D.I.Y. Illuminated tailcap

there's (ok, relatively) loads of space on the back of the top board to do some fun stuff: a KIT-light with a round-running led

I’ve got a plan and it involves thirteen 0805 sized pads

Oh my..

PD is on fire!

I’m afraid to order some boards, because the next day PD will have a newer, even better version up. :smiley:

I thought a bit about the MCU-controlled tailcap, the circuit shouldn’t be that difficult. Kinda like a 105C reversed without the AMC’s. Don’t know if caps or diode are necessary, though. LEDs could be driven directly by the MCU, right? Don’t know if that fits on one single board. MAybe a smaller footprint MCU to go under the spring or so and some traces and vias to programm it in system. Man, I have to get into this Eagle stuff…

Dude, you are on fire! Does one need to use 2 pots or just one? Are these way to bright for the bedside now, or can they be adjusted down very low?

I know, here I go again with questions…

Matt

I think with this stacked board we just might be able to fit an attiny up there. The rest of the circuit would be easy, but I would have no idea how to code it.

You can definitely get them down low. I helped Dale with resistor values to adjust his special editions. He got them down to 0.14ma draw. I recommend the 50k pots. On my board you can use just one pot, but it’s a little useless without the mini slide switches.

NICE!

But I admit, I’ve no clue how to code it, too. Something like Battcheck maybe…

As for the stacked board, you think the LEDs would go right under the boot? It’s the thing that presses the tailcap boot against the housing to make a sealing, right?

yes, this ring replaces the washer, putting pressure on the bottom of the boot to seal it up. I measured the tailcap area to make sure there were clearances for everything set up for 16mm boot. On that note, I might recommend ordering these in the normal OSH thickness, instead of the thinner type they just announced.

I’ll try to draw up a board with an attiny tonight, then we can have some leverage to convince the firmware people to write something for us :wink:

Thanks PD!

For 14mm boots the components might not fit under the boot?

14mm would be tight. Right now everything on that pcb is inside of a 14mm invisible circle around the center. However, 14mm is the outside diameter of those boots, so inside the button is probably more like 12mm. I could do a simple one to fit that size, but not one of the more complicated ones I’m going to work on tonight.

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You can definitely get them down low. I helped Dale with resistor values to adjust his special editions. He got them down to 0.14ma draw. I recommend the 50k pots. On my board you can use just one pot, but it’s a little useless without the mini slide switches.
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Why is it useless without the switches? I would not mind a low draw all the time… Has not hurt me yet.

I’m looking forward to see what you’re going to work on. I’m going outside now, walk around with some lights. Have fun!

I meant on the Rev4 and Rev5b boards. They need the switch populated to complete the circuit and work at all. I still have lights with Rev3 boards too and they work great.

Rev5b Osh links have been taken down to make way for an improved (and much more complicated) version, hopefully tonight.

Alright, who wants to guess why there are so many pads for this one?

Or how about this one?

But, what controls it or for that matter supplies enough power to it?

ehhh not exactly.

Btw, I had to go to 0603 pads for that top one to get it to fit inside the 14mm radius.

Guess away people, I’ll explain the top one tomorrow. The bottom one should be pretty self-explanatory

I finally got mine working for the most part. It was the 100k pots. The 10k pots are working great. After the light gets heated up really good at the end of a turbo run, It will jump low-hi-low-hi-strobe-bike flasher-beacon-... But if I drop to a lower mode or shut the light off for 30-45 seconds it cools down and everything goes back to normal. I'm using 200 ohm bleeder resistors still so maybe bumping that back up to 4-600 will help?

I measured parasitic drain at .06mA, then the lowest I could get the LEDs to light up the amp draw was .16mA, then with the LEDs as bright as I could get them the meter read 1.9. I set it to around a .5 mA draw and it seems about perfect. Not too bright at night and very faint in the daytime.

Wish someone could make the LED lid up in pulse or beacon mode instead of constant on.