MTN Electronics: LEDs - Batteries - Lights - Chargers - Hosts - Drivers - Components - 1-Stop-US Source

Thanks for the fast delivery of the BLF 20DD driver Richard, but could you make the leads longer? They don't reach the the LED on the Defiant 3D/3C lights, I'll have to splice extensions onto them.

I was wondering, could you program the moonlight special driver to drive the single 7135 at 100% and just have two modes. 380mA and 3.04A? I think that would be cool for an Ultrafire 602. You could have a fairly bright little light running efficiently at 380mA most of the time but be able to light up a quarter acre for short bursts. It would be great i fit could also have Qlite's beacon mode, 2 flashes at 4 second intervals. I'd buy a few of those!

I’m curious if anyone has suggestions for a small, cheap Li-Ion charger which reliably charges pretty close to 4.20V.

I have a Nitecore i4 which terminates at 4.22V, and three Xtar MC1 chargers which terminate at 4.24/4.25V, 4.12/4.13V, and 4.15/4.16V respectively. Mostly, I’m looking for something to include with gifts.

I’ll probably use the ~4.12V charger myself, since I don’t mind the lower voltage and potentially getting more cycles per battery, but the 4.25V one seems like it might significantly reduce cell life due to overcharging.

Anniversary sale on Friday I guess.

Also, what about that ‘special’ project in the works? I’m not forgetting.

any ETA on the M6s?

thanks

I’m throwing some chips down on the Miller ML-102 v7. I have not used any Miller chargers yet. For a long time I was put off because the Miller chargers look so generic and seemed like a prime target for clones even if they were any good. At this point it’s pretty clear that Miller mostly has his/her crap together and that FT has the real ones, so I’m picking up 3. Note that protected cells don’t fit and you’ll need spacers for smaller cells. Stock charge rate with the latest ones is 1.25A so it won’t be appropriate for many tiny cells.

FWIW I looked inside the cheap SupFire charger and with my limited knowledge I do not think that it will be satisfactory.

EDIT: I forgot to post links to all the data will34 posted:
http://www.fasttech.com/forums/1137904/t/1415318/ordered-16-9-version-7-1
and here just in case, spread out over the thread starting with post #158 - Review: ML-102 Charger

The sale was going to start next Monday, but it might be delayed because we are still waiting on some shipments (including M6s) that were supposed to be here already but are still stuck in customs. You will receive a newsletter notice when we have everything pinned down.

I usually get complaints that I make them too long. The Defiant is a longer reach than most lights, so if you need extra long leads please let me know in the checkout comments.

Yes, but I'm afraid that the single 7135 might get overheated running at 100% with a good cell behind it. I do run the single 7135 for the moonlight and 2%/5% modes, but not for the higher modes. I can put in a beacon mode.

I guess we’d be looking at something like 1/2W for a single 7135 in that situation (100%)?

EDIT:

  • vs more like 1/4W [each] in normal use with an 8*7135 driver operating at 100% on a strong cell to run an XM-L2… I think.
  • I think driving red emitters at 2A to 2.5A the 7135s should be getting closer to 1/3W each, but that’s still not 1/2W.

I still rely on my XTAR WP2 charger. 4.20V dead on every time. I also have the MC0 for small cells and it too is dead on. My choice for gifting a good flashlight kit would include the WP2 and a set of the 3400mah 18650 from Mtn Electronics. Maybe not the cheapest package, but if you’re going to give something, give the best you can.

That's mind boggling. People actually write to you complaining that the leads are too long? Time to start selling wire cutters.

I didn't realize that the power would be much higher to one 7135 than several. How do you calculate the power dissipation in the 7135's?

Wouldn't selecting the option to remove 3 chips from the Nanjg 101-AK-AI driver will overheat it?

Yes, some people expect me to be clairvoyant about wire length and spring length for their various lights.

