Ohh, so cool! Yes, agree think it works pretty good, considering. The coffee cup warmer makes a big difference though - the heat gun does it's thing quicker, and think you get better solder flow.
Good tip. Do you just leave the boards on the warmer when you apply the hot air, or do you pick them up and move them? Do you add your solder paste and components before or after putting the PCB on the warmer?
I do the solder paste and parts first, then sit them on the warmer, give them maybe a minute to warm, then use the hot air with them sitting on the mug warmer. My friend said he doesn't use the mug warmers anymore because pretty much all the boards he does now are bigger. He uses an electric skillet now for everything - can handle bigger boards easily. I did the 3 at one time, but think I'll only do one on the warmer at a time - easier to manage. I should be doing my LED reflows the same way -- mostly still doing the frying pan, but totally forgot bout the mug warmer on the last round.
I should take a live action shot, or video 
.
I built a Courui with the A17DD-S08 this evening. Toy Keepers ramping firmware. I raised the XM-L2 U2 1D on a copper pedestal for ease of focusing. Also bolted in a 1” long x 1.25” diameter aluminum heat sink under the emitter shelf. Put a short 18ga wire on the pcb in the tail with 22ga wire bypass in the springs. With freshly charged Samsung 25R cells it does 1718 lumens with a 166.5Kcd lux and 816M throw. Very nice light!
This driver rocks Wight! :bigsmile:
NICE!!!
you should have a go boosting the coffeewarmer a bit one way or another, so that it gets hot enough to do perfect reflows all by itself!
I went to the coffee mug warmer mod forum - some usefull info
Anyone look into values for LVP yet with these? I tried the same values I used on the C_K boards with 22K R1's and seems like it's tripping lower. I'll need to raise the values. I think I used 115/105, so will go for 123/115 - hoping that will be about 3.0v/2.8v, maybe slightly less...
Best I could figure is the first level tripped at about 2.75v, critical trip was maybe 2.45v or so.
I used my bench power supply and double-checked the voltage across the LED with the DMM.
BTW, on that note… if you have suggestions for LVP values to use on various drivers, I’d like to include those as presets in the firmware.
I’m hoping for the attiny13 internal voltage value for 4.2V, 3.9V, 3.6V, 3.3V, and 3.0V. It’s a pain for me to calibrate voltages since I don’t have an adjustable power supply.
I tried 124 (low) and 115 (critical) last night and they are better, but just not sure of my bench power supply setup or measurements. Sometimes the supply seems to be close to the DMM, sometimes not. Bottom line is I have no clue how accurate the reading is and not sure if reading the voltage drop across the LED is an accurate way to determine the equivalent of a battery's output. I know there are voltage drops typically - I've seen other posts about that. I thought the 124 was close to 3.0v, but really not sure - not confident with my setup and readings... This is why I'm asking for other input.
Led Vf is most but not all of the voltage drop. Most of the rest is across the driver so to get a more accurate reading go from led+ to ground. I would think it safest to measure voltage on low and compare that to resting cell voltage adjusting from there.
Thanx Scott - I'll check that way - LED+ to ground. I was using high mode but at lower amps of 0.5 to 1.5A or so -- No PWM's. Hhmm, maybe that's way my readings were all over the place because I tested at different amp levels.
Thanks to the Ferrero Rocher driver, I’ve gotten to watch attiny voltage measurements in real time during load… and it can vary pretty dramatically depending on how big the load is.
For this reason, I try to calibrate for a really low output level, to get it close to resting voltage. However, finding the precise value to use is difficult with only a battery as the power source, since it only crosses that threshold briefly and it must be charged to get back to that level… also takes a while to charge or discharge to the level I’m trying to calibrate.
Oh, and the values vary by like 5% per individual driver anyway, kind of like how the clock speed varies per attiny chip and the lumen output varies per emitter even within a single bin.
