Flashlight Firmware Repository

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.

So my flasher arrived today. I ordered these items:
http://www.dx.com/p/343981
http://www.dx.com/p/268210
http://www.dx.com/p/80207

And it works but … if you look at the clip it got tighter pins than normal female cable pins. Arrgh, but I managed to cut the plastic on the clip around 10mm and bend the pins and then it bloody worked to fit the ribbon cable. :slight_smile: Otherwise the clip seems to be of decent quality. So I managed to get my code in order too, used the one byte reads as suggested by ToyKeeper and got it to work. Got a compiler warning when using a line from blf-a6 but managed to fix it with this:
eep = eeprom_read_byte((const uint8_t *)(uint16_t)eepos);

Don’t ask me exactly why it should be like that, I found the fix on the net somewhere. :slight_smile: Finally there is a simple firmware too, code here:

Bugfixes most welcome. :slight_smile:

The compiler doesn’t fully understand the memory model on the attiny, or that the eeprom address space only has 64 slots, so it expects a 16-bit memory pointer and you’re passing it an 8-bit integer. This is totally fine, but the compiler is confused. You can turn off the warning by putting this somewhere in the code:

#pragma GCC diagnostic ignored “-Wint-to-pointer-cast”

My fix works without increasing size so if compiler is happy I’m happy already. Oh yeah forgot to say, as it turns out eeprom_read_block is just a wrapper for eeprom_read_byte so it’s basically the same thing.

Edit: Damn fast pwm is nice! No more friggin buzzing pwm modes. A big thanks to all who started this driver flasher thing. :slight_smile:

Ok, I have investigated this now. If you enter sleep mode power down all pwm output is shut off. However, full output (255) is not shut off. I found a solution to that and if you make all your pins input (0 bits) all output is shut off. So to properly shut off as much power drain as possible you should first shut off WDT and ADC and then you set pins to input. After that you can enter power down mode. Too bad there is not a power off mode that takes care of everything already.

Sounds like it could also be a race condition… if the PWM wave is high, it stays on; if the PWM wave is low, it stays off? So if PWM is set to 128 it might have a 50% chance of shutting off?

Just a guess.