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
I think e-switch battcheck is available only in Tom E’s tiny45/85 firmware (eswBrOutCfg) and in my tiny13 single-PWM firmware (Ferrero_Rocher).
I’m planning to make a new one which is hopefully small enough to fit that, but I haven’t really started yet. It’ll be basically a total rewrite to reduce the size, and to make it easier to map button sequences to different modes. I’m not sure how much will fit on tiny13 though.
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Oh, wait. It looks like Ferrero_Rocher does support dual PWM after all. I just, um, have never actually tried it. It’s copied from STAR but is untested in its current form. Anyway, it accesses battcheck by doing a short press from off immediately followed by a long press. (so, off to low to off, then it’ll read out 1 blink per 25% charge)
Ok, apparently I understand even less about this than I thought ( which wasn't much).
I put a cell in this light and ran it down to dead and never go any cut off at all.
I was assuming that enabling line 67 where it says #define VOLTAGE_MON was the LV protection. Is this correct? If not then what?
Also where do I change the value for this at to get a higher cut off?
You probably need to edit ADC_LOW and ADC_CRIT.
To figure out what the right values are, try flashing ToyKeeper/battcheck/ , which dumps out the raw ADC values for any power source it’s connected to. I usually check it once with a full cell and once with a nearly-empty cell, then plug those values in to battcheck.py so it can estimate the values needed for various voltages. It describes more of this process in the battcheck/README file.
RMM posted his google spreadsheet for setting ADC value a while back:
Voltage varies per driver, even with identical components. Identical ones have very small variation, like 0.05V, but with different parts the ADC values can be very different. So, I don’t even try to guess at the values any more… I just measure it.
Ok so I decided to give the battcheck a try. I flashed the driver with it an using a 4.17V cell I got 255. Using a 3.06V cell I also got 255 :( Did this on 2x 1S FET drivers and got the same result so I tried it on a Qlite. The 4.17V cell gave me 182, and the 3.06V cell gave me 13.
So my problem with the FET driver is a component issue? Layout maybe?
Do the readings I got for the Qlite seem right?
Are you sure you got 13 at 3.06V, not 113 or 103? If you keep the power connected to the driver it’ll keep measuring and blinking forever, so you can read the value more than once.
Some example measurements are in readings.txt and readings/*.volts, if you’d like a reference for what to expect.
For example, on two nanjg drivers I got these results:
- 4.09V - 179
- 3.15V - 136
… other driver:
- 4.17V - 182
- 3.00V - 125
So, it’s typical to see values from about 80 to 210 with a single cell.
If you get 255, that’s the highest possible 8-bit value and it means your voltage dividers are probably the wrong resistance… so the voltage being measured is outside of the attiny’s range.
In general, you probably want to adjust the resistors so that a full cell will measure 224 or less, with a really empty cell being 32 or greater. Measurements aren’t as accurate near the edges of its range.
I think what happened is that I was getting 130 for the low voltage. I see that the battcheck will do a "low blink" for the "0", maybe I just did not catch the low blink? I tried it again with a 3.15V cell and got 134.
On the FET driver there are 2 resistors. I have a 4.7K and a 19.1K. I assume the 19.1K is the voltage divider?
Assuming I change that to something higher what other effects is this going to have on the way my board functions?
That’s what RMM’s spreadsheet is for. Check seasam’s link above for the recommended resistor values for various cell configurations.
The attiny needs its VCC pin to get an input between 0.1V and 1.1V. Anything outside of that range is unusable.
Is simply connecting my DMM leads from pin 8 to ground with the battery hooked up the correct way to measure that voltage?
If so this is my problem. I had the same resistors RMM shows in that sheet, but am getting Vbat (3.06v) Even after I jumped the resistor values up much higher there was no change.
The only thing I can think of now is maybe I have another dirty or incorrect trace?
I think that would do it, but I haven’t tried… It’s possible that maybe one of your resistors is bridged or maybe fried. Hard to say. In any case, you can check the correct behavior on your qlite driver… and get a baseline for comparison on others.
For that matter, you could probably measure resistance on each component on the qlite, then check the same components on the other driver(s), and maybe identify which part isn’t working.
Hello ToyKeeper, It tried your Ferrero Rocher firmware with alt-pwm modes and it does not work. It works only with single pwm. When I have for example first three modes only on second output (pwm on first output is zero) it stays off untill I press the button several times over these modes. It would be great if you get to fix it. Otherwise I really like this UI and everything. Thanks.
I haven’t actually tried Ferrero Rocher on a two-channel driver. The only development driver I have with an e-switch is a FET-only driver, so I’m not surprised that doesn’t work. However, I’d like to set up a two-channel dev driver soon. I need to order some things from RMM as soon as I get back home.
Hi, I want to modify star firmware to low-medium-high (or turbo) modes.
I tried to commend out moon mode but I face a step down after 3 blinks, after some seconds on high, of course with a fully charged battery.
Should I change anything else in firmware?
Sounds like it’s hitting low-voltage protection and stepping down. Which it shouldn’t do on a full cell.
You may want to flash the battcheck.hex firmware to check if your voltage readings are sane, and to get numbers to plug into STAR.
Hello everyone, I have read through this thread but have not seen this question answered. Does anyone know if there is a version of STAR with the short cycle mode memory similar to luxdrv? If not, is it possible and how difficult would it be? This is the only feature missing keeping me from using the STAR firmware.
Thank you,
Frank
I don’t think there is, but could you describe a little more about what you mean by short-cycle memory? It seems to get used to mean more than one different thing around here.
I think that style has mostly been abandoned ever since people found ways to measure the amount of time the light was off. So, instead of short-cycle memory, people mostly use a long-press or short-press to tell the light whether to go to the next mode or back to the beginning.