Any form of reference to loneoceans would go a long way in this situation. I’m not remotely an expert on the technical in-ands-outs of open source practices, but there are basic intuitive things that I’m sure many people feel on the topic regarding giving credit. I know if you want to get technical or philosophical you can justify anything. I don’t think you are entirely in the wrong for taking an openly shared design, doing value added work with it, then again sharing it openly in the same thread. But at least a small-font shout-out to loneoceans would really be appreciated by many here, including him I’d bet.
One thing I want to throw out there is that using poor tact and creating silly controversy here can be something to leave a bad taste in peoples mouths. I would hate to lose contributing member’s participation over anything like this. I hope the timing of LO’s silence in this thread is just a coincidence.
A few days ago after a hard work, i mount lume1 and rGb on FW3A…
nice…very nice…very efficient driver instead the original.
I put Cree Xpl 3000 90+ CRI and I am in love…
I have a question for turbo… why goes down so quickly? Seconds…
I had the same issue with the lume1 driver I installed in my LM10 months ago. When I turned the light on in turbo I got a sharp stepdown 3-6 seconds after turn on, even with a cold light and fully-charged cell.
I asked about it in the lume 1 thread and was told this was expected behavior. The driver was optimized for maximum efficiency in intermediate modes and not turbo.
This disappointed me, because turbo mode was unusable. And based on how I mostly used my FW series lights, that meant the lume 1 driver was actually worse than the stock FW3A driver.
Perhaps the issue was fixed in the updated lume x1 driver, which I understand also fixed the lack of reverse polarity protection. I haven’t checked.
This is the correct answer. The standard FW3A also immediately starts dropping but due to PWM you dont notice it right away. You can raise the temp limit a little or try a bit lower drain battery but nothing will get more out of such a thin/light host.
The driver excels best at medium modes up to 3A where you will get a longer runtime by comparison.
I’m not quite sure that’s really what’s happening.
A light with a large copper star in a thick chunky LM10 titanium host should not step down due to heat after just 3 seconds of turbo. I doubt if that’s enough time to even make the temp sensor in the driver lukewarm.
… yet that’s exactly what happened with the Lume 1 in my experience. I was not impressed.
Also note:
attempting to trick the driver by setting the thermal calibration so it thinks high heat is actually room temperature made absolutely no difference. It still suffered a massive stepdown after a few seconds of operation.
Same for whether the light was turned on with the head already hot or completely cold. No difference… still massive stepdown after a few seconds of operation.
The Lume1 is probably a great driver for someone seeking primarily to run their FW3 series light more efficiently on intermediate and low modes. But it’s an inferior choice of driver compared to stock if you primarily run your light on turbo and and as a secondary consideration wanted more efficiency on lower modes.
If the problem is a premature temperature stepdown caused by lack of pwm’ing the fet, perhaps that could be fixed with future programming. The lume1 would be better if it improved on the stock driver, without removing that driver’s functionality.
Agree to disagree. Any size TI host is a horrible choice for turbo especially one like this.
While there may be some way to get you closer to what you want you are probably better off just putting a stock FET driver in and flashing the latest Anduril which some say handles stepdown better.
Regardless, if Turbo is your mode of choice you need a bigger light or the original driver and a glove.
Nope turbo is fine in a small host like this. Especially so for the LM10 which has more mass in the head than an FW3A. The light can still be held safely from the back and the extra heat won’t damage the light in any way.
Sure I can’t run long in turbo. And the head might get too hot to touch. But getting even 20 seconds of turbo followed by imperceptible rampdown is a vast improvement to losing 50% output after just 3 seconds on turbo like happens with the lume1. With that kind of stepdown why even bother installing a FET on the driver in the first place?
Because everyone demanded it and thought there was no tradeoff? If you want PWM free in all modes with the other benefits of buck this is what you get. LO said he was unable to get stable PWM in that design so Turbo is a bonus.
I think the only middle ground is going 3S MCPCB with a higher power boost driver so you can step down more gradually while still getting middle modes more efficient.
That may be true, but the final implementation renders the FET basically useless. Yes, people wanted FET turbo, but this isn’t what we had in mind.
I’m not an electronics engineer and can’t comment on the feasibility of making a design work. But as an end-user it is fairly obvious that the lume1’s implementation of FET turbo fails to deliver a useful turbo mode.
That might work. I notice the Acebeam TK17 comes with a boost driver and has the LEDs wired in series.
With some firmware changes Turbo could be slightly better. Currently it is using standard Anduril thermal throttling which was tuned for the normal use-case. Some small changes could be made so that it holds Turbo a little longer before the first stepdown.
You must understand that the first stepdown will always be a big jump - not a smooth descent - because intermediate “levels” between 3A and full-FET simply do not exist in this driver.
Personally I don’t care about turbo. Once the thermal throttling works well at max ramp (and everywhere below), I am happy.
The lume 1 is an excellent driver if you mostly use your light at 3 amps or less. In those modes it is far superior to stock. If you want a little light while walking the dog this is the driver to choose.
However, if you’re like me and mostly use your light on brief bursts of turbo, with maybe the occasional extended period at 3 amps or below then the lume 1 isn’t for you. It just doesn’t have a viable turbo mode.
Thank you for answer Varbos
“exceeds the limit”? … ok
38 degrees is a limit? Maybe not for me.
50 or 60 degrees is limit but never reach almost with fresh batteries
So why i have to set temperature limit if it never reached up?
Anduril has predictive throttling. When it sees that temperature is increasing towards the limit, it requests a lower level.
This behavior was designed for flashlights with many closely-spaced output levels. For example D4v2 the Turbo is level 150. After 5 seconds it can go to 149, then 148, then 147, etc. Small output changes that are not noticeable to the eye. Toykeeper spent years tuning this behavior.
With lume1 driver, when you are on full-FET (Turbo) and you want to reduce output, there is nothing possible except a big drop to 3A.
It is what it is.
Because the flashlight could still overheat on max-ramp 3A. 3A is a lot for such a small flashlight.
I’m not completely familiar yet with the Anduril thermal settings, but a few ideas:
If the FET can’t be PWM due to audible noise then switch to 8bit so that it can be switched at higher frequency.
Or put the ceiling at a lower level e.g 130, enable the FET from 131 to 150, if it works as explained by varbos above then the light won’t throttle down until it reaches lvl 130, that’ll teach it.
Or use lume-FF Code , if I understand correctly it uses a higher ”extra” temperature for turbo.