The design-by-committee effect is a very common problem. Much like “a face only a mother could love” is a way to say “ugly”, the phrase “an idea only a committee could love” is a pretty bad insult too. It tends to produce designs which are incoherent because different parts are built according to very different goals or principles.
The opposite is when a single person builds something according to their personal vision, and it is then only useful to that person or to people who think very much like that person. In my field they call it “opinionated software”, meaning “You can either do things my way or piss off.” Like Ruby on Rails. Or, to some extent, most Apple products. If you think different than the designer, you’re out of luck.
This firmware project went somewhere in the middle… research what people want, come up with a single coherent design which attempts to address as many of those desires as possible, then (after it works) publish for review and revision. Granted, the “research” part was mostly a matter of reading the X6 group buy thread (every last post) and a variety of other threads to find out what people seemed to like or dislike about existing products. And making ad-hoc polls once in a while. For topics where people disagree a lot, I tried to make it configurable… but one can only fit so much of that into 1024 bytes. It won’t be perfect for everyone, but hopefully it’ll at least be pretty good for the majority.
If, on a future project, we get a bigger MCU (attiny25?) and an e-switch, that opens up a lot more possibilities. Or if there is massively more space (attiny85), it could even have several different interfaces to choose from. But to make any big changes on the current hardware, you’ll need to reflash it. The attiny13a doesn’t even have enough room to hold the contents of this post. This post is about 2000 bytes, while the attiny has only 1024.
It’s impossible to please everyone all the time. We all know that. I have my preferences as do others, to be honest I’m happy to go with the key people who run this group buy as I know whatever the outcome is that I’ll be extremely pleased. Keep up the excellent work to all involved. It’s a very exciting group buy that appears to be nearing an end.
I’d skip the attiny25 and go straight for tiny85. I put wider spaced pads to accommodate a tiny85 on some of my personal driver designs. But never get around to creating firmware. You can even do direct usb programing of a tiny85 with a vusb bootloader.
Brand X’s latest sample is working pretty much perfectly for me, though someone else’s sample is a little weird. And I think EE’s final samples are in the mail, though I’m not totally sure. Once those are tested and a decision is made, I think that opens the path to send final firmware and start production.
Firmware updates at this point are basically just “set moon to PWM=2 instead of PWM=3” or “make the medium press threshold 0.2s shorter”. Plus I suppose swapping battcheck and bike flash. It’s just tiny tweaks to get things as close to spec as possible.
Thanks for not taking personal preferences as selfless opinions.
I will be happy with the configuration of the software if the batt check is before or after really. Thanks for taking the time to ask us all what we would like and making the best decision you can with what you have to work with.
I’m not sure if it’ll fit on any current FET+1 drivers though, since space is pretty tight. The main appeal of the tiny25 is that it fits onto the same pads as the tiny13 yet offers twice as much ROM. I think it might even be pin-compatible.
BTW, Mike C has been doing a lot with tiny85 firmware, I think. Or maybe tiny84, I forget. Maybe I can convince him to send me a copy for the repository, and then you (or anyone) can use it? I think he totally reassigned the pins though…
But that’s all kind of a tangent. I hope the BLF A6 will go into production soon, and that future drivers will include bigger MCUs.
I just feel that while I am fairly new to all the flashlight stuff I have picked up here, I am still not to the “flash it yourself” level. I guess I will be like the others here in a year or two when I have stepped over the threshold and can do flashing and build PCB’s etc. But right now, I am not, so I cannot change the batt check to go behind the Turbo myself… So my vote was for the turbo first…
And once again, my sincere appreciation to all that are working on these issues. Thanks for developing a great light…
A dual sided board would probably do it. Crazy amounts of tinkering and optimizing have been done to the design to get it all to fit on one side by Wight, RMM and others…
Excuse me a moment while I hand the mic to my cousin. Green hair runs in the family…
…
New and improved BLF products! With a new secret ingredient: Luminex! Now, let’s go over to our blind taste test. Uh-oh. He don’t look happy. He’s been using Brand Xfire. But with new and improved BLF brand, I get a grin again and again. That luscious tan, those ruby lips, and hair color so natural, only your undertaker knows for sure. I know what you’re saying: where can I get these fine new items? Well that’s the gag. Chances are, you’ve signed up for ’em already! So, remember, spread a little sunshine, and put on a happy face!
How will the bike flash work? Is it going to be a medium mode with a pulsing high?
I have some friends who are interested in some for bike usage, if the bike mode is on with a brighter pulse they want an extra 2 units.
It runs the 7135 chip steady at 100, producing about 140 lumens. Once per second, it “stutters” to 100 on the FET chip, which bumps up the output to about 1400 lumens. The “stutter” is actually four very quick bright pulses in a row. Overall power usage is about 400 to 450mA in this mode, so it should run for close to 6 hours on a 2500mAh cell.
I’m one of the people that have no use at all for strobe, but the Bike Mode is Much Needed in the Daytime. - Any of you that rides a bike on public roads will know what I mean.
I don’t bike but I’ve used this mode when walking on the road, you get a good amount of light to see your way and the flashes are easily noticeable to oncoming cars. I’d also use it if I have to change a tire on the side of the road, the flashes are short enough that they aren’t blinding but they are very noticeable.
New and improved BLF products! With a new secret ingredient: Luminex! Now, let’s go over to our blind taste test. Uh-oh. He don’t look happy. He’s been using Brand Xfire. But with new and improved BLF brand, I get a grin again and again. That luscious tan, those ruby lips, and hair color so natural, only your undertaker knows for sure. I know what you’re saying: where can I get these fine new items? Well that’s the gag. Chances are, you’ve signed up for ’em already! So, remember, spread a little sunshine, and put on a happy face!