...necro-ing an old thread of mine....
...and renaming it :-)
1.5 years ago I suggested using the set-up of the intl-outdoor RGBW driver for a new BLF driver design. I can't do electronics, I can't do software, I only know Ohm's law and have a veague idea what a transistor does and a FET, so I hoped that it was picked up by someone. Well, no one did so I did some hacking of the driver myself today and was quite succesful sofar. Perhaps this raises interest after all to do something with this driver?
What did I do?
*There's 4 channels, the stock user interface starts with channel 1, half press for channel 2, half press for channel 3, half press for channel 4, en then some uninteresting blinky modes.
*Each of the 4 channels is regulated by a transistor that is directed by the MCU for on/off and a resistor between MCU and transistor for the amount of current (stock resistor is 911 Ohm, for a current of about 700mA for each channel, the exact current is a bit dependent on the type of led).
*For channel 1, 2 and 4 I tweaked the resistors: 39kOhm for channel 1, 4K7 Ohm for channel 2, 39kOhm for channel 4
*On channel 3 I removed the transistor and replaced it with a FET (I had a small N-channel FET that I got from Cereal_Killer in a distant past). I also halved the stock resistor to 455 Ohm by soldering a 911Ohm on top (for historical reason, the FET also worked on 911Ohm). I have no idea what a FET needs and what comes out of the MCU, but it just worked
*I made a triple with a XP-L Hi 7A1 led, an Oslon SSL80 4500K 96CRI led, and a Prolight Opto PK2N pc-amber led.
*I connected channel 1 and channel 3 to the XP-L, channel 2 to the SSL80, and channel 4 to the pc-amber led.
*I got the following currents on a purple Efest 14500 cell: channel 1 ~30mA on the XP-L Hi, channel 2 220mA on the SSL80, channel 3 3.45A on the XP-L again, channel 4 ~30mA on the pc-amber led.
So the UI now is: start on XP-L low (estimate 10 lumen), half press for SSL80 medium (estimate 50 lumen), half press for XP-L high (estimate 600 lumen), half press for amber (estimate 5 lumen). And then some weird blinkies, but a slow half-press always brings back the first mode. I will know the outputs exactly when I have build this in a S2+ shorty sometime in the future. Every output is without PWM btw, and in the process of tweaking I was able to make a very low moon too, using 1MOhm.
I have no idea how this driver modded like this holds up in use in a flashlight, but I'm pretty surprised that everything I thought out worked just like that.
further progress in post #14