I've been doing a fair bit of experimenting lately – from drivers to drop-ins to complete lights. I burnt through a fair bit of time and money and in an effort to justify some of that to my significant other I've reworked some of my simpler experiments and would like to know if anyone is interested in the results.
I have 3 different ‘offerings’ that are all aimed squarely at the DIY crowd.
Two are simple AMC7135 dummy boards. Both are 20mm in diameter. The first board can hold 16 regulator chips, while the second can only hold 12. I envisage these boards being used in projects where chip stacking is typically attempted, though given their 20mm diameter they will mostly only be usable in larger mods like MagLights etc. Basically the boards are able to hold the chips natively - no stacking and a cleaner look.
The difference between the two is as follows:
The 16x board (8 each side) has small solder pads for wire attachment, and no designated ground pad. You need to ground the board via the contact ring running around the edge of the board on both sides. It still has an LED+, LED- and PWM solder pad.
The 12x board (6 each side) has large 1.5mm through holes for GND, LED+, LED- and PWM solder points. It’s more robust but loses some regulator capacity to achieve this.
I am undecided if these would come pre-installed with the AMC chips or not. Blank boards would be $1 each, and populated boards would be $8/$10 (12x/16x). I'd prefer not to have to populate them, as even with a re-flow station (which is the best cash I've ever spent!) it takes a significant amount of time...
The final offering is a complete AMC7135 driver. Specs are a little different from the norm. It’s basically a beefed up and higher quality version of the classic 8x7135 driver:
17mm max diameter
10x AMC7135 chips
ATMEL ATTINY 25V MCU
Thermal sensor
Cell voltage detection
Reverse polarity protection
5mm diameter center spring contact (so you can use decent springs)
Incomplete driver (missing a resistor and the 6x 7135 chips on the back side):
The driver will also come pre-loaded with firmware from DrJones and is thus user configurable (2 mode groups, configurable number of modes, different mode types, configurable brightness, thermal protection, LVP etc). There is also a solderable joint on this driver, and when soldered to ground it locks out the programming menu. So you can set the driver up as you see fit, and then lock it all in. Simply de-solder the joint and the menu will be available again. Alternatively the blank PCBs can be used as dummies for a small 17mm 7135 board if the 20mm boards are too big for your purposes.
I have no idea what the price of this driver would be at this stage. If I was to sell these they would be manufactured on an assembly line, and the price will be heavily dictated by estimated demand. That being said I am hoping for less than $10 a driver.
Just to be clear this is an interest thread only. Any prices mentioned are estimates only. I just want to gauge whether or not these are worth producing in numbers. However, in the case of the complete drivers I am busy building 18 of them by hand so once these are programmed I will try and sell them anyway.
If there is not enough interest in these components to justify me pushing on with larger numbers - but you still want some - please PM me and we can see if anything can be worked out.
Whoops - yes they are 17mm. As I eluded to in the original post they should be a straight swap for any existing 7135 driver. The added memory in the 25V (over the standard 13V) chip also allows for a lot more code on the driver, so the possibilities for those that like to tinker with their firmware (beyond what this will do on it's own) is greatly increased.
i would be interested for 2-3 pieces for blank board.
will the kaidomain driver chip (atmel style) work on those ?
how much will cost worldwide shipping?
I would be interested in a few of the complete 17mm 10x7135 drivers, these are great! (but I will never be anyone's big customer I'm afraid) Will the 7135 chips be of the newer type (380mA, so 3.8A total) ?
Do you mean blanks of the 17mm boards? The footprint is good for any S0-8 package ATMEL chip, and the pin outs are the same so yes you could use the KD micro-controllers (which are ATTINY 13V's) hoever these would need to be re-programmed as the functions of each pin may differ.
[quote=djozz]
I would be interested in a few of the complete 17mm 10x7135 drivers, these are great! (but I will never be anyone's big customer I'm afraid) Will the 7135 chips be of the newer type (380mA, so 3.8A total) ?
[/quote]
Um, I have a whole bunch I got from fastech but I think they are the 350mA bin chips. If I do a proper run of these I intend to use the 380mA chips however.
[quote=gords1001]
I'm certainly interested in the drivers, how quick can you get some to England?
[/quote]
Well I'm building 18 by hand at the moment. Provided they work they will be useable relatively soon, however DrJones is scheduled to start working on the firmware soon - so that's not even started yet (though seen as it's simply an 'evolved' version of the firmware he offers already it should not cause any issues. Touch wood!)
Possibly, though as I stated in the original post these boards are all off shoots of something I tried previously that have been re-jigged so I can try and get some of my cash back haha. I do plan on developing a driver more specifically design for multi-emitter builds in the future, however as the project these all came out of is still on-going, I will wait until it's finished before pursuing that little nugget :)
Very interesting driver, good for those higher output projects. I usually do not mind adding a few chips, but having a 10x board al ready to go would be nice too.
