Mini-review: Noctigon M44

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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That’s good data! Do you know/remember what models? Even one would be useful – I worked with PICS a long time ago and now I’m curious to see what is being used in flashlights.

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That would be THE day!!! :joy:

Seriously, if/when you progress along that road, please post and tag me so I’m sure not to miss any – there’s a couple of lights I would very much like to andurilify myself, and seeing your exploits would certainly be not only instructive but inspirational.

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Acebeam E70 : PIC12F1823
Thrunite T1 : PIC12F1823
Sofirn IF25 : PIC16F1824
Wurkkos FC11 : PIC12F1822
Zebralight : PIC16LF1705

For the ones I can check from my pictures and in my driver bin.

edit : here’s an Olight with F1824 : Reddit - Dive into anything

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85

Wow! Thank you profusely for the data!

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Taking that one as an example, I see the cheapest costs $1.35 ea., best price on Mouser (at its largest order quantity of 546(?)): https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microchip-Technology/PIC16F1824-E-JQ?qs=4f%252Bx0JRcgJbohJ4cdF4aRg%3D%3D

And the AT1616 with the same encapsulation (to try and avoid distortions due to that) costs $0.79 ea. at the nearest quantity of $100: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microchip-Technology/ATTINY1616-MNR?qs=HXFqYaX1Q2yKNpuKQU9qww%3D%3D

So it doesn’t look like Sofirn and others using this PIC are doing it to save costs. Why, then? Do they hate Anduril so much they’d pay more just to make it impossible for us to use their lights with Anduril? OFC that makes no sense.

I’m sure I’m missing something… perhaps whatever source they buy from in China has incredibly cheaper PIC prices and/or incredibly more expensive ATTiny’s?

87

nearly no flashlight manufacturers use Attiny’s before or after Anduril existed and it probably has nothing to do with it. I don’t know the reasons, maybe Chinese devs are more accustomed to working with PICs or something.

edit : the T1616 is also cheaper than older Attiny’s
In the case of Zebralight, they use the internal Op-Amp of the F1705, Attiny with Op-Amp are pretty rare.

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88

I believe there are loads of PIC clones and bootlegs available in china.

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89

You have not problem with the dentist😂

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Agreed. My “manufacturers use PICs because they hate Anduril too much” hypothesis was just a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ way of showing how paradoxical the situation is.

I don’t know the reasons, maybe Chinese devs are more accustomed to working with PICs or something.

ok, so it could be some kind of inertial/traditional/cultural bias favoring the use of PICs.

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91

And (if I follow you correctly) clones/bootlegs for ATTinys would be less available and/or more expensive, which would tend to disfavor their use vs PICs?

Hummmrmmrm… now that’s an interesting hypothesis.

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Seems likely to me, when you have a whole toolchain and dev workflow set up for one chip. Probably a lot of copy/paste code reuse going on too, I’d bet.

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93

I just finished some digging on that hypothesis:

  • Went into Alibaba.com (which is the nearest thing I know in China for buying parts in volume like flashlight manufacturers do, and not from necessarily authorized/official resellers), and searched for the exact same parts I had previously searched on Mouser.com;

  • Winnowing out the obvious scams, fakes and buyer traps (photos that didn’t match anything like the parts in question, parts selling for $0.01 quantity-one, etc) these were the cheapest I could find: PIC16F1824-E/JQ for $0.50 ea. in >1000 quantities, and ATTINY1616-MNR for $0.32 ea. in >500 quantities.

  • As a side note, there were many more offers for that AT1616 than the PIC – so not only price but also available supply, both favors the AT1616.

So it seems that even in China’s “greyer” markets, the AT1616 remains significantly cheaper than an ‘equivalent’ PIC (scare quotes on `equivalent’ because OFC the AT1616 is a vastly superior MCU).

So, unless there’s a significantly different market somewhere over there in China (dark alley deals in Shenzen’s danger districts, anyone? :wink:) it seems the above hypothesis rests falsified, and that price is not the reason flashlight manufacturers use PICs instead of ATTinys.

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94

Remember, Anduril is so cool but is complicated.
I love it and I hope more upgrades for the future but when you have 3 or five level and you know how much runtime you get from your flashlight is more simple.

