Mod - GarryBunk's SecurityIng HD-016 (It's Finally Done!) - Pic Heavy

Are you still going ahead with this light mod?

^ Yes, it's been progressing slowly partly do to it's complexity and partly due to lots of life interrupting events. I haven't had a chance to mod any of my lights in ages. When I do get a chance, this project get the attention.

I'm hoping to bring the frankendriver to life tonight or tomorrow. I'll be honest. I'll be holding my breath. I've never so massively changed a driver. The MCU's have the same number of pins, but that is the extent of their commonality. For instance, the KD MCU feeds a positive charge to the indicator LED's, but the HD-016 MCU feeds a negative charge to them. The forced me to cut traces and wire in new circuits to keep that functionality. I wouldn't be surprised these two MCU are from completely different companies.

Anyway, I hope to be reporting good news and updating the OP with all the mods that have been made to the light by the end of this weekend.

Things are not going well with the MCU air wiring and I will be ditching that approach. Keep running into complications. There are 12 needed in total. Below is second attempt before the blue wire in back broke free and I gave up air wiring this MCU. Thinner wire would help, but still be problematic. Please ignore the sloppy LED lead solders on top. I just tacked them to have load testing purposes.

Garry is being very patient with my pace on this light and has OK's me going with an adapter board. So I'm finally going to learn how to used Eagle and make Gerber files and such. I don't know what MCU I'm dealing with. I think I will just build the element from scratch based on dimensions. If anyone has any tips for a better approach, please advise.

Time to go watch a Mattaus tutorial.

Thanks ImA for all the hard work! As I stated via PM, I never expected this mod was going to be so difficult and frustrating for you. Keep up the good work!

-Garry

I didn't either, but it's all good. I'm learning things that will be useful in future projects. That is part of why I want to do this mod.

Looks like the PIC16F676 may have the same footprint. Trying to verify and see if any of the major vendors have a library part for it. The SO-14 in the Microchip library looks like it may be a match.

Critiques please on this SO14 MCU adapter board. Eagle has been kicking my butt all week. Not a very intuitive progam and I kept having issues with mirroring, routing, and just being a dumb ass. I finally have the following built. I think I'm at the point I build Gerber files. I don't know why I can't get a yellow "X" on the far right via. I have check and double checked several times. Any possible causes or other recommendations appreciated. Here are pics of the combined and individual layers.

I ran a routine called DRC and it gave me the following. I don't think I need to be concerned about any of it, but I really know nothing about Eagle yet. All the errors seem to be at the via's. Maybe from me trying to make smooth traces? Please let me know if there are any problems I should fix. Also, if there are any other routines I should run.

Ended up rerouting everything. Got rid of almost all the errors. Don't know how to get rid of the error for the 2 pins that happen to be directly on top of each other. I put via's on the contact pads to electrically connect them. Not sure if I need to fix the errors. Gonna post a question in the Eagle thread. Here is the latest:

Those yellow crosses over the vias are not desirable, at least not when I do my boards. They might not really matter, but they are an error indication from Eagle. If you have the signals routed correctly, these shouldn’t show up.

Regarding design rule checks, many people don’t do them at all. They do generate a lot of errors that are of no real concern, like the overlap in your last post. It’s OK to put a via directly under a component leg like that, but eagle flags them as an overlap error. As long as the signal is the same it’s no problem. Another error of no real concern is when vias of the signal are close but not under a leg. You might get a clearance error. Once again, if the signal is the same it is of no concern. Stop mask errors are also no concern. You get them when there is white print from a component that crosses exposed copper, and OSH Park (I guess most other manufacturers too) don’t care, they do not put white print over exposed copper.

Personally I always do design rule checks. I do them once I’m close to the end of my design and I go through each error. The errors I don’t care about I approve, and then they don’t show up in the list any more unless you move the component or trace that caused it. It doesn’t take much time to analyze and approve them, and by far beats the headache of having missed something. I’ve been saved a couple of times when the DRC found sloppy mistakes I didn’t notice myself.

Download the manufacturers DRC files. Eagle’s default design rules are not the same as OSH Park, like drill sizes for vias for example. If you’re going to do a DRC you might as well do it using the design rules from the PCB manufacturer you will be using.

I also have downloaded OSH Park CAM files for gerber generation. If I remember correctly, there are different CAM files for different versions of Eagle. There are newer CAM files for Eagle v7.2.0. I don’t use the ones Mattaus provided in the Eagle tutorial thread as I use Eagle 7.2.0.

Wow, lots of excellent info there. Thank you. It all sounds good to me. I will follow it.

Yeah, I eventually figured out the X's were bad. I was pre-instaling the via's, but only on one side. I eventually read about using the shift, mouse click function. Then did it on both sides and the error would go away.

Finally got the adapter board designed and ordered. It took me a lot of time. I struggled with learning Eagle and building the parts. Parts represent the MCU’s. I could not find any already made as I don’t know what MCU’s these are. I ended up having to manually make a mirror image of the part the represents the HD MCU and then use the Eagle Mirror command to get it on the bottom side of the board. When Eagle did that, it put the pins in the proper spots (not mirror image). Anyway, I spent a ton of time on the whole process, but I can now design my own custom pcb's. That is going to be really handy for me since I tend to swap MCU's in drivers. Special thanks to Halo..., Mike C, and wight for the tips they provided.

I'll report back on weather they work when boards come in.

Here is an idea of what they have under the solder mask.

Top and bottom combined view:

Top side only:

Bottom side only:

Now, lets hope they actually work.

Looks good!

A tip about library parts, especially for MCUs (maybe a bit late). You don’t have to know the exact MCU to get a library file for the footprint, you just need to know the case. The one above looks like SOIC14. So to get one create an account at Newark Element14, find a SOIC14 processor (like the ATtiny24) and there is a CadSoft_EAGLE link under the product information:

There is a readme.txt in it describing how you make a library part from it.

What an effort guys. You gotta love the help from others here and glad a new road is ahead of you ImA4Wheelr.

Guys, any news regarding this mod?

I’m thinking about buying this lamp, and I really like it, apart from stock modes, obviously.

Well I'll let ImA speak up, but from our PM's I've gathered that this has been a very difficult mod which has been fighting him all the way! The KD driver is nearly perfect (MTBR guys love it), but it's not a direct fit into this light. ImA has been a real trooper through the struggle though! I'd have probably given up a long time ago! I do believe he's very close to having it fully functional.

-Garry

Welcome to the forum bobale. I apologize for not posting updates. I came online to post an update to Garry when I noted this thread has activity. Much has been going on with this light, but almost every step forward has resulted in complications and set backs. Tonight was yet another frustrating night and I have to admit that I am near my wits end with this light.

If you haven't purchased this light yet, I recommend you don't purchase one if your intention is to modify it. The driver is not mod friendly at all. It seems to have been built to barely handle the current it delivers stock. It is also 3 dimensional which creates all kinds of complications with reflowing and even just soldering components. If I do successfully mod this light, I don't think anyone should try to replicate it. I was entertaining modding another one of these for myself but I have decided against that a ways back. Besides the driver, the light itself is very compact and has very little "elbow" room for heat sinking. For that reason, I think a custom made copper heat sinking solution is the only real way to extract the heat to the small exterior of the light that will quickly overheat if not in motion. The tight space appears prohibit piggy backing a different buck driver.

Sorry for all this bad news. If you have purchased the light, I will gladly try to coach you through modding it. Just understand that it's a risky ordeal with a good chance for failure. I suggest keeping this one stock.

EDIT: The above warning has been added to the OP.

Thanks for all the info. I haven’t bought the lamp yet, but I’ve ordered one for my MTB riding friend. He doesn’t mind the stupid modes, but I do and that’s why I’ve wanted to mod it in the first place.

I’ve experimented with few different handlebar lights, and I really like this flood-throw combination in one lamp. But, if this HD-016 thing doesn’t work out, I still have my two MJ808E clones, one with regular glass lens, and one with Action-LED wide angle lens, so I guess this combination can also work good offroad (not yet tested on a trail).

If you're not already familiar with it, there was a recent group buy on the "real" Yinding (Gemini Duo clone) over at mtbr.com which is available in neutral white or cool white. The KD driver fits and it also accepts a range of different optics. Has good thermal contact to the emitter board, but not much mass to it. There's also a Nitefighter BT40S on ebay which is a 4x XP-G2 in neutral white. I just picked up the lighthead only "on sale". Some "good" inexpensive options for you, though neither has the flood this one has.

-Garry

Part of the problem may be that this is a very ambitious mod. We are trying to graft on another 14 pin MCU that is vastly different. We are also trying to keep all the features such as indicator lights, voltage monitoring/protection and thermal monitoring/protection. This has forced me to modify circuits by cutting traces, adding wires, and such. Oddly enough, the extra features appear to be working fine (haven't thoroughly yet). It's the buck drivers that are giving me hell. I think the FET's have been overheating and frying. They are very small FET's and have very thin traces connecting to them. So any heat that generates, stays in the FET. I've tried harder FET's without success. I'm now trying larger off-board FET's but am having other issues now. The driver board that has the 2 buck drivers is approaching a state irreparable deterioration due to all the reflows and soldering.

If you end up finding your self wanting to mod one of these light, I think you can successfully do so if you go for less functionality and don't try to increase current to the emitters.

It's also possible that I have damaged something that is causing all this grief. I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong. If/when I find out, I will report it.

I don’t really care for thermal protection as I always dim down my light when I slow down or stop. I planned on leaving stock MCU for voltage monitoring, as I can’t really be bothered with voltage dividers and endlessly tweaking the circuit to give me correct readings. If heat is an issue, I don’t mind taking the driver board out of the lamp.