Lol, yeah it’s crazy how over 50 pieces the price increases just a little bit I even watched that 75 could be cheaper than 70. If you were in china you could resell those mcpcb.
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Nice job man, what flashlight is that and how’s the tint?
What you guys think about an UI like this? for mechanical switches example s2+.
The percentages are incorrect, they’re just for spacing reference between modes.
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Imo all the shortcuts need to be >4 half clicks, otherwise when you turn it on and directly want to click it to mode 5, you end up in turbo or batt check instead.
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Not even 3 half clicks to turbo? How comfortable do you feel doing 4 half clicks to turbo and do you like the mode spacing?
Half clicks must be faster, right?
Hmm, that’s an issue too… 4c might still be okay, 5+ begins being annoying!
The spacing looks good to me.
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If Simon were to do a new buck driver with this mode spacing and either (3 half clicks turbo - 4 half clicks to batterycheck) or (4 half clicks to turbo - 5 half clicks to batterycheck), will you prefer this UI over the 12 groups UI or viceversa?
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The first choice could be a driver like the one you describe, with the following remarks.
The most frequently used shortcuts, have to need less half-clicks for activation.
So, if we want to ‘spend’ the 2 half clicks for turbo, i would then suggest:
3 half clicks: Strobe
4 half clicks: Battery check (with two digits flashes like anduril’s would be ideal, the 5 regions’ Convoy already has otherwise)
5 half clicks: Beacon. Beacon is needed for emergency were you want to give a signal once in a while or for the bicycle.
One could argue that the backwards movement is also useful (to go to previous mode), so we could spend the 2 half clicks for this purpose, moving everything else one half click up.
The number of available contant modes AND the levels of those modes should also be configurable. 5 modes are too many.
If we discard all the above, the other choice would be a Convoy ramping-like driver, by which we go everywhere with shortcuts. In this case, we should also have the ability to select the number AND the levels of each constant mode and also maybe rearrange the special modes. Someone could argue that he needs battery check more frequently than strobe, so he would want to place it less half clicks apart from him. In short, one could assign to each shortcut, anything he wants. Add constant current driver, thermal throttling based on temperature, good low voltage warnings and automatic shutdown on specific low voltage value and we have an almost perfect driver.
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I think that mode spacing is good. on my non-mounted convoys, I think I run group 5? iirc there isn’t a group that has 0.1 and 100% without blinkies? I may be wrong.
my two mounted and potted convoys, a C8 and an M1, I’m running the group that has 100%, 20%, and 1%, group 6.
nevermind, I lied. group 2 has 5 levels between 0.1 and 100. but I usually find myself using either the lowest mode or like the third mode up, and they’re not exactly what I want all the time.
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The mode spacings are quite good; as other users suggested, it would be good to (1) make special modes require more clicks to access, and (2) make the number of modes customizable.
I really like the continuous selection of the Convoy ramping driver, and think that my ideal UI (minus the special modes) would be:
- Option to select anywhere between 1 and 5 modes
- Once the number of modes is fixed, each mode’s brightness is independently customizable via continuous ramping.
- Option to toggle memory
Aside from moonlight, the range between 1% low to 100% turbo can be broken into 20 even logarithmic steps of x1.26, which should provide enough granularity for anyone.
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I just wish the Convoy e-switch drivers had 0.1-1-5-10-35-100% in the main mode rotation, with possibility to disable mode memory.
Heck, just making moonlight reset the last remembered brightness would immensely improve the UI
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Have a copy of S21E on hand, and the UI feels awkward and can be easily improved with a few minor tweaks:
- Make the min/max of the ramp meaningfully different from moonlight/turbo
- Remove memory of turbo
- Enable ramping from moon (which is functionally almost equivalent to removing mode memory)
Of course, Anduril, even simple mode, would be ideal.
For mech switches the types of signals the user can relay are much restricted, so the UI cannot be quite as rich. But I find my proposed UI better than anything currently on the market.
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To me, 6 levels total is too many. I prefer 3 modes, or 3 sustainable levels + moonlight + Turbo, so at most 5 levels:
- Moonlighy 0.01%
- Low 1%
- Medium 5%
- High 25%
- Turbo 100%
For turbo shortcut, most UIs have it with double click, so this UI should follow sound standards too. 3 for batt check also makes sense, similar to andruil. Strobe should come after batt check, as you dont want to strobe yourself accidentally checking battery.
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Making levels user-settable would be ideal.
@QReciprocity42 Yes andriil for e-switch lights is what we need!
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I’m curious what compound is suggested for potting flashlight electronics. I have a c8 in-bound that I intend to try as a rifle light - so potting for recoil mitigation would be ideal. Thanks!
Is this the appropriate stuff? HT916 Silicon Thermally Conductive Sealant
edit: this stuff is recommended for coating drone electronics - IDK what would be better this vs the tube of sealant
https://www.microcenter.com/product/690196/mg-chemicals-silicone-conformal-coating
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I’ll start off by saying that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend what I did. I have a tan C8, SFT40 5000k, 3V8A buck mounted on a rifle.
I used flowable clear car window silicone (VersaChem brand, white and blue tube, bought from O’Reilly) to pot over the driver components. so far it has held up just fine, and it’s been a few years. I can try to look at pics to determine an actual date range.
this is one of the rifles that I am not gentle with. I want to push it to failure, just to see how long it’ll go without.
the light has been absolutely fine so far. granted, it’s only an intermediate caliber rifle so no huge recoil, but I’m surprised it’s held up perfectly fine.
I have an M1 with the same driver, emitter, and silicone “potting” on a different one, same thing with it.
I would recommend actual electronics potting compound though, because it will be better at thermals than flowable silicone. Which specific compound? that’ll have to be answered by someone else from their own experience.
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I don’t remember him not posting for longer than a month before.
Which of the T-series lights has the best performance with Lithium Primary or NiMH cells? I was thinking about an emergency light for my Go-Bag.
Convoy T4
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I’ve seen Kafuter K705 recommended somewhere–one can grab a 45g tube off Aliexpress for $4.
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