alexvh's firmware. Update: Hidden strobe, Ramping and optional mode memory added.

14 pin chip is perfect for bigger light such as lantern and has more I/O pins to play with.

I’ll be posting threads about the lights when I get around to them… Ahh, so many projects, so little time… And heading for a PC free vacation week on Sunday.

Anyhow, don’t won’t to hijack this thread any more with my off topic clutter. I’ll make new threads when I have something to show.

As you have mentioned, it is hard to get a medium press precisely. I prefer to the original one.

Hi, I know this is way late… but I finally made a version of STAR which uses memory decay instead of a capacitor to measure off time. In case anyone wants it:

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~toykeeper/flashlight-firmware/trunk/files/head:/ToyKeeper/STAR_noinit/

It’s just STAR_off_time 1.3 with the OTC bits replaced by mem-decay bits. No other changes.

Shall I need to set the high fuse to 0xED instead of 0xFF?

I have just tested my build is successful and working well but with 5 warmings. Need not set the high fuse to 0xED. 0xFF is OK.

Hi, sorry, I forgot to include the flashing script and fuse settings. That’s fixed now, and re-published. :slight_smile:

Thanks for doing this, I’m sure quite a few people appreciate it. :beer: :beer:

I played the STAR_noinit for a while. It worked perfectly with my QX5241 buck driver but it did not work with my CL6807 ( similar to PT4115 ) driver. The driver became no memory. I thought may be the 3.3V VCC to the Attiny13A from the voltage regulator is too low for the ram retention. I will replace with a 5V regulator to test again when I am free.

Any chance we can get a version of this with a hidden beacon instead of the hidden strobe?

Is there a standard beacon? I’ve never used a light with one. How long on, off, how many flashes etc?

I’m not aware of any sort of standard beacon, but there are a few I find useful… one is what I call a heartbeat beacon, which flashes in the following pattern:

  • On 5ms
  • Off 245ms
  • On 5ms
  • Off 745ms
  • repeat

Another I find useful is a looping battery check mode, which flashes once for each 25% of the battery’s current charge, then pauses and re-checks and repeats. It’s more like 100ms on-time with 400ms between, and 2-3s between cycles. If left on for a long time, the number of flashes will decrease until the light eventually shuts off.

One more thing to consider is the brightness. A signal beacon should be pretty bright, but a “find the light indoors at night” type beacon should be dim. For the latter, one popular approach is a short (~3ms) flash at a moon or low level every 2s.

The one I use the most is a stutter beacon, used on a head light or tail light while biking or skating. It stays on all the time, but changes brightness to make itself more noticeable. The pattern I use there is:

  • High 5ms
  • Low 65ms
  • High 5ms
  • Low 65ms
  • High 5ms
  • Low 65ms
  • High 5ms
  • Low 65ms
  • Low 720ms
  • repeat

So, 4 brief high-brightness blinks and then it rests at low, and repeats at 1Hz. As for the levels to use, I’ve found that 40lm / 400lm works well, or 7lm / 150lm. There must be a pretty big difference between high and low.

This is what i was thinking.
Although would have to check the timings to see if they are suitable.

Do you want a hidden beacon instead of the strobe? Or a bunch of “strobe modes” including beacon modes, accessible after activating the strobe?

I was after a hidden beacon and no other flashier.

quick and dirty:

static void inline pwm_strobe()
{
while (1){
PWM_LVL = 255;
_delay_ms(20);
PWM_LVL = 0;
_delay_ms(90); // change the parameter 90 to up to 65535(ms you want the light to be off)
}
}

Ahhhh that’s great I’ll try that out after work! Thanks!

You would have to move the pwm configuration code up a bit as well, since you are using pwm here. You could just call strobe2(on, off) instead, with the values you want.

Late to the party, but great find alexvh and DrJones! This would actually work the majority of the time for me as I usually set the OTC to around 500ms. I still have a roll of probably 100 capacitors, so I'll just stick with the "traditional" method, but this is a sweet solution.

Thought I’d update this thread with some info… This brownout method for short presses works a little differently with some of the low voltage MCUs and the “standard” 10uF input capacitor. It takes a lot longer for the memory to decay. Seeing this on the 84V and 85V.

It can be useful for retaining data during long presses with off time cap, but a little annoying when function testing firmware.