Flashlight Firmware Repository

Well, the timer is set to arround 1.5minutes- then it ramps down to 50%, the FL body gets only warmer this way ….plus when its mounted on a weapon it lights for usualy 10 seconds tops- i use simple momentary on self made remote switches, made from thick Cu pads: found that those are most reliable, especialy with all that forest fog and moisture

The 7135 thing……you might be right, i have to try the 024 version out then

Once again, 10x for that 1mode version, i waited for this long time

Most likely not. :slight_smile: But, you can have all the mhz in the world, if it’s slow reading from eeprom it’ll still be slow. Look, I’m not saying it’s too slow reading byte by byte. I thought it was faster reading 8 byte blocks but if it works reading byte by byte that is a simpler solution.

Got it, I take it you mean something like this then: void set_output(uint8_t pwm_lvl) { if (pwm_lvl > FAST_PWM_START && pwm_lvl != - Pastebin.com

Is it possible to paste code directly in the forum?

Ish. I normally use phase-correct on moon and turbo, and use fast for everything between. The pulses are longer with phase, which makes moon more stable (drops less with voltage).

But if it doesn’t bother you, you could use phase everywhere. I don’t like the whining sound or visible flashing, but not everyone is sensitive to those.

Getting rid of buzzing pwm modes are my main motivation for writing my own firmware. But was thinking about something else. How do the different sleep modes work? SLEEP_MODE_IDLE just seems to be doing more or less nothing. I’m more curious about SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN though. Does it turn off the output? If you run a special mode like ie strobe it could be a bit tricky to turn it off manually otherwise. You only got a few bytes to play with so would be nice if output is turned off automatically when going to SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN.

TBH, I haven’t really optimized much for sleep mode. I have some relevant patches waiting for me to merge and test, but I haven’t done it yet…

In sleep mode the PWM counter stops, but I haven’t specifically tested to see what that does when I don’t set it to zero first. I expect the emitter would stay on if it’s not turned off before entering sleep (which is a trick I use for the standby light on my Roche F6, but first I set it to a special non-PWM low mode).

Interrupts can wake up the MCU from sleep mode, if they are enabled and a relevant event happens. Touching the e-switch is one example, or the watchdog timer can do it too. So for low-power shutdown it’s usually a good idea to disable interrupts too. On e-switch standby though, at least the switch interrupt needs to stay on.

Hey thanks for the tip. By adding c99 to the makefile and using inline for a few functions that only run once I managed to save 40 bytes. :slight_smile: It looks like c89 is the default you get. Using c11 didn’t change anything for me though.

Sorry, I’m still a total noob at this. Is this close to what would need to be done? The purpose is for my XinTD X3, i want to have one mode group for 18650, and one for use with 3x alkaline AA’s. So I don’t need LVP for the AA’s.

What is the lower PWM limit where you switch between phase-correct and fast?

Interesting. I never looked at the E-switch versions of Star. I coded my own E-switch routine by changing the watchdog timer to the fastest and have the switch test in my main while(1) loop. It may have made the logic pretty easy but I guess it’s not a power efficient way of running things as my entire main routine with voltage monitoring and all gets executed a whole lot more. Has anyone done any tests? Or maybe this stuff can be found in the datasheets, haven’t looked at MCU power consumption at all.

Close. You used a preprocessor “#if”, which runs at compile time. What you need instead is a regular C “if” which runs during regular operation.

if (some condition) {
  do this;
}

Other than the syntax, I think you nailed it. The whole LVP clause just needs the “if” around it so it’ll only run in one mode group. :slight_smile:

I use phase for moon and turbo only. The threshold is whatever level I need for moon. Usually I calibrate this per-light, using whatever gets me closest to 0.3 lm. However, if the two nearest phase levels are too far apart and a fast PWM mode gets closer, sometimes I’ll use fast instead.

I doubt the MCU power consumption is a significant factor when the main emitter is on. I mean, it normally spends most of its time in busy loops… so I doubt it matters if you check things more often.

As for e-switches, I’ve been meaning to write a new e-switch code base from scratch. The approach used in STAR works and is compact but makes it relatively difficult to handle or map events. I’m hoping instead to keep an event queue where actions can be mapped in more intuitive ways. For example, “if (events_eq(triple_click)) { blah; }”. This might require a bigger MCU though; my early experiments ran out of space quickly.

After using cypreus2 on a real light for a day, I decided the hidden modes were in the wrong order. I updated it to make things a little nicer by default. Here’s the new interface:

I still have 70 bytes left to do something with, but I’m not sure what. I know I don’t have to fill all the space, but maybe there’s something worth adding? I might be able to fit soft-regulation for moon, to make it more stable at different voltages…

BTW, the reason it has two turbos is because it’s running on a light which goes well beyond the sane limit for power in its size — 10 to 15 amps in a little 18650 tube light (2200 to 3300 lumens, depending on the hardware). That’s the same as a Skyray King or Supfire M6, only in a much smaller host. This is configurable in the firmware, of course, but I don’t want to melt my nice new hotrod.

In this case you may want to consider renaming 'Max Turbo' to 'Nitrous'!

I think that if you go to SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN output should be turned off, hopefully. Found this pic:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/\_9WOJMofzxU0/S9PyagiuISI/AAAAAAAAHY8/tGlOUPRmano/s1600/Picture+1.png

So turn off WTD and go to SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN should be enough to turn off as much as possible. But will test when I get my flasher.

Also remember to turn off the ADC...

Looking at the picture i posted earlier that should not be needed. Hopefully the power down mode takes care of that already.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that chart shows the wake-up sources from the various sleep modes, and doesn't imply that all other systems are disabled.

This is an excerpt from the ATtiny13A datasheet (doc8126):

"7.4.1 Analog to Digital Converter
If enabled, the ADC will be enabled in all sleep modes. To save power, the ADC should be disabled
before entering any sleep mode. When the ADC is turned off and on again, the next
conversion will be an extended conversion. Refer to “Analog to Digital Converter” on page 82 for
details on ADC operation."

As I understand it ADC is turned off in power down mode. It is still enabled but it doesn’t run. If you leave power down mode the ADC will start working again.

Edit: I posted the wrong pic earlier, this is the right one for attiny13: http://we.easyelectronics.ru/uploads/images/00/04/62/2011/05/02/646e36.png

In my testing, I was able to see quite a difference in current draw during sleep with and without the ADC disabled.

It's worthy of a quick test.

Hmm ok. Just checked, it only takes two bytes to disable adc explicitly before enter power down mode. But it would be nice if not needed. And also not needed to fiddle with the pwm output too.

Edit: It seems that you are right my fellow yank. :slight_smile: Technoblogy - ATtiny Low Power
“I confirmed that the ADC uses about 320uA in sleep.”
ADC does take some power even in power down mode, so it should be disabled first.

Measurements trump theory, and Crux was nice enough to measure a lot of code for power use. :slight_smile:

I still need to fit as much of that as possible into various firmwares. Like, the blf-a6 code only has two bytes left so I should probably use that to shut off the single biggest remaining power drain after LVP.