Moved from the interesting discussion in the Wurkkos TS26 thread
Just have to say I love this exploratory discussion! Even if various ideas are impractical or won’t with, it’s great to see them discussed from everyone.
Now that I pre-emptively excused the interjection of my novice thoughts… feel free to be as brief as possible, I don’t mind homework
Why only in the medium-high part of the ramp? I assume because we’re talking about voltage-based sag from high current draws?
What causes the sag at medium-low ramp levels? Am I wrong to think at output/current levels, voltage drops less and thus the measurable battery voltage would be more correlated with the drop in output, and thus correctable by a LUT?
Thermal regulation as output regulation a pretty wild idea. It works on high output levels because the thermal target is reached quickly, then Anduril utilizes their PID controller to try and match the target (much better than manufacturers I might add which have nasty underdamped swings in output).
I would love to see someone try this on a fork as so many lights have the same steady-state output for the highest several modes. The temperature targets could just be defined by deltas beneath the current max temperature threshold.
As for medium-low modes, there is some period of time ramping up before thermal steady state, so it doesn’t seem like it would really work? It depends on many factors, some from the flashlight (starting temperature, surface area, thermal mass, and other heat dissipation factors, emitter efficiency, etc) to environment (temperature, airflow, humidity, thermal mass of environment, etc). But many scenarios and targets it will just never reach the thermal target. It would be odd for the output level depend on environmental factors, but I suppose it’s not that much worse than the output depending on the battery level.
I suppose for non-low levels that are likely to hit a steady state, it could start at a pre-defined level and then transition to thermal-based regulation.