Hey guys,
A few weeks ago I got a FC11C and was wondering if someone modded the power button to be always a little illuminated. This would be great for finding the light in the dark. Something like AUX LEDs in Anduril, just not with as many features (e.g. no blinking for battery level, not multiple colours, just a dim glow). I wanted to try it, but was unable to get the driver out of the host.
Also, are there any other mods that you would recommend for the FC11C? Dedoming is fairly popular for the Nichia 519A from what I read.
I thought the old FC11 did that? I have one completely disassembled with the parts in random places. I need to find them all and put it back together.
but I may be confusing it with my SC31 pro, both lights have been torn down for quite a while now. I also did buy an SC31 pro driver to swap into the FC11, but this was all long before the FC11C was even in the r&d phase.
If it didn’t and I am misremembering, maybe someone here or reddit could alter the firmware to do so? or could it possibly be like the TS22 or SC21 non pro where you need to click the button a certain amount of times to cycle through button flash modes?
unfortunately I do not have the FC11C yet, so this comment is probably completely unhelpful. I hope you can figure something out, because an always lighted switch is very nice to have.
I took the bezel of today and there was the backside of a screw visible, so there is something screwed from inside the body. I also didnt manage to take down the switch cover, I feel a little stupid right now.
I didnt find a datasheet for the mcu. The LEDs on the switch are common positive (not Sure this is the right Word). My Plan is to solder a large pull down resistor (like 50k) between ground and the Green pin of the RG(B?) led.
As I didnt See any flashing pads and cant find any information of the mcu, modding the Firmware might be Hard.
I’d say impossible. You won’t get the original firmware out of the MCU and even if you could read it, all you would get is machine readable instructions.
You can find the datasheet for the FT61E0AX here:
Some people worked on reverse engineering the programming interface to develop an open source toolkit for in-circuit programming. Haven’t looked any further, but Google will help you finding some resources.
I’d go the hardware route of getting an LED to stay on all the time. Disclaimer, I don’t have that light and I know enough about drivers to be dangerous.
I’d check for continuity between the spring and those solder joints to the T board. Hopefully one will give you an always-on connection to the battery pos. Then you could add a wire with resistor to one of the switch LEDs.
This is Sofirn IF19 with a GITD tape next to the switch and also a thin strip of the said tape around the inside of the bezel (it works nicely with the TIR lens, not sure how to do this part with the reflector).
This is certainly an option and would have been much faster and simpler.
However, I work as a hardware and embedded developer (everything from pcb design too the firmware) and I cant really accept, that I cant make a simple LED on a flashlight driver glow. Unfortunately, I left my tweezers at work, which is why I cant really do fine soldering this weekend.
I have also thought about designing a replacement driver which supports anduril, as this might be the most interesting option…
It’s probably compatible with the Sofirn SC31 Pro driver, though the current might be too high (so you’d need to limit the maximum power in the firmware ramp table)
That was also my final solution. First I tried to use a 10k resistor on the included LEDs, but that didnt work (the MCU pulls the LED to ground, should have realized that). Then I ran another cable to the switch PCB and added 2 blue LEDs over a 10k Resistor, but that was way too bright. I ended up with 2 blue LEDs and 2 51k resitors on the switch. I wanted to for the symetry.
However I have been thinking a lot about a custom driver, not because this one is bad, just because it might be a fun project. I didnt manage to find any recommendation on how to implement a buck driver for a flashlight. I have worked with buck converters in the past, just not with variable power output. Can anyone here provide some information on that?
Also I would like to include reverse charging over the USB Port. I know its not very usefull with a 18650, but it might be helpful some day.
