I was able to measure the lowest three levels, and get an approximate output for the highest level. In my host, at least, the “SRK Special” modes are: 44 lm, 86 lm, 300 lm, ?,?, ???, 3098 lm. So, about 1.4, 2.8, 9.6, skip a few, and then 100. Sorry I don’t have better measurements yet.
I’m still not sure why my lux meter bugged out… it worked fine with 2100 lm before my mod; maybe the wide-spectrum output or PWM frequency is bothering it.
Visually, the modes seem to be spaced pretty evenly except for the brightest and dimmest modes, which are closer to their neighbors.
As for the UI, it’s pretty straightforward:
Short-click to turn the light on at the lowest level or advance it to the next-brightest level. Off, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, off.
Long-click to turn the light on at the highest level or advance it to the next-dimmest level. Off, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, off.
That’s all, aside from one minor other detail:
While the light is at “level 0” or “off” with the button still held down, the emitters will glow at a dim moonlight level. So, quick-click from off to get to level 1, then click-and-hold to go back down to level 0. It will glow in moon mode until you let go. Similarly, if you click-and-hold from off, it will light up at moon level for about a second before it decides you’re doing a long-click and then it goes to level 7.
I think I tweaked the setting somewhat over what you were using to bring the lower 6 levels down somewhat, creating useful lumens in the 1st 6 before the crazy Turbo mode at full on. Was more or less playing with the settings, it works out ok, so it is what it is.
A soft click into moon gives barely glowing emitters. A long click goes off, holding the button or not. Of course, a long click from off will freaking blind you!
Just fired mine up 60 minutes after ripping Richards carefully wrapped driver shipping box to shreds. Just went through the UI and found the same as yours. I will never ever buy another SRK without using the BLF driver boards.
I over sanded the board edges so got a loose fit, rush and all. This driver board I just placed four solder bumps with two pieces of solder wick to lock the board in place and to raise the thickness to previous driver. I’ll used solid copper wire in a spring clip fashion when I do the thicker LED wires next week.
Thanks everyone. One improvement I would suggest is to be able to go direct to off from any level via holding down the switch for 2 seconds or so. The standard SupFire UI does that.
The source code is available… Feel free to mod it and publish your improvements.
Personally, I plan to host all my firmware on Launchpad or Github, so that everyone can access and modify the code. I’ll probably put up binaries too, so people won’t have to compile it in order to flash it. I’d also like to collect various light firmwares into one place, but I’m not sure how feasible that will be due to copyright issues. I don’t think everyone agrees on making their code open-source, and I think some of the code might have been published with no license at all.
… the BLF17DD in my Cypreus was fine, apparently I had damaged a bond wire on the de-domed XP-G2 emitter accounting for the low current and output numbers. Replacing the R5 1A de-domed with an S2 2B domed nets 3.97A from the AW IMR18350 at 4.12A, output is up from the 500’s to 924.6 lumens at start, 880 OTF at 30 seconds. Problem solved!
The little copper light really rocks, with 5 levels at 2, 11, 76, 358, and 880.
Got my two M6 lights and the 6 emitter SRK clone special offer light from Richard yesterday. All are quite nice. I note that the SRK logo on the new one does not quite match my 3 emitter version. No TM on the 6 emitter one and the moon shape and logo lettering style are different. Enough machining differences visible too so probably from different factories.
I like the multi level light output UI but as mentioned earlier I think that direct to off capability from all levels would be a good enhancement. Actually prefer the SRK version as the M6 lowest light levels seem a bit too low for practical use to me. Just my opinion and we all know about opinions .
Highest outputs on all three are impressive, particularly for such compact lights.
More like holding the switch down for over 1/2 second or so is a long hold for going to next lowest level on my three new lights. No where even a full second switch depression needed.
does not make it today, I’ll sic my Black Lab on the Post Office Mine has been hung up two states away while in “sorting” with typical USPS updating on hold.
Compared to 35 day China Post, I’m not complaining…maybe a bit jealous
The post is slower from Utah, where Richard is for the summer, than it was when he was in Washington State. Noticeably slower. But it is what it is right? Beats the heck out of the slow boat from China for sure!
always good in the past. Just a shame that 2 day was paid for and now on day 4 but we all know we don’t want China Post, right. Well, got to go dig through battery collection…
I shortened the long press duration from the default setting because I feel it makes things a bit more responsive. I'll look into a hold to off option, I'll bet I can figure that one out.
I think the next thing I want to mess with is firmware. I was thinking of reversing the STAR button mappings as a first quick test, but then if there’s enough room in the flash, I’d kind of like to duplicate Zebralight’s UI. Press-and-hold to go to the lowest level and ramp up (regardless of current state), short-click from off to enter the highest mode, short-click while on to turn off, and maybe multiple quick short-clicks from off to quickly go from the highest level downward. Not sure if there’s enough space on a attiny13a for that though.
Also, I’m more interested in more unusual firmwares, like a variable-speed strobe light (hold button to smoothly adjust strobe speed from like 2 Hz to 100 Hz). But again, I don’t know how much I can fit into just 1024 bytes of flash space.
Oh, and I don’t have the hardware or software yet to do flashing. But I expect to be ordering that soon. At least I now have a host to use for testing though, since I made the driver on my modded SRK really easy to access.
I'll leave the "fancy" firmware to you guys, I like to keep things simple. I think the achievement of it all is really cool, but honestly in actual use I prefer something that is simple and predictable. I've marveled at what DrJones is able to do with his firmware, but I wouldn't personally want any of that stuff on my light because I feel all of these multiple button presses, etc. are just too complicated and confusing.
ToyKeeper, someone here has made a board to plug the programmer into, allowing the user to simply place the ATiny13 on the board and flash it, next! No tedious clamping of the mcu with it’s tiny legs and wires that could be off or not making contact. Seems like a great way to do it. I’m still clipping the MCU into the clamp before I get started, then building the driver with the MCU pre-flashed. But then, I don’t do multiple drivers at a time like some people here do.
Seems like it was WarHawk that did that…don’t remember for sure.
+1, I’m looking to try a simple ramping ui next with only two options up, or down. Might be neat to have a few secondary LEDs or bar graph that indicate where you are in the ramp.
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Mine has been hung up two states away while in “sorting” with typical USPS updating on hold.