D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

From Oshpark:

It occurred to me that the layout wasn’t optimum

Hey pyro, where did you get your library part for the pot? I want to try playing with it tonight. Yours looks good! So the diode is to protect if the pot is left fully “open”? I’m wondering if it might be better to put a 500ohm or 1kohm resistor for that instead. In the past the diode in series has made the light drop off too fast as the battery gets low.

I can change the pad then people can choose what they use but your right a resistor may work better, but wouldn’t give polarity protection.

Yeah I wasn’t thinking about reverse polarity. I tend to put my batteries in the correct way :wink: :zipper_mouth_face:

Yeh so do I but you never know

.lbr file is here

Thinking of just making an order of some then measuring and making sure before any boards are ordered. What value are we thinking 20k? 50k?

To be able to make it really dim definitely 50K, perhaps even 100k (you can always set it lower)

Polarity protection is only needed with the pot fully open I guess? In that case when setting the pot you have to be careful, when it is set you can just put in your battery the wrong way around with no damage to the tail leds?

I use clear perspex spacers so can get away with even lower brightness and longer run times I’m leaning towards 50K then use the D1 pad to set the lowest available value around 10K

where do you get that perspex? Wouldn’t the LED’s themselves be reverse-polarity protection?

Yes I suppose that’s true. They are the ones from aliexpress

I make the spacers myself, I have a chunk of 2mm clear perspex. Drill a 7.5mm hole, saw a squarish piece around it and then sand it round to size with the disc-sander.

Would you mind posting a link? The link I had in the op originally now redirected to a completely different product, so I deleted it.

Thanks

HERE

Took me a while to find

uhh is the brown just a peel off paper or something? I think that’s the link I had originally, but the pictures used to show clear

Oh that’s not right! Bare with me!

Appears they no longer stock them. I have quite a few if you’re in need.

Found! HERE

lol that looks better. Do those require any trimming at all?

I haven’t had to trim any so far but depends on the light being used.

Cool. The smaller ones from Home Depot I always have to increase the interior diameter a bit to fit over the switch.

What Home Depot dept? I have a step drill.

They’re nylon washers, in the hardware/screws/nails aisle at my home depot. I also use a step bit to drill out the middle.

They’re not exactly clear, but they help to diffuse the light more evenly under the boot at the cost of some efficiency.

Linked at the bottom of the OP