17mm & 20/26/27mm single-sided DD/FET driver release: A17DD-SO8 / A20DD-SO8 / etc

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” :wink:

Thanks! Sometimes I am more shaky than others, but even with shaking it comes down to technique. IMO shaking can be dealt with pretty well when soldering boards like this.

I have a battery check mode already built in to an on-time clicky firmware, an off-time clicky firmware, and an e-switch firmware. However, both of the clicky firmwares are a bit complicated (I crammed in as many modes as I could fit).

The clicky ones go in a loop (read voltage, display it, pause, repeat) while the e-switch one simply displays the voltage once and shuts itself off. Since the reading can vary from measurement to measurement, it’s usually a good idea to watch it for a few cycles to get a more accurate idea what the actual value is.

Unfortunately the hardcoded voltage values generally need tweaking for each style of driver, which complicates things. I’m hoping to include some reference values for common drivers to make this easier.

Another A17DD-S08 in an Eagle Eye X6, this one powering a Quad XP-G2 S3 3C at 2340 lumens from a Panny BD. Home made heat sink that’s massive. :slight_smile: Gosh I love it when a plan comes together! :bigsmile:

Very nice Dale. Thanks for the video.

Whoah!

Now all you need to do is mod that for a quad XP-L and give it a go!

That’s a 20mm quad noctigon correct?

Measurement for that quad heatsink sir?

Awesome!

Wights FET driver (A17DD-S08) pushes 4 XP-L’s ridiculously hard. Not so much hard on the emitters, but cell draining and heat producing. So I used the XP-G2’s here for some limitations. It’s still pulling over 10A, but the Quad XP-L’s off this driver pull closer to 15A.

I must be getting old, I’m starting to realize there are times that 100% pedal to the metal is not appropriate. Sometimes 98% is called for. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ready to test mine,one on left needs lil solder removed but good to go i hope

One on the left looks backwards(mcu).

You are correct. I couldn’t make out the markings when I looked at the picture earlier today, but the Pin1 notch clearly shows that it’s spun around!

All fixed

Dale, you've got to stop making us all jealous with those lights you're building!

I'm "only" getting 5.85A absolute max at the tail with a A17DD-S08 in an X6 powering an old, good XM-L2 U2 1A on a Noctigon, using 20 AWG LED wires, bypassed springs. It's really hard to tell, but out of the 3 types of BLF 17's I used: v1.0 original BLF - Mattaus, the C_K v3.1 version, and the A17DD-08, the only one I could get over 6A out of was the BLF v1.0 originals. I did not compare these head to head -- all were in different lights/builds, so I can't be certain of anything, but really thought I'd get over 6A in the X6 with the 20 AWG wires, and the lock down retaining ring - seems to have a really good ground (batt -) path.

Multiple LED's is the easy case with low Vf's. The single LED setup is the worse case, but is the best real world way to test the resistance of the driver that I know of. I may have to build up a BLF 17 v1.0 just to see if it can do better. Why I need higher amps is not because of the domed XM-L2 U2 1A, but I'm getting a max of only 3.7A in the X6 (w/A17DD-S08, 20 AWG wires) with a de-domed XP-G2 S2. I have a Convoy C8 with a de-domed XP-G2 R5 that gets 3.95A at the tail on a 7135 based driver.

I saw your post about the XP-G2 over in RMM’s thread. I’ve been assuming that you’ve simply got LEDs with a high Vf.

You don’t really have to put them head to head IMO (although that would be ideal). Instead just measure the Vf with your DMM. If you compare the two XP-G2 setups and find that the Vf is similar between the DD setup @ 3.7A and the linear driver at 3.95A… mystery solved.

After seeing all the smiley faces from Dale-mode mods I sort of assumed that the FET had become a non issue but if it turns out to be the case that the FET could be improved I would gladly pop for 10 of the more expensive ones to spread around for testing to see if there is justification for a GB for enough of them to bring down the cost plus shipping.

im in for 5-10

I’ve got 24 boards on the way and a few left on hand. :slight_smile: I, uh, seem to go through drivers a lot lately. hahaha