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After seemingly discarding the “lower cost in greyer markets” hypothesis (see my last post above), I think this “inertial/traditional/cultural bias” is the best explanation for Why TF manufacturers don’t use the AT1616 on their products, at least in regard to PICs.

If so, kudos to @Wurkkos for breaking out of that mold and offering us the fantastic AT1616-equipped flashlights that they do! They get lower costs and better parts availability than the other manufacturers still stuck with the PICs. It’s a win-win for both Wurkkos and its customers. I have a TS10 with another on the way and an FC13, and couldn’t be happier with them – and can certainly see myself buying many more of their lights in the future.

But @Wurkkos, please try and equip every one of your new products (as well as new versions of the old ones) with the AT1616 MCU and easily accessible flashing pads, even if you decide not to put Anduril on them – because we the enthusiasts will certainly port Anduril to them, and everybody will be happy, even the few people that don’t like Anduril as these flashlights will come from factory without it and they won’t need to fear it corrupting their vital fluids. :grin:

And I do hope the other manufacturers that @thefreeman mentioned (@ACEBEAM, @ThruNite_Marketing , @Zebralight, etc) get their game together and jump into the AT1616+easily accessible flashing pads bandwagon – the more the merrier! :slight_smile:

PS: I know, I know: Anduril also needs an eSwitch. So anyone who’s going to complain about this, please replace every instance of “flashlight” above with “eSwitch flashlight”, and then you can be happy too :slight_smile:

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96

Agreed! But why not make every flashlight at least Anduril-capable (ie, with an AT1616 MCU plus easily-accessible flashing pads), even if it comes with some other UI from factory? Then everybody can be happy: the manufacturers get lower cost, better part availability and a larger market to sell to, the flashlight buyers that think even Anduril’s Simple UI is too complicated (or otherwise fear it could corrupt their vital fluids :wink:) can have whatever UI the manufacturers ship them with, and we enthusiasts can have ANDURIL! :slight_smile:

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Agree! I want all flashlight with @thefreeman drivers but for now is not possible.
Surefire with pogopin for upgrade would be a very cool idea but for now is not possible.
HDS Systems with rotary and Anduril in the same light…coooollllll… ok stop :joy:

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Now you’re reaching for the sky! :wink: But I would be happy(ier) with Anduril even on the cra^H^H^Hnormal drivers available to us mere mortals.

Surefire with pogopin for upgrade would be a very cool idea but for now is not possible.
HDS Systems with rotary and Anduril in the same light…coooollllll… ok stop :joy:

We can all dream… and the government can’t even tax us for that :wink:

As long as we’re dreaming, what about a controlled-RGB TS10 with head+body in Aluminum (for its thermal excellence) plus a Titanium bezel (because then it’s the TiTS10!!! :-)) with @loneoceans Lume1 driver (but I will settle for one from @thefreeman) with USB-C charge and powerbank functionality, with a secondary channel with red LEDs and a tertiary one with UV (plus ZWB2 filter, of course)? And of course coming from factory with a 3000mAh 14500 battery with 2000 cycles durability?

:rofl:

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FWIW, I’m hoping that most Anduril lights in the foreseeable future will use AVR DD instead of attiny 1-series MCUs. The avr32dd20 is basically an upgraded successor to attiny1616… available at the same price and same 3x3mm 20-pin form factor, but with twice as much ROM and some nice upgrades to almost every internal system.

But there’s no hardware yet, and I haven’t started adding support yet. Gotta work on that soon.

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100

For those interested in the shape of things to come:

AFAICS, like the AT1616 it also has an internal calibrated sensor :+1: Ditto flashing via UPDI with the same 3-wire physical interface :+1: :+1: so wet don’t have to buy yet another flashing kit :tada:

but with twice as much ROM

To say nothing of twice(4 vs 2KB) the RAM… :tada: but the same amount EEPROM. OTOH current Anduril EEPROM usage is far from running out of the available 256 bytes.

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101

Anduril “Tint” ramping question for the experts here.

Can the M44 do Stepped Tint Ramping?

I am particularly interested in using 100% of Channel 1 or 2, and a 50% equal blend between the two. In other words, only 3 CCT modes, 2700K, 5700K or Mixed. I was told it is possible to set up stepped Tint ramping. I am not able to find anything on google searches that would explain how I can do this. If anybody knows, please help me out. Thanks!