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.
By short cycle I mean upon switching from a locked mode, the light defaults back to the first mode in the mode list instead of the next mode in the mode list. I hope I’m explaining this correctly. It was always a great compromise between having mode memory with many modes and not having to scroll through all of them to use the first few modes.
Will this method also work with regular clicky style lights? It would be great if so!
Thank you very much for your input ToyKeeper.
Frank
Yes, offtime memory works only with clicky-style lights.
With short-cycle memory, it uses on-time. The light comes on, then if you tap the button (cut power) within the first second or so, it knows that it should go to the next mode. Then if you leave it on longer than a second or two, it locks in and the next tap will go back to the beginning of the sequence. I used this interface on several of my lights, such as early versions of s7.c or brass-edc.c.
I think you might be looking for “off-time no-memory”. With that, it doesn’t care how long the light was on. If you tap the button for a short time, it will go to the next mode. But if you leave it off for a longer time, it will go back to the beginning of the sequence. So you can easily jump to the next mode, regardless of how long the light was on, and you can also get back to the beginning pretty quickly too.
I normally set the boundary between “short press” and “long press” at about half a second.
In addition to that method, I’ve also become fond of a 3-way split instead of just 2 ways. So, it has a short press, medium press, and long press. Short goes to the next mode, medium goes to the previous mode, and long resets to the beginning. This allows navigating the mode sequence both ways, and additionally allows having an entirely different sequence if you go “backward” from the first mode. Here is a diagram showing that interface on a popular BLF light:
Why is there a dual switch version, the tail cap click switch would just kill power to the whole driver. I can see where one could take out the mode selection that puts the driver to sleep… Is that the whole point of that version?
Thanks matt
Sure, one switch is a hard power disconnect while the other is just a little electrical blip… but with two buttons you can do a lot of stuff which isn’t possible with just one button.
For example, when turning the power on (via hard power switch), you could make it do different things depending on whether the e-switch was up or down at the time. Or use the clicky switch for momentary control while the e-switch ramps brightness up and down.
Are the PWM channels reversed from the BLF-A6 firmware to STAR? To clarify, “star 2” controls the 7135 in blf-a6, and in STAR, that leg is the “ALT PWM.”
I tried STAR firmware on the A17DD-L FET+1 driver but I am only getting one mode.
Edit: I think I’ve determined the answer is yes. I swapped some values and I get modes:
In STAR, I swapped values of lines 108 with 113, and 119 with 120.
default 108: #define STAR2_PIN PB0
default 113: #define PWM_PIN PB1
default 119: #define PWM_LVL OCR0B
default 120: #define ALT_PWM_LVL OCR0A
Edit: #define CAP_THRESHOLD in STAR seems to be having no affect on the offtime function. I am not sure why. Tried values from 110 to 255 and it always took some 7+ seconds to reset the modes.
The stock “OT” labeled cap on my board looked bridged across the top with a very conspicuous blob of solder. I wasn’t sure if this was intentional from the factory so to troubleshoot I removed the “OT” cap from the A17DD-L and the board does take way longer to reset the mode to low; 10+ seconds. I then stuck on a 1uF cap that I bought from mtn and it performs as the stock one did as far as I can tell; 7+ seconds before reset.
Update: Actually, with the cap removed the modes don’t revert. It is always next mode from the last used mode.
That doesn’t sound like a match for what flucero28 is asking about. I was under the impression that short-cycle would work with either ontime or offtime, it doesn’t depend on the method of memorization.
Let’s go with offtime for an example though:
That’s how I understood short-cycle.
Oh, yeah. Short-cycle with memory is weird, especially if it’s ontime-based. Does anyone like it that way?
I’ve never tried it. Conceptually offtime + no-memory sounds better to me for my uses. With that said, offtime+no-memory can probably be a huge drawback on a light with lots of modes. I tend to run only a few modes, but if I had 20 modes I might want memory + quick access to the first few modes. Short-cycle fits that description.
I haven’t had good luck with the short+medium+long-press stuff. If I was able to use that reliably I think that would be a better solution to the same problem.
If the button timings aren’t calibrated well, it can definitely be a pain. The X5/X6 aren’t calibrated well, since they used hardware three months newer than the firmware and there was no opportunity to calibrate it.
I use offtime no-memory on most lights, including basic nanjg drivers with no physical mods. I prefer to have an OTC though, for a deeper UI with faster ways of getting to the modes I want. It’s nice being able to reach moon, low, med, and turbo all within one second. I almost never use any other modes (except blinkies).
