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

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.

If it's NANJG105C compatible (same circuitry except 12x7135) AND that stacking is reliable (a photo would be nice) AND shipping isn't a killer, I'm in for 50. Firmware is irrelevant as I'll reprogram them anyway.

Right on! It would be cool if they did steal it and actually used it too!!

Sounds good, I’ll ask them for a picture and see if it’s nanjg105c compatible. I told them I would have a bunch of questions for them tomorrow. Well you know how it is. Tomorrow for them is early AM for me. So very late night today actually.

Depending on shipping I am in for a few…

OK, I sent them a quick E-mail asking about Flashing THE’s firmware and making sure they are NANJG105C compatible.

The 5A version even better.

40% and 60% are too close. I would toss one of those modes and go no more than 40 on the remaining mode.

As long as they don't lock out the MCU for future flashing, I would be interested in 10.

17mm, STAR firmware, 12chips, I'm in for 10 :-)

We were planning to use TheStar (by _the_), not STAR (by JonnyC).

Probably it would be possible to use STAR too if that is a more desired option. In that case we need to ask JonnyC to get his permission.

If you really want to sell a boat load of these, have them add a 1uF capacitor and load off-time memory FW. That will allow folks that can't flash and or solder SMD's to truly upgrade their lights with both more power and much improved UI.

+1

Funny, I actually meant TheStar, did not realise that JohnnyC's firmware had that similar name (but that's a nice UI too btw). I wouldn't mind the extra cap/off-time memory either :-)

Why not just have them build 1000 drivers using the BLF-17DD design files? Once you get up to that many 7135s the runtime before it falls out of regulation is so short there's not much benefit there to offset the higher parts count needed and the resulting bulky double-sided driver.

The current (probably final) revision of the 17DD works with only 6 components, 7 if you add an off-time capacitor. Gate & pulldown resistors have been eliminated since we changed the MCU's power supply circuit (it uses the same parts, just with the capacitor moved from after the D1 diode to before the diode).

Because it’s not regulated. Contrary to popular believe, not being regulated is actually a disadvantage. Once you install a BLF17DD you can’t just hand someone a light and assume they won’t acquire an IMR cell or 4.35v cell/charger down the road. You can blame whatever happens after that on them (whether it’s minor heat issues or poofing the LED), but it’s really on you (me/18sixfifty/whoever). If I build a light with 7135’s I can be pretty confident about what’s going to happen with all the batteries we know about right now. (Grrr)

But even when connected to a triple in parallel and the hottest single cell currently in existence, you won't get much more than 8.5-9A. The many-stacked-7135 drivers aren't really 'regulated' in the true sense, they just have a maximum limit. Their output starts falling (no longer 'regulated') after just a handful of minutes.

That’d drive up the costs because the company has a stockpile of NANJG drivers and all they need to do is flash the MCU and piggyback 4 more AMC7135 chips.

On the flip side, I don’t think it’s possible to blow an LED with direct drive to a 1x li-ion cell, whether it be IMR or charged to 4.35V. Plus, we won’t be randomly handing out flashlights with these drivers anyways.

True, as long as the LED is on copper (Nichias not included there), and who would build something with either driver and the LED on aluminum?

It may not be possible to blow the LED, but it’s certainly possible to achieve undesired results. Many people using FET drivers seem to use lower drain cells in order to “tame” the FET driver. That only works while you still have the thing in hand, once it’s in someone else’s hands (depending on the person of course) there is a good chance they’ll change cells eventually. Especially if they are getting advice from some random vaping-shop guy (do you guys not see the writing on the wall here? People we sell flashlights to now may eventually walk into one of the currently-ever-increasing numbers of vaping shops for replacement 18650s), he has no idea that the flashlight is entirely unregulated.

And I thought the point was exactly that we’d be handing these things out. I know some of you guys have large flashlight collections, but we’re talking about ordering 20+ of these (identical, mostly single-purpose) things per person… that’s not for a personal FL collection, to me that seems clearly angled at resale or gifting.

comfychair, you can call it what you want… the current limit is unachievable with the DD drivers we have now. I don’t have a better term for it. Any further improvements in 4.35v cells will result in 20-60min of actual regulation I think.