For a single 7135, take the difference between Vin and the forward voltage needed for that LED to sustain 0.35A, then multiply that number by 0.35A to get the approximate watts dissipated. The 7135s have a thermal limit mode, where they start to limit current so they don't burn up. With MT-G2s they hit this all the time on 100% if you don't use enough chips to get Vin close to the needed Vout, since you are working with twice the voltage, twice the watts with the same Vin/Vout differential...that and the MT-G2 has a slightly lower vF to begin with which makes things worse.

Speaking of MT-G2’s … I just rebuilt my Yezl Y3 yesterday evening with a piggybacked BLF17DD Z driver. Yes, I’ve got an MT-G2 in it. And the EVVA 26650 5200mAh cells I got from you will run 9.47A through it for some 4061 start lumens! That number plunges fast, as the cells don’t seem to be able to keep that load for long. (Also got the MT-G2 from you on a Noctigon, and moved it to a 25mm MAXToch board…also from you!)

And astonishingly with the ramping firmware I’m using it also makes 0.345 lumens on it’s lowest setting! (Ramping firware courtesy of Comfy and ToyKeeper, loving it!)

Thanks Richard, for supplying us with the Very Bestest Out There! :bigsmile:

That ramping firmware isn’t done yet, but I’m glad you like it. :slight_smile:

I have no idea how it would behave on a zener-modded board. At the very least, I assume the voltage monitoring bits are probably totally broken, and I haven’t made it easy to turn that stuff off yet. It also doesn’t offer easy compile-time options to disable the PFM bits (for smoother ramping at the bottom end) or change the ramp shape. And there’s no battery check mode aside from the rather uncommon red/green indicator LEDs. … and stuff.

Anyway, Comfy requested that UI. I didn’t think I’d like it, but it turns out to be my favorite so far, and he didn’t like it as much as one with fixed levels. I guess that’s how things go. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I should probably get a Yezl Y3 or Convoy L4 so I can have a dual-switch light to test.

Comfy made a change to facilitate a smoother ramp on the bottom end and I like it much better now. And it works fine with my MT-G2, this big emitter really shines (pun intended) with this style of UI. Massive amount of light, easily controlled for optimum battery usage.

I wasn’t really fond of the Yezl Y3 at first, but set up this way it now sits on the front row on my shelf in prime time with other favorite lights. :slight_smile:

I think Comfy removed the PFM bits, which would make the ramp less smooth but more consistent across devices and different voltages. Combining PWM and PFM allows really smooth ramping even between individual PWM levels, but it’s annoyingly sensitive to the exact hardware and even battery voltage. PWM alone gets stair-steppy at the bottom end, and PFM smoothes out those steps. (PFM changes the frequency of the pulses, PWM changes the width of the pulses, so it ran anywhere from 9 kHz to 20 kHz at the lower levels)

IIRC, he also changed the ramp shape from logarithmic to quadratic, and may have reduced the bottom to fast PWM=0 (instead of phase-correct PWM=1). I just haven’t made time to include everything yet; got interrupted and didn’t get back to it.

Well, I’m about to build one for an M6 so we’ll see how that turns out.

How about 4708 lumens on Panasonic B cells? :slight_smile:

Let me know if you need any changes. :slight_smile: (might help motivate me to finish it)

Could you make it so that the double click that goes directly to Turbo level will work in any mode, not just from off?

Hmm… maybe. It doesn’t yet track clock ticks while the light is off, which makes it difficult to detect the difference between “click, pause, click” and “click-click” from on. I need to add that anyway though, for the Olight Baton UI (double-click while on to access a blinky mode). The issue is that it may cause the LED to stay on at moon mode for a half second or so when the light gets shut off (because the MCU will still be running, waiting for a double click). Also, I might run out of ROM space because it’s already right at the limit.

Currently it also has an exception for double-click when the memorized mode is already the highest. This allows the turbo mode to be used for signalling, but causes the UI to be slightly different when turbo is the memorized mode.

Edit: We should probably PM to avoid further cluttering RMM’s thread.

Wait he wrote a bell curve on the ramp? That’s what I was thinking about but the memory limits are pretty strict on the 13a… Been writing one for the last couple days :slight_smile: Just posted it in the star thread. Anyway you could host this Toy? Might be useful code makers anyway in the future.