpose of the pull down is to quickly turn off the FET. But since I don’t see any problem including the moonlight mode we may not need the pull down resistor. :beer:

The chip should be able to drive the gate off faster than any reasonable sized pull-down… also a heavy pulldown resistor would limit the turn-on of the FET.

Here are the preliminary parts list. Unit cost are for references only.
Still for final testing when my parts arrives.
I’ll share the PCB design at OSH when final
I’ll also provide a DIY programming procedure when done.

For 1x18650 Battery (XLM, XPG, XRE…)

For 2x18650 Battery (MT-G2)

:beer:

That’s awesome!

But it may not always be an output. :wink:
Between the time the supply is connected and the controller connecting the IO pin to its output stage, the gate is floating. At least if the IO defaults to input or some other high z state.
Some people might want to secure the circuit against that, at least if it is some kind of critical application.
But for this one I’d say it is fine without.
Unless of course you are planning on crashing the mcu with some funny code before the IO initialization. >)

Programming Summary for DIY:

One Time Setup:

1. Install the Zilog ZDS-Z8 Encore! 5.0.0 SW
2. Install the Project/Batch files for programming the driver
3. Build a 4-pins USB Programming Cable
4. Install the USB Programming Cable driver

Programming the LED Driver

1. Connect the 4 pins of the programming cable to the LED Driver and
the USB end to the Host PC.
2. Navigate to a specific directory and run the batch file (.bat)
3. Wait until it finish

When I’m done testing the driver, I’ll be posting a much detailed procedure.
Still waiting for parts!

:beer: