[WIP] 17mm DD+single-7135 driver / single sided / Dual-PWM

I do it all the time, lol.

Have you seen 16A to an MT-G2? Or 12A to an XHP70? But let me tell you, right at or just over 7A the XM-L2 POOF’s, every time. :stuck_out_tongue: (or at least 8 times in a row, YMMV)

What I have found, and what djozz has documented, is that the gains are well on their way back down before the amperage blows the emitter. So, with such extensive testing already on record (thanks djozz! :slight_smile: ) why is there a need to keep testing?

If you’re one that just needs to see it to believe it, by all means go for it! LEDDNA will happily sell you all the emitters you care to try/fry. At the very best, you’ll wind up like me with some 90 lights on the shelf and the urge to build more. :stuck_out_tongue:

No i haven’t seen that but i want to, and you wanted to see that before you did so then you know exactly how i feel :wink:

The XP-L you had at almost 7A didn’t show much signs to slowing down or losing output at all, and as you say they always losses output before they break.

Did you really lose 8 XM-L2 when DD or FET driven on copper DTP? because if that is the case it is the first time i have heard about something like that on BLF. In every other report it has always been buck or boost that has pushed it to hard, several here have claimed that when DD like this, it should be self limited by the low voltage in a single battery.

You say that you have found & djozz (thanks djozz i have referred to your charts more than i can count :laughing: have documented, but djozz tests his emitter in steady state from low up to very high. That is not the same thing as clicking the switch & giving the led 7A or more directly, that is a very big reason why your tests often show much more lumens than his charts would show is possible.

If we really are going to know what is possible in a flashlight we need a similar chart but with 1A,2A,3A,5A,7A,8A…… separate tests from a cooled off state exactly like you tests, when you build something & press it for turbo & get a higher reading. Because that how we (at least I) use a hotrodded build, i charge my batteries to full & press the switch for max (from the start) light in the dark :slight_smile:

@djozz if you read this please don’t take this as criticism for how you are testing because i don’t mean it like that 0:)

You jogged my memory and you are correct. I lost those on a TK61 which was a buck driver set-up. The only time I’ve had issue in a direct drive single cell situation was on an aluminum star, the emitter came on, started turning blue, and I stopped. When I got it on a copper star, no problem.

But that was then, this is now. The new breed of XM-L class emitters and I’m told XP-G class will not go this far before dying. They have higher Vf so they might not fry on a single cell set-up, I don’t know. Best I’ve seen from these new ones is just shy of 5A.

This is largely why I like the XP-L now. It still acts like what I’m used to.

And you’re right about the output and how I test. I build a driver, bypass all resistance as much as possible, then test it. Some say my results are not typical, but I say if you do what I did you’ll see the same thing. And does that first start-up output count? In the middle of the night, damn right it does! If you measure at 30 seconds, then again at 60, and 90 and so on, you’ll see that it’s a constant change. So I take it from the top and go from there. Usually also say what it’s doing at 30 so that drop can be seen. In a small light, like my Texas Poker drawing over 3A from a 10440, 30 seconds in the cell is well on it’s way to dead! lol

Fire it up! Go for it! :bigsmile:

The description of Arctic Silver says it is capacitive (an artificial dielectric) but not conductive. There must not be that much silver in it, or the silver particles have compact shape and don’t touch each other. There does exist silver paint that is a good conductor, at least for very specialized purposes.

I am glad we are back on the same page again :slight_smile:

And i just finished my Zeusray XP-L V6 1A dedomed DD Build :slight_smile: very throwy, surprisingly ok tint after dedome yellowish NW but not blue or green much nicer than any CW i have seen yet anyway not a tint i would buy but for double kcd i take it :), very very hot just how i like it :smiley: i am lucky the battery fails before my fast changing hand are because this is right at the edge of comfort :bigsmile: i must get me some 14awg & 12awg too see if i get get it hotter……….& brighter :smiley:

Throws further than i can see in the light rain in the city, so much more i don’t know what to do with now anyway, it is going to be interesting to see that perspective change when i build even throwier lights soon :slight_smile:

I actually tested this today, the result was it worked!..……but with the classic telltale signs of bad ground connection as in a flickering light, so i quickly soldered on the black - wire to the led - minus & everything worked as it should again.

Now i have it grounded through both the led stars scraped copper+the normal - wire connected together.
I don’t know if i gained any lower resistance by keeping it that way, but i will not change it before i need too if i want to install a regular FET driver for some modes.

I had an XP-G2 give out in one of my Smiling Sharks, but I don’t understand what happened, maybe the bonding wires. It only drew an amp. and seemed to have reasonable cooling, so maybe it was mechanical damage. It got so it changed brightness when I touched the dome with my fingernail.

That is a strange failure, i had that happenx on one of the bad Zeusray the so called turdrays, it was the driver that finally killed the led in that one, and before it died completely it changed brightness if you touched the dome……strange.

Just got qty 3 of these in and on all 3 there's no exposed copper for the spring. Think it's workable by scraping off sections to solder the spring, or wire, to (been doin a bit if scraping of late, getting better at it). I can see the raised circular section, but it's covered in purple stuff. Not sure if this was mentioned before, sounds familiar, like I read bout this...

They are labeled A17HYBRID-S, v009. Haven't seen any pics of the backside - anyone else see this? Maybe just luck of the OSHPark draw?

Btw, this thread is all over the place - all good I guess...

The OSHPARK rendering of that driver shows it being exposed. I think that wight usually uploads gerbers, so WYSIuWYG (what you see is usually what you get ;) ). I'd check with Oshpark to see if they have any insight as to what happened.

K, will do. 1st time I've gotten something weird from OSHPark, but I always waited til the board settles down. There's not much posted here on the builds/results with the board - bdiddle, maybe that's it I think??

Occasionally the fab will oops. Shoot them an email and they’ll likely do another set.

Sorry, I think that’s partly my fault… I’m bad at this whole staying-on-topic thing.

They work great. :slight_smile: There is a tint shift that we’re not used to with the low modes as they’re not being pushed so hard. I personally like it, some might not.

When going through the modes you see the gear change when leaving Turbo and dropping back down into moon. Not anything major, but if you know what’s going on you can see it happening.

Holler at me if you’d like me to share the files I’ve been using, of course you’ll be able to tweak them to your specs.

The tint shift is a neat side effect of using two very different power channels on this driver. It looks like this when both channels are set to the same lumen level.

Could you please share your files? I'm sure the community would greatly appreciate it.



Ok. So, here comes vesture with some of his own noob questions.


Am I understanding correctly that this board works essentially the same as the BLFDD17 FET driver ( accept that it is one sided)? Meaning that that it runs directly off the battery on max etc.

Would I be able to use the open source firmware that works with the BLFDD board without modifying it?

Yes. You can use STAR or any other FW that works with a Qlite/105 or with the BLF17DD. The LVP values might need to be tweaked a tiny bit to be spot-on. This one also can use dual PWM, but it doesn’t require it. You can just leave the 7135 pads empty if you don’t want to use that feature.

VOB - I can help somewhat... I believe this is the board (or same feature set) as will be used with the Eagle Eye A6 group buy. It's different than the BLFDD 17 FET board in that it adds a 7135 that is separately addressable via an I/O pin (dual PWM output), so you can use the 7135 for low modes much more efficiently (i.e. more lumens per amp). It's more like wight's well regarded (and used) A17DD-08 board, accept with the added 7135.

Of course you don't have to make use of the 7135, then it's just like wight's A17DD-08 board, but if you have the driver software that takes advantage of it, it would be an advantage. TK's repository has lots of support for it, including her blf-a6 and tk-otc versions. I'm pretty sure the latest STAR e-switch and STAROffTime will suport the dual PWM I/O feature as well (supports a FET and 7135). There are other wight boards that are 7*7135 and 1*7135 on two PWM I/O channels as well.

Of course there are other differences, like the FET form factor that is used, no dedicated zener diode pad, etc.

Can I do a request for a UI for this driver?, something that I can not do myself, to anyone who knows how to program firmware for this? As much as I would like to do as much as possible myself, programming and flashing firmware is just not going to happen... :-(

I am not a fancy UI fan (the lights I like the most have just two modes: low and high). But I love the concept of this driver, and I love the moonlight option.

My ideal firmware for this driver is moonlight->350mA->fullFETblast , start on moonlight, off-time no memory. If I could have this driver with this UI, I would put it in all of my flashlights.

(If this possibly might happen, next request is for someone to flash a dozen Attinies for me :-) )