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

Thanx! Dunno - it is pretty weird - I'm only using 22 AWG wire too, but maybe you're right - something hot bout the T6 4C's... Yes, I thought the X6 SE's (3) I got with the T6 4C's were doing pretty darn good too. And I like the tint of the 4C's - definitely more neutral than the 3C's when look'n at them side by side, and no rosy tint as some of the D's have.

I find it so interesting how we all seem to like so different tints the best :slight_smile:

I can’t get enough of the 3D and i really like that hint of rose, but find the 3C & 4C way to yellow and/or green.

In NW anything below the BBL i like much more than anything over, i haven’t seen enough WW to know if that trend continuous there also, but i wouldn’t be surprised if it does.

And i know some people genuinely like 1A the best, but in my eyes it feels like someone is slapping my eyeballs with that harsh blue light :smiley:

I wonder if it is some natural bias in our eyes that does it or the environment we live in or something else that is making certain tints look more pleasing to us.

It ticks me off you got 1 more amp than me. I even went back and fed the driver with the twisted pair 12 ga wire right off my PS, bypassing the clicky switch. 5.8 amps @ 4.2 volts. Is that new FET THAT much better? I’ll have to buy some. I have no idea the bin XM-L2 I have on my bench heatsink. It’s probably in the 5000K color range. It was a pull from a donor flashlight.

On another note, I got rid of the blinkies in the hidden mode. Now there is just battcheck. All I did was change this:

#define NUM_HIDDEN 4
#define HIDDENMODES BIKING_STROBE,BATTCHECK,STROBE,TURBO
#define HIDDENMODES_PWM PHASE,PHASE,PHASE,PHASE

To this:

#define NUM_HIDDEN 1
#define HIDDENMODES BATTCHECK
#define HIDDENMODES_PWM PHASE

Now a medium to long press at ML goes straight to battcheck. I’d like to say I did this all on my own, but TK told me where to look.

Hmm I’d suspect your lower current has more to do with your emitter than your fet

The FET doesn't make hardly any difference, since we're only talking about 0.001 to 0.002 ohms difference between the 0.004 and 0.005 ohm variants to the SIR800DP. I have tested them back to back, and I found very little difference---so little in fact that I couldn't say that it was statistically significant.

Some of it is probably from the spring bypass, but the rest of it is probably due to the LED's vF. Also, LED Boatguy, you probably will never see the same amps on that huge heat sink that you'll see inside of most actual lights (the heat sink keeps the LEDs cooler; heat decreases vF significantly). There is also a huge difference between different LEDs.

Boy, I gotta double check, and verify with different cells, but I did do mutiple tests and saw in the 6.45A range multiple times. Could be one super low Vf LED - hit the LED lottery or something...

I've seen this before, where I get great #'s, then can't reproduce it with the supposedly the same components, same design. I agree with Richard - my #1 cause would be the LED. However, it's still interesting that I thought these new L2 LED's melt/die over 6A, so this one appears to not only obtain high amps, but survive it. Edit: maybe I'm wrong - maybe the new L2's peak early but don't blow up - can't recall, djozz tested this out I believe... I could be getting output beyond the max peak at 6.45A...

The ones that blow up "early" won't usually even hit 6A direct drive with a single cell. You can usually only blow them with a buck driver or other higher voltage power supply, since a single cell just can't provide enough voltage.

I have seen some LEDs lately that are pulling more amps than those from a few months ago. There seems to be some batch to batch variation going on. It's hard to know what you're going to get.

No GND ring on both sides (component and spring) on all three driver boards that I just received from OSHPark.

I see that I am not alone since LED Boatguy and Tom E have had soldermask problems also. I’ll email OSHPark support as suggested above.

Any idea why our boards show such variation in fabrication results? Just curious.

This driver is my first attempt at a driver build. I’ve been watching this thread and the EE A6 BLF thread quite a bit.

Thanks!

I almost wonder if there is something wrong with the Gerbers. Too many problems just to be a coincidence at this point, unless you all got them from the same panel.

fyi, this was the ticket communications I had with "Dan" at OSHPark. Interesting read:

-------------------------
Hi!
For order #nnnnnn, for these boards: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/7sNNyipn, all three came with an error where the bottom should have exposed copper circle of 10mm, instead, it's all covered in purple. Others have ordered these same boards without this problem. Any ideas what happened? Can anything be done to replace the ones I received with corrected ones, or is there something wrong with the project files?
Thanks!
Tom
-------------------------
Hi Tom,
That's really weird. I'll get a new set of those shipped out to you. Doesn't appear to be anything specifically wrong with the project files, although Alex's boards have a slight history of confusing the bajeeezus out of the fab. I think this is the 4th design of his I've seen that has some random issue that comes up. Fortunately, they seem to pop up once, and never happen again.
-Dan
-------------------------
The replacement boards I received had no problems, but RMM - you could still be correct, there's something goin on confusing the fabrication, probably based on where in the panel it is, and/or what it's around.

Just received an order of these boards, and all seems to be well. I could've overlooked something, but everything seems to be where it should.

I know that in the past there have also been mask issues with some of wight's other boards as well, but I can't pretend to understand what is going on there since the gerbers and renders look alright.

I have ordered 3 batches of this board and personally haven’t had a problem with them, but I have seen inconsistencies with other boards from Oshpark.

I will say, Oshpark customer service is the best I’ve ever talked to. Knowledgeable, personable, and non-robotic.

I have had huge differences in silkscreens (precision and cutoff) and sometimes some minor milling errors, but never a huge mask issue like this, and I've ordered thousands of boards.

but were they the wight boards? Smile Dunno, maybe something bout what he does is technically correct and follows the rules, just confuses the panel fab software/system on occasion... Dan from OSHPark is sort of implying that.

Agree though - their support seems excellent, as shown in my copied response from them above. I got those replacement boards pretty quick too, like they put a rush on them.

No, they weren't wight's boards (that was the point I was trying to make).

Yes - I know, sorry, sarcasm Innocent. Ohh - got a couple of your RMM Mtn boards in - really like the design, like having those ground rings fully exposed and significant in size. Don't think you are offering the FET+1 board yet - would love to see one. Not sure if wight will be back, and actively supporting these in the near future.

Btw, 1000's is totally insane!! Those kind of #'s... Just can't get much sleep, 24/7 "time to make the boards"...

I think these boards are pushing the envelope as to what they can do. Here is my response from OSH re: solder mask over the ground ring:

Not knocking Wight in any way. OSH is happy to fix their mess up. My boards got put on a “Super Swift Service” panel today.

Checked this afternoon and the order has gone to fab again.
Good response!

Virtually every board I have of Alex’s has most of the batt side ground ring covered up. I simply scrape em clean and move on. Some of them have way too much exposed at the batter contact, completely eradicating Alex’s name and the BLF statement as to the version number.

But they work. They just take a minute or two more to build. No biggie when you’re only doing a few at a time.