MTN Electronics: LEDs - Batteries - Lights - Chargers - Hosts - Drivers - Components - 1-Stop-US Source

Well, if you can get enough interest up from others (or willing to buy large yourself), maybe Sundy can help you out with a custom job here.

The 20 mm noctogons are set up for either parallel or series depending on which jumpers are used

I’ve just tried asking Cutter if they can make a triple parallel rebel board, looks feasible.

Lacking an electronic switch board, what I will have to do is to denude the old board and use it as a connection board and to hold the switch, then file the driver to a snug fit and slide it into the pill with heat sink compound. I might even add some metal around the edges to increase contact area.
I also thought of filling the pill with liquid, but this is too expensive a light to experiment with.

Just add it in the notes for Richard to build for you, I have had several 4S 2.5/ 3.0 amp E-switch Mtn MAX Buck drivers built for me by Richard for my XHP35 SD75 and T90-2 builds.

I built a MTN 17 FET+7135 with bistro yesterday.
I thought I did a pretty good job, but when I installed it, all I got was low. Not moonlight, just low. It doesn’t matter what I do, it won’t go into programming mode or anything else. I don’t know what’s wrong, or where to start trouble shooting.
Any suggestions?

I don’t think it’s a hardware issue from what i see …

I built a bunch of these with ATtiny85's, higher value voltage dividers, and the SIR800DP and not a problem with any of them. Seems like maybe the OTC?

I’m way over my head Tom. I can build them, it’s just following a blueprint, but the DNA of these things is beyond me. I might heating it up again and wiggling things around a bit, but other than that…? I have no idea what the OTC does. I could replace it, but have no idea why it wouldn’t perform correctly.

I reheated the board and shifted things a bit to make absolutely certain everything was flowed down fine and replaced the 1uF capacitor. Some thing, one low mode.

I’d sure like to figure this out, because if I’m the problem, I don’t want to build ten more boards and have the same results.

Your board looks pretty good. Make sure the zener diode is not backwards. You can even remove it for a test - I run one of these in a triple 219C without a zener, no issues.

I have the zeners facing exactly the same as the pictures on Richard site. I’ve built lots of other MTN FET drivers, but this was my first +7135 board so I carefully built it one component at a time using a jewelers loupe to make sure I had everything configured correctly.

Z1 was the only suspect on your photo since it had no markings showing. It is probably just the lighting though.
For the rest your board looks good.

Ouchy - have you done full continuity checks? Be sure where you should have connections, then check for shorts? I do that with every board I build and have found problems - even with a couple of these boards, but all were obvious shorts that were easily fixed with the iron. Yours has nothing obvious from the pic, but agree with DEL - can't see the labeling on the zener, so who knows - but sounds like you got that right too (with the "W7" label, the W should be towards the C1 cap).

This is a view of mine:

Was the MCU pre-programmed with Bistro from MtnE? Richard and Lisa don't make mistakes often but it has happened - maybe it's not programmed?

Thanks for the pic Tom. They sure come in handy for reference.
Yes, I have the zener mounted with the line towards the large capacitor.
The problem with me checking with a DMM is that I really don’t have any idea how these components relate to each other, so I don’t know what’s right or wrong.

What would happen if the MCU had no program flashed in it?

I removed the MCU and replaced it with another one and it works perfectly.
I guess the flashing didn’t take on the first one. I have ten of these, so I hope it was just the one MCU that didn’t hold the Bistro program. I really hate whining to RMM about one defective MCU, but he doesn’t have the pre flashed attiny25s for sale yet.

Our AVRDude command files always verify, byte by byte. Maybe you missed the verify, or just got unlucky with a bad MCU. Not sure if I ever got a bad one, can't recall, certainly not recently and all 25's and 85's have been good so far. I just got one of these boards in a Skilhunt H15, headlamp style light. It can't be held after 30 secs with an EFEST IMR 14500, it gets that hot. But real nice with the locator LED in the switch I got working, and full ramping I used a XM-L2 T5 5D - real nice tint. I replaced the LED in the switch with a pink one, but they always come out looking purple for some reason, but nice! Smallest light I've built so far w/Narsil on the 85.

I use a 350 mA 7135, not the 380 - I can get a really low moon mode, using a PWM value of 2 (programmable from 1 to 7).

I didn’t flash it myself. That’s way above my pay scale. It came with a parts kit. I will try installing the old one on another board just to make sure it wasn’t a bridging problem or something, but I doubt it. I’m just glad I got the problem solved. Just when when I got confident in my reflowing skills, I was starting to doubt my abilities.

Richard, have you seen this thread:

Regarding the updated Noctigon triple board with a “new mystery LED pad”?

Any inside information on the purpose of the new pad?

Thats really good problem solving and repair there guys. Love the team work. :slight_smile: