17mm 12x7135 drivers with custom firmware (Group Buy Interest thread)

Hi thanks for catching the typo. It is the AMC 7135 it’s also a two sided driver. As for how many people will be interested, only time will tell. I know I would sure like a bunch of them for all the mods I do. Stacking an extra 4 7135 is a nice little amp bump and I like the mode selection as well. I’m sure others would rather have it one way or another but I’m really not planning on getting into that. If I do there will be 50 different people all wanting them slightly different. So those are the mode selections and hopefully enough people will like that so this is a go.

For me the biggest appeal is not having to solder on extra resistors which I stink at and having the extra modes is also a big plus. Hopefully others will agree.

As for PP; I am not making a profit off of this adventure and will likely loose at least some money on envelopes and such (certainly lots of time) I think GIFT is very much the right word for it.

Correct I will be sending a paypal payment to them and PP will get their fee from that. Yes they are 7135 typo on that part. They will be stacking the resistors for us so that we don’t have to do it. Huge bonus for me anyway.

Interesting.
It depends on the individual prices if we buy half a dozen each, also i’m guessing thats a typo: (7135 and not 7134)
How big will this driver be ? will it be like the standard Nanjq Q-lite Rev 105c (but with 12 instead of 8 chips,) and 5 modes instead of the 4-modes (the moon light plus 4 higher modes)

  • without visible PWM in every mode, etc. if its the same size, im guessing they would have to be like the 105c with the 7135s on both sides of the board, and even maybe stacked to get twelve of them on the same size board ?

You're going to struggle to get any interest until you show a design. There are MANY problems with what you're asking.

First up is the driver itself. 12x7135 chips just fits on a 16mm board: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/ASrNWWhu

If you upped the size of the board above to 17mm that gives you a 0.5mm thick ground trace around the outside. You could fit an MCU in the middle of the chips on the top side, and a pad in the middle on the bottom, but the MCU will have to be a very small under-lead part. It can be done, but people are going to want proof it can be done.

Another point in regards to the MCU - if it is a non-SOIC8 MCU (which is has to be to fit) people are not going to be able to reprogram it and given the fixed 5-mode firmare it'll limit interest even more.

Third problem is PayPal gifts. I think you forgo some rights if you do that and you could get shafted very easily. No way would I send a PayPal gift payment to someone I do not know personally or very, very well.

Finally, you won't get much interest around here for these drivers anyway. There are literally dozens of similar or better options available in the OSHPark thread. Yes they require assembly, but it's not hard and some of the more popular ones can be purchased pre-assembled from Mountain Electronics.

- Matt

I see! Pretty interesting proposition.

  • So they’d be stacking the extra 4*7135 IC’s on the top side of the driver (opposite the battery side)?
  • And the driver would be a normal Nanjg 105c clone in all other aspects besides the UI? eg it would use an ATtiny13A MCU / 4.7k & 19.1k resistors / reverse voltage protection diode

Howdy, the pics on their site is the standard Nanjg. They said they would be willing to stack the extra four on one side and program it for us.

To keep it simple it’s going to be $3 per driver plus shipping. Like I said though shipping should be very cheap.

Yep that’s the plan.

Im interested in several (+20) depending on the final price, firmware & test results. You should definitely test some engineering samples before putting in such a large order.

Yep I will be testing before ordering. Of course I won’t bother going further unless I get quite a few people who are interested.

Interested to see the product results, A output, PWM and which lights a newbie could easily replace this driver into…if all is well, 10-20?

Well as for lights it will fit there are quite a few. C8’s 502b’s T20’s C10 C12 and all kinds of other lights. It’s a very good size for many lights.

8 chips is about 3amps usually. 12 should be over 4amps. PWM shouldn’t be noticeable but we will find out.

Put me down for 10,
nice timing, my Kungs driver has just gone kaput, I can use two of these in it for 8.2A :bigsmile:
I know it will be a while, no problems, it will give me some time to mod it for better cooling.

Cheers David

12*7135 chips with $3 shipped (I assume internationally) is good, I am interested in this.

It’s just that I think there is no point to have both 40% and 60% at the same time - they both will look very similar in brightness to our eyes. Keep the 40% level and remove the 60%. The easier way is to just follow the Qlite 4 mode groups.

Also they need to be sure the PWM frequency is very high. Other than these I am fine with this driver. Or what’s even better is to stack more chips and make it 5A on high.

On the other hand to response to someone who has mentioned about the OSHPark project, the BLF drivers are definitely interesting BUT you need to realize that some people may not have the skill/equipment to reflow the components on the board by themselves. Also for non-Americans it’s very expensive to order the finished BLF drivers from USA sellers, the shipping fees is even higher than the driver itself. So spending just $3 and one can get a high current draw driver with good modes I would believe there are still people who are interested in this stuff.

So this is a basically a "pre-stacked" 4.2A NANJG 105C driver. Would save me quite a lot of time not needing to stack the 7135s..

I'm not a big fan of the proposed mode spacing, but that's not a problem if the firmware can be re-flashed.

=> definitely interested if the international shipping won't kill the deal.

Edit: How about asking the manufacturer to flash in one of our "own" firmwares? PM sent.

If everyone decides on another mode spacing we can do that. I’m not firm on it, I just don’t want a bunch of people dropping out or not getting in because they can’t get the one they want. You know how these things go.

Also I don’t think overseas shipping will be bad at all. Especially if you buy enough of them. It would drop the per driver cost down for you pretty good. It wouldn’t be worth it for one or two but for 20 I’m sure the price would still be pretty good.

Yes I do. :)

And it's not only the mode spacing.. In fact the mode spacing is about the easiest thing to agree on.

Some people want L->H, others insists having H->L. Some like to have their lights with memory, others without. And then there's the eternal discussion about Moon/LowLow mode: "Moon mode is a must" <-> "But I want L->H and don't want it to start with Moon".

That's why it would be good to have a pre-flashed firmware that offers some flexibility.

..and if someone needs even more flexibility -> go ahead and flash it yourself.


[quote=18sixfifty] Also I don't think overseas shipping will be bad at all. Especially if you buy enough of them. It would drop the per driver cost down for you pretty good. It wouldn't be worth it for one or two but for 20 I'm sure the price would still be pretty good. [/quote]

Ok, that sounds good! I'll be in for at least 20 pcs, maybe 50.

On the subject of settings, I would rather 1% 15% 30% 60% 100%.
1 = moon
15 = low
30 = mid (double low (not 40))
60 = high (double mid)
100 = turbo
Just my thoughts :wink:

Cheers David

My personal opinion on the number of modes: Five modes is simply too much to step through.

Four is much better, and can cover the 0-100% quite well.

Three is good for usability, but can't cover well enough.

=> based on these findings I started to design the TheStar FW, which has the usability of 3-mode FW, but it offers 5 modes (+ hidden blinkies, but those are not the point here).

Here's how it's done:
- LowLow mode is hidden (can be easily found when needed, but it's not bothering in the main mode cycle)
- Low & Medium are the first two modes
- High is not accessible as a standard mode, just as Turbo rampdown level (-> not in the main mode cycle, but still usable)
- Turbo is the third normal mode

For LowLow, cycle through the modes twice, and you'll find the LowLow after Turbo, like this: L -> M -> T -> L -> M -> T -> LL
For High, set the light on Turbo and simply wait 90s (or whatever the turbo timeout is programmed to be)
For returning to Turbo after timeout, simply half-click and you are there.

The more I use it in this 3-mode configuration, the more I like it. :)


Edit: And if you like H->L mode order better, just short the star #3 => T -> M -> L -> T -> M -> L -> LL

That’s sounds great. I am just going to go with that. I’ll be chatting with them tomorrow to confirm that I can get this firmware on them, but I don’t see any reason why they won’t. They will probably steal it though.

That's very much possible, but would that be a bad thing? Better flashlights for everyone!


I was anyways planning to release TheStar as "free for all BLF users for non-commercial use", which pretty much means that it will be freely available => will be stolen and used in commercial things too.