Thanks to the input of several in this thread I was able to manipulate the code for a 5 hour shutoff on a light using the STAR firmware.
I recently had the timer fail. Instead of shutting off as usual, the light kept running.
Any ideas why something like this would happen?
This was on a light that you had tested working previously? A momentary power glitch or inadvertent MCU reset would be enough to reset the timer.
That’s a good point. It might be a good idea to add a “noinit” attribute to the timer variable, and only set it to zero on boot if the offtime capacitor (or noinit-based offtime sensor) says it was a long press. This would allow the timer to keep counting after a short press or brief interruption.
RMM - yes this the timer on this light had been working. Since I posted yesterday it has failed once again. I’ll test again today to see if it continues to fail.
Toy - as always thanks for the suggestion. I may reach out for a bit of clarification on the specifics of implementing this.
I’ve flashed another circuit with the 5 hour timer for testing and have also had this one fail once in about 10 cycles.
Any additional thoughts here?
Many thanks
It really sounds like it might be resetting or rebooting or something, dropping the timer back to zero. But it’s hard to say for sure.
You could try looking at STAR_noinit for an example of how to let a variable keep its value during short power blips. It might help.
Hi. I am building a driver fet + 7135. I want to flash the firmware of toykeeper blf a6. I want to achieve around 100 lumens on low mode using the 7135 but i don’t have equipment to measure the lumens. Anyone knows what value should should i put ex. 150/255?
What emitter?
xml2 u2
Ok, so according to Match, you get 100 lumens at around 200ma. He tested a T6, but lets assume that the extra gain from the U2 is cancelled out by losses in the lens and reflector.
So 200ma/380ma*255pwm = 134pwm. That should get you close.
That emitter, at 350mA, should put out about 140 or 150 OTF lumens. So, for 100 lumens you’ll want the 7135 chip running at about 69%, or about 175/255.
This is a very rough guess though.
You can get the PWM levels from bin/level_calc.py, if you have the ability to run python scripts. For example, this calculates 9 evenly-spaced levels from 0.5 lm to 1400 lm on a FET+1 driver:
(~/src/torches/trunk/bin/)-]> ./level_calc.py 9 1 8 1400 y 3 0.5 145
1: visually 0.79 (0.50 lm): 0.00/255, 3.00/255
2: visually 2.09 (9.17 lm): 0.00/255, 18.11/255
3: visually 3.39 (39.03 lm): 0.00/255, 70.19/255
4: visually 4.69 (103.24 lm): 0.00/255, 182.17/255
5: visually 5.99 (214.95 lm): 12.30/255, 255.00/255
6: visually 7.29 (387.33 lm): 43.76/255, 255.00/255
7: visually 8.59 (633.53 lm): 88.68/255, 255.00/255
8: visually 9.89 (966.70 lm): 149.48/255, 255.00/255
9: visually 11.19 (1400.00 lm): 255.00/255, 0.00/255
PWM1/FET values: 0,0,0,0,12,44,89,149,255
PWM2/7135 values: 3,18,70,182,255,255,255,255,0
Thanks for all your suggestions. I think i’ll try in-between what pilotdog68 and ToyKeeper suggests, i’ll try 155. Thanks
Do I understand correctly, the only way to get mode reversing is with a light built around a momentary switch? So a partial press of a tail cap switch will not work to reverse? Please explain this if you can… I am trying to get reversing on a 105c.
I have compiled and flashed standard Star and it does not seem to back up…
Thanks Matt
With STAR that's correct. ToyKeeper was the first one with a firmware that could do reversing with a clicky switch. Take a look over at her repository.
To do reversing on a clicky switch, you’ll need an off-time capacitor… which the nanjg 105c drivers don’t have. You can add one, though.
With an unmodded nanjg, the best it can do is detecting “short” or “long” button presses by checking whether the attiny’s RAM has decayed or not.
For reversing, it needs to detect short/med/long presses, so you can go forward/backward/reset (or forward/backward/mem).
TK, would it involve a modified BLG-A6 firmware or is there one already written? When I use lights and night, more often than not I want a very low mode and would love to go from ML to low and back without being required to go thru high. All of my FET and FET+1 have gone to a slightly modified version of that firmware, except for 1 that is a ramping driver.
I did not get time to pour over the firmware site last night, it may be right there in my face. So, I apologize up front if it is obvious.
Matt
It just depends on what you’re looking for.
I have nanjg-based lights (with no physical mods) which let me use moon and low without having to loop through turbo. For example, my CNQG brass 18650, for which I wrote brass-edc.c. It uses a short press to go forward or a long press to reset to the first mode. There are no hidden modes or config options, but after turbo there are a bunch of blinkies for various purposes.
There are also options like TheStar, which implements hidden modes by requiring you to go through the main modes twice quickly in order to access any blinkies.
Anyway, there are options.
When using the star off time firmware what exactly happens for the low voltage protection?
I see that it says "Low voltage ramp down and shutoff" in the OP, but at what voltage does the light ramp down and to how low, and also what voltage does it cut off?
Also how are you guys able to set low voltage protection for a 2 cell zener moded FET driver? I see this is an option on RMM site.
It has been a while since I tested that code, but IIRC it drops one level at a time until the lowest, then shuts off. The specific voltage it uses depends on the driver it’s running on and how the code was calibrated. It should be somewhere near 2.8V though, give or take like 0.4V depending on the exact hardware used. I think the default is calibrated for a nanjg driver, so your FET driver will probably have slightly different values.
To make it work on a multi-cell light, you’ll almost certainly have to re-calibrate it yourself. Tools for this are in my code repository under battcheck/ .
Hi guys, I successfully uploaded star momentary to my flashlight and it works fine. However I miss battcheck mode from clicky star firmware. Is there a modded version of star momentary that includes battcheck mode. I need to be implemented in the newer version of star momentary with dual pwm output though. Is it possible to do battcheck in momentary firmware at all? Thanks