comfychair-inspired quick+cheap+lazy single-sided 17DD FET-driver (poor man's nanjg92)

Hi RBD,

Good news!! I put an AOD510 on one of the boards from illumn.com, and it works. Some pics:

- Removed 7135s:

Positioning the AOD510 FET:

About to test:

Success (4.0 amps test):

My new collection of used 7135s:

My conclusion is that there was something with the drivers that I got from FT (a long time ago) that made it incompatible with the FET.

Thanks everybody for your help!!

Jim

EDIT: RBD - I’ve been using a heatgun to remove the 7135s….

I should get some of those, but had this project in mind for this long weekend, and I only had the 2 FT drivers and 2 of the ones from illumn.com (latter were the ones that finally worked).

Best (= cheapest/fastest) source for AK47 drivers?

The 2-set for 2.5 dollar from dx is sold out for a while. I just bought some from banggood without memory (ak-47-C1), but perhaps for the ak-47-A1 with memory fasttech may be the cheapest: https://www.fasttech.com/product/1122400-3-amc7135-4-group-25-modes-led-flashlight-driver-c

I should’ve asked earlier: Do you, or anyone else, know of a driver that can be modded with FET that has mode groups that can be changed via clicking, rather than having to solder the stars?

That was one of the reasons I wanted to get the FET working with the FT drivers I had (the ones that didn’t work).

Thanks,
Jim

So…

This is very interesting, but because of my extreme lack of electronic-parts knowledge - Is there anybody who can write this down for a dummy?
What to buy, what to solder, where to solder, which driver works (Original Nanjg-105C from Simon?)

And… is this useable with the Zener mod on MT-G2s?

The MT-G2s that most of us use are 6V devices (there are other versions). The “Zener mod” takes advantage of the 7135 spec’ed as being able to work up to 6V, but the MCU is not, so the “zener” part of the zener mod cuts down the > 6V input voltage to voltage that the MCU can withstand.

The MOSFETs that are being used here are spec’ed much higher than 6V, so they can continue to work even with the 6V that the MT-G2 needs, but I guess design of the “splitter” part of the zener mod would need to be adjusted (again, so that the voltage to the MCU gets reduced).

I think that’s conceptually what’s involved anyway :)….

Responding to your 1st paragraph:

See post #140,

As to which driver works, I think that, theoretically, almost any of the 7135 type drivers should work, which is why I was kind of thrown off when the two drivers I tried didn’t work. There was some discussion somewhere about different PWM frequency, but I’m not convinced that that was the only reason why the drivers I tried didn’t work, since I scoped the PWM out from the MCU and that was constant (now PWM wave). So maybe it’s what someone (RBD? Or FmC?) said that maybe the MCU on some of the drivers can’t drive the MOSFET Gate input?

That was just a wag on my part about the mcu and FET gate charge as I’ve no data to back it up. Glad you got it working and stuck it out. It can be frustrating at times. This one from CNQG has switchable mode groups. IOS used to have some but not any longer.

Do you (or anyone else) know for sure that that CNQ driver will work with a FET? What I’d really like to know is a driver that is known to work with a FET AND has mode changing via clicking.

The pic shows an atmel Attiny 13A. If that’s what you get then it’ll work. Haven’t ordered from them in awhile as they are a bit down the list of chosen suppliers for me simply because of the spotty checkout process(often doesn’t show a processed payment even when paypal does) but they’ve always come through for me in the end.

You do mean mode groups rather than modes! correct? The one linked has only two groups rather than the four usual with stars.

Yes, sorry, you’re correct. I meant mode GROUPS…

Yes, it works and you have some reading to do. It is written, all over the place, how this is done. Plain and simple version, buy a nanjg driver that uses an Attiny 13A mcu and has a UI that you like, desolder all of the 7135 chips and solder the gate pin of the FET of your choice (RMM has several to choose from) to the pwm trace, FET source to ground, and led- wire to the FET Drain tab. The Zener mod replaces D1 with a 200 ohm resistor and solders a ~4.5V Zener diode on top of C1. As was pointed out above, the nanjg ak47A is a better choice due to the number of vias for led current to pass through the board but there are numerous Oshpark board designs that surpass it or are made to fit a variety of hosts.

Edit- RMM will also sell you a board and kit of parts for both FET and Zener builds as well as an mcu with your choice of ui’s. Not as cheap as overseas but good quality parts, fast delivery, and more choices in one place. He also answers questions.

Hi,

I ended up ordering some of these from FT:

https://www.fasttech.com/p/1186301

and I’ll try them with the AOD510 and another FET when it gets in. If that doesn’t work, I know that the drivers from illumn.com work, at worst (but no mode GROUPS via click). I’ll post back here when they all arrive and I get a chance to try them.

Removing 7135 chips is fairly easy with an adapter like this one (cut from copper sheet):

Any tool that can help is very good idea. Nice tool.

About 7135 removing trick without any special tools...

Tin front single pin of 7135, put solder on iron and pin and while holding soldering iron in one hand give it gently (not savage press I really mean gently) push with toothpick from rear 3 pin side of 7135. In one moment it will pop off from driver and probably drop somewhere on the floor.

Of course driver have to be in some kind of bench vise for this method.

Now that I’m close to being ready to burn firmware, I was wondering if there is any other firmware that can be burned to the NANJG MCU that works with a NANJG-92 FET?

Check out ToyKeeper’s flashlight firmware repository.

So my question is if you convert one of these into a FET driver (done it 3 out of 4 times successfully) can you just leave one of the 7135’s (the one at the end of the Atiny13) on to have a FET+7135 driver, then flash it with new firmware to get regulated lows?

I don’t have the flashing stuff yet, so just a question…

See post #61 - Major apparently did that, but I think he also had to mod the firmware.