I’m hoping to get more than just the low/crit values though, since I want to include a battery check mode in as many lights as possible. For that, it at least needs the 4.2V value and 3.0V value, and preferably more. (just adding 3.6V is usually enough; the others tend to follow in a nearly linear curve)
I was using the 12 step battery check mode from the original luxdrv, but find it too annoying. Maybe reduced to 6 blinks for 0.2v deltas would be a lot better. I would like to integrate in in my main e-switch UI, but wasn't sure how. If I don't use strobe, it could replace strobe with the extra long press, but was hoping to add it in. Maybe a extra long press while in moon mode or low? Something like that... Trying to avoid using dbl clicks - hate to lose fast single click capability...
Received the 26mm boards today. Package is heavier than I expected for 3 boards. Looking forward to using them. :)
Holy cow! Just installed one of the two of these that Dale built for me in an S2 XPL triple. EASIEST installation ever. Works fantastic!! Thank you Dale!!!!!!
Potent lil buggers aren’t they? 
I’ve found it fairly effective to use a 25% or 0.3V blink system… 0 blinks means < 3.0V, 1 blink is 3.0V to 3.3V, 2 blinks is 3.3V to 3.6V, 3 blinks is 3.6V to 3.9V, 4 blinks is 3.9V to 4.2V, and 5 blinks is > 4.2V.
In theory, this means each blink represents one quarter of a full charge, but in practice it’s usually best to recharge the battery somewhere around the 1 or 2 blink range (and some high-amp cells are practically empty at 3.5V anyway so the “25% to 50%” estimate isn’t very close on those cells).
I’m not looking for a precise measurement though… I just want a rough idea, and to know if the battery is ready for a recharge without having to remove it from the light and use a DMM.
Hi ToyKeeper & Tom,
I have to say this feature sounds very useful to me, i am rather new at this but i found myself rather quickly in the habit of opening the flashlight to test the battery on my DMM to see if i should recharge or not.
So something like this would save a lot of thread wear and a lot of time.
And because i plan to gift a lot nice flashlights in the future :-), it is a lot easier to explain to someone “press one long press at low and count” to know when to recharge, so there lithiums can last a long time and be safer as well.
I think the first time i heard of it (remember i am new at this) was the MELD drivers by tterev3 and those require an e-switch and a lot of other hardware and customization thats just to advanced for me yet.
Moved! - iPhone ready - Nanjg stripping and A17DD-SO8 building videos
I did some videos this evening.
How to strip a Nanjg-105D for parts with a soldering iron:
How to assemble an A17DD-SO8 with a soldering iron:
Here is the equipment list I used:
Hakko FX-888 w/ T18-D16 chisel tip
a wet sponge (hence the sizzle noises from offscreen in the video)
Kester 951 liquid flux in a syringe
3mm Goot Wick (CP-3015 via this listing)
Radio Shack .032” 60/40 Rosin Core solder
WeiTus No. 10 stainless tweezers (130mm x 13mm) from IOS/MTN < these are my favorite tweezers.
black stainless tweezers… maybe ESD13 or ESD14 from this VETUS set.
Really you don’t need all that stuff, but as you can see sometimes it makes things easier. I’d start with a cheap iron w/ a 2mm chisel tip or similar, 60/40 solder, and stainless tweezers. Anything else is gravy!
As far as techniques, mine are not always good.
Basic soldering advice: All of these components are pretty heat tolerant, but if you find yourself unable to make something happen, take a break from doing that thing. Eventually you can burn components by rubbing the iron on them long enough! I made some mistakes with the OTC at the end and really dumped a lot of heat into it. Ideally I would have given up for a while, then come back to it. I’d have removed it, cleaned up the area, and then soldered it in place again.
EDIT: It never really make sense to put this here. It just happened to be related because I was building an A17DD-SO8, so I plunked it down here. I turned the post into a new thread instead: iPhone ready - Nanjg stripping and A17DD-SO8 building videos
nice videos!
you are not very “shaky” 