The main exception for me is e-switch lights. On those I like smooth ramping with memory and shortcuts to min/max.
I face a problem with lvp in a zener modder 105c driver. On driver there are the 2 standard resistors plus a 2000 resistor replacing the diode aside led+.
After suggestions from this thread, I used 141 & 151 values for 2s setup.
Unfortunately, after checking with my power supply, I have no lvp, xhp50 is dimming till 5v, without mode step down.
Any ideas?
… flash battcheck.hex onto it and let it tell you what the attiny sees at different voltages?
Measuring is far more effective than guessing. 
The battcheck/README file explains how to measure the voltage range, among other things.
I did this, both in a Attiny25 version (over 1KB code) with more advanced features like luxdrv has - strobes and batt check, and a 13A version without strobes and battcheck. Not posted yet anywhere, but love the 25 version of it - have it in a BLF D80 and a NiteFighter F30B and it works great! Should post it up somewhere - well tested at this point.
I was always a fan of short cycle memory, specially for 3-4 mode levels - phrase probably coined by Dr Jones. 4 mode levels is my favorite for this setup.
I’ve kind of wanted to try out short cycle memory ever since I first heard of it. Sounds like it could be useful.
You get memory of the last used mode but you always know where you will start off if you start clicking. For example if you have ML,L,M,H,Turbo and you need low just tap twice (while pressing the flashight head against your thigh to block any bright mode). Even if you don’t recall what mode you last used, 2 taps will always get you low.
Say you have a light with moon, low, med, high, and turbo, in that order.
If I understand correctly, reaching low mode from off, using “offtime no-mem”, would mean “click, tap”. Using “offtime short-cycle” or “ontime short-cycle”, it would mean “click, tap, tap”. Is this correct?
Let’s say the light was used for a couple minutes in low and you do another button tap. In “offtime no-mem” this would go to medium. In “ontime short-cycle” this would go to moon. What is the intended behavior for “offtime short-cycle”?
Yep, that last sentence is what you get, and why you want it. The main purpose, as I understand and use it for, is to have a light w/memory first of all, but doesn’t force you to cycle thru the high modes, and blinky modes following high modes - high mode is extremely bright on most of my mods, and for general use, is not what you want to flash through.It doesn’t work well with 6 or 7 modes because of the amt of clicks to get to hi, in my opinion, but is pretty darn nice for 3-4 or less, plus blinkies. I suppose you could add long press handling, and add reverse navigation, or long press going to hi, on top of short cycle w/memory - might be a pretty cool combo.
I haven’t had much luck with consistent long presses on a clicky light, or if it works somewhat reliably, it’s timing is quite different from other lights - cold is different from warm, etc., while e-switch lights are rock solid, and easier to use. I got 6 KRONOS lights now running bistro and the long press timing varies light to light, cold to warm, it’s very confusing…
Correct.
Intended behavior for “offtime short-cycle” would be to go to medium, if I’m not mistaken. In offtime mem, short-cycle shouldn’t be come into play for button taps. Only full / long clicks (which discharge the OTC below the threshold for a long click).
Now, I’ve never had or used a short-cycle light so this is just from my understanding of them.
It’s a pain, isn’t it?
Using the best available components helps reduce the temperature sensitivity, and getting drivers from a high-quality source (or building them yourself with a consistent method) helps reduce variation between individual units. But even in the best case it’s still not as consistent as an e-switch.
Two improvements under discussion at the moment are replacing the OTC with a bigger cap plus a resistor (to make the drain more consistent) or attempting to make the MCU detect power-disconnect events, go into super-low-power mode, and keep running long enough to measure button timings. Both are likely to require hardware changes, and the last one might not even be feasible since a 22uF C1 is probably not big enough to run the MCU for more than a few milliseconds.
For personal use, I just calibrate the OTC individually for each light, using a metronome, with drivers from RMM. That gets them about as close to ideal as currently possible.
On the other end of the spectrum, Manker’s drivers are particularly inconsistent and often pretty far out of spec. 
As for offtime short-cycle, I guess I was wondering which specific conditions should reset it to moon:
Or should it behave more like TheStar, which cycles through regular modes but not blinkies? That is, unless the user quickly cycles through all the regular modes twice. So, it short-cycles back to the first matching regular mode, but does not specifically short-cycle back to moon.
The only short-cycle UI I’ve actually used is the ontime version, which is fairly straightforward.