The sot-416 is a tad smaller still than the 323 but still manageable. About the size of an 0805 component. Need HAR or a fine tip iron. If anything needed to go under the switch I’d make it these bits so the R’s can still be adjusted, they’re less than 1mm high. It’s possible to make up the difference by going with a fab that does .8mm boards instead of Oshpark.
I like the 2-tone cap, Jos. What kind of drain do you see through the circuit?
Hello everyone, my package from RIC arrived today, but unfortunately it is very wrong. Was sent glow switch boots in lieu of clear. So basically I ordered five things, and only one was correct. Two items didn’t even make it into the shipping package.
I have no patience for dealing with such incompetence. Would someone be willing to part with one or two clear switch boots? Is Malaysia really the only source for clear boots? I have not had luck finding any. I’ve even seriously considered making my own, but it would be expensive and a hassle.
On a positive note, I have lots of glow boots. The first six people to PM me your shipping address I’ll send a 14mm and a 16mm boot for free. I’m certainly not going to use this many.
* Edit: I was thinking USA shipping in a standard envelope for .29¢ stamp. I’d be happy to send anywhere in the world, if you would pick up shipping cost.
01 MW
02 GS
03 DW
04
05
06
You do not have much luck with this, Dan! I do only have a few clear rubber caps left (I cracked a few when cutting back the pillar: they are more brittle than the usual silicon caps), so I do not have a few spare for you. In fact a few days ago I ordered extra from Ric but have no high hopes for that after reading your story.
I think the components of the current simple circuit will still fit next to the switch, but it must not get much more complicated.
I was curious about the drain too, I just measured it: only 178 micro-ampere through the three leds combined. So that will light for half a year on my 700mAh 16340 battery :-) .
That's RIC! He gave me some sort of VIP membership on his old site for various mess ups, but of course now that's worthless. Maybe that's why he created a new website? 
I ended up having to drill holes in the existing washer to make it work, could not find the nylon washers on the way home. I will find them, I think the light will be more even. I ended up using 4.7k resistors and Lighthouse LED super bright blues. I could not believe that it worked the first time, I can't hardly see those parts leave alone handle them. I did loose 2 led's in the process. I think I would like to find slightly higher resistors, maybe 5.1k, but this is working ok. I did not put on a bleeder resistor, this is a Convoy S2+ with a 105c driver. The blue leds do shut off when the light is turned on.
Hey pilotdog68, thanks for being patient while I barraged you with questions! I may have a few more when I try it with a FET driver and have to deal with the bleeder. :)
I can see doing this to many of my lights, the GITD stuff sucks just does not glow very long.
Matt
Slight update on my blue/red/yellow led tailcap:
a solder joint broke off from the schottky diode so I lost the yellow led, it's back to red/blue. But consequently a situation was leftover with 680 Ohm bleeder, 22KOhm before the red led, and 5.6kOhm before the blue led, this situation with higher resistance on the red path was not checked out before. As expected, the blue led is now brighter compared to red, but also the blue led does not go off between 3.9V and 3.8V (like before, when both resistors before the leds were 5.6kOhm), but now between 3.4V and 3.3V. So it works very well as a low voltage indicator now :party: (I removed the entire yellow path now).
@mattlward: at what voltages does your blue led dim/die ?
I will check that tonight. 22k was not to high for the red? Both of my resistors are 4.7k. If I remember reading correctly, in the default config of the latest board they are fed independently. Will have to go back an look.
Matt
Just a hint for the cnqg site I get always an error if I surf the main url directly with my iPad. I have to surf to a specific product link to get the site working, this is the case since forever: mobile site is broken…
I built mine with 2 4.7k resistors and did not cut the trace through the middle, I am not going to take the switch off just to cut it either. It seems to work well, but I am not sure what the resistor led network looks like now. Pilotdog, do I have resistor/led/resistor/led or do I have resistor/resistor/led/led?
Matt
[quote=mattlward] I will check that tonight. 22k was not to high for the red? Both of my resistors are 4.7k. If I remember reading correctly, in the default config of the latest board they are fed independently. Will have to go back an look. Matt [/quote]
With 22K, the red is a bit dimmer than blue but still very visible (thanks to the low voltage of red leds). In the latest board they are only fed independantly if the middle trace is cut.
You effectively have a 2.35k resistor before two parallel leds, should not be different from two separate resistor-led paths unless the leds differ a lot (like in my case a red and a blue led with large Vf difference)
Yes the resistors on the newest boards are parallel, so Djozz is correct with his numbers. You could also just take one of the resistors off imstead of cutting the trace.
But, I am surprised that they are not brighter. Would the number of 7135’s have an affect on the bleed to the tail cap? I only have 6 on the 105c in this case. I would not want them to be any dimmer.
Matt
I’m getting closer, but no success as of yet. The BLF switch works fine out of the body, but won’t work when assembled. The torch worked fine the first time, and the second time I put it together it was constant-on. I did put a bleeder resistor at the driver.
I’m pretty sure it is a grounding issue with the hold-down collar for the switch PCB. But it was late last night by the time I got to working on it again. I’ll do some more hunting with my multi-meter to see how I can fix it.
On another note, I used the larger Omten switch on the 20mm board. I finally got it to fit with reducing the diameter of the PCB to 19mm, but it was too tall for me to use the hold-down collar. I swapped the switch with the smaller (Omten 1288?) and it has the right height. I am reusing the nylon washer that came with the solarforce S12. It is/ was a cylinder with a closed end, but I made it into a flat washer.
No the 7135 have no effect because they are switched off when the tail cap is lighting up. Only the resistor between positive battery and negative(flashlight housing) is important. On nanjg the standard values are 19100+4700=23800ohm and an Schottky diode in series.
And then the additional resistors on the tailcap pcb.
I never have thought that this big resistors would still let the LED light up but it works.
I just checked my tracking and it seems that the translucent caps have arrived in my country. 
Just checked a qlite that is installed in a flashlight (12chips but those should not matter) and I measure 56kOhm between driver spring and flashlight body (dunno why I do not get 24k, Werner). That is 100 times the bleeder r that I use, and 10 times the resistors used in the tail. No wonder that the leds are dim when the bleeder is left out.
Good that you checked that…
On standard nanjg there is also an additional Schottky diode between I guess that gives problems measuring resistance. Now we can be even more impressed that the LEDs in the tail light up…
On some Fet drivers the voltage divider is directly connected to the positive pole.
Here is a schematic from a nanjg which comfy chair or so made once:
The blues die at about 2.54 volts and are very dim by 3.0. I do notice that with the tail cap on a power supply set at 3.5 volts the leds are not all that bright, about the same as the leds installed in the light.
Just checked the draw on the tailcap only with a fresh battery, I am getting 607 microA. I am getting 48.7K ohms across the driver.