Petzl DUO caving light modification

After a short vacation abroad I am now continue working on my light.
I have solder the regulators "tower".
A thinner wire for the control pin and bigger one for the LED minus.

Removing the middle pin made soldering so much easier


For the ground pin which connected to the AMCs "heatsink", I added a solid copper wire in Slalom to improve heat dissipation



And after all the soldering, I covered everything with a shrink tube. Not so great for cooling but a must to prevent a short circuit.

I did not share it with you but yesterday I also glued the 2 LEDs to the Aluminum heatsink using thermal paste so today it was ready to finish soldering.
I am using Cree XM-L2 U2 5D on 20 mm Noctigon Copper MPCB. it is the same emitter I have used for my first caving light and I find it nicer than the T6 4C I have in my current caving lamp (from the 7th OL challenge)
I have used a bit too much glue but more is better than less and anyway it will be hidden by the lenses.


As for the driver, I am using the same old trick: one channel is a standard Nanjg 105c and the 2nd channel is the the 6 regulators stacked on top of each other I soldered yesterday. this channel is controlled using the MCU PWM pin 5 via star#2 of the 105c board. The momentary switch will be connected to the MCU pin 2 via star#4.



After soldering all the wires to the driver, I had to solder the LEDs, trying not to melt the plastic body (almost succeeded).
I also tested the light for the first time using a very basic FW and surprisingly it worked on the first try.


Now I have to glue the connector, driver and lenses to keep everything secured while caving and protect all the solder joint from repeated movements of the components

Today was mainly gluing.
At first I glued the lenses and then the regulators and the connector, I have not yet decided what to do with the driver so it is now held in place only by the wires but since the positive wire is short and thick and the solder joint is big - it is pretty stable.
I have some time before I have to find a solution for this.

After gluing the lenses, the DUO it taking shape of a caving lamp once again :)
The black lens is 45 deg TIR for the flood beam, connected to 6 regulators (about 850 lm)
And the white lens is 10 deg TIR for the spot beam with maximum output of about 1000 lm


The 2nd "gluing" I did today is a bit experimental and I really have no idea if he will succeed or not...
For my first handmade caving light I used an Apem IP waterproof momentary switch. It is great quality but cost about 15 USD, so for my later lights I used some 1 USD unbranded "waterproof" switches from Aliexpress. So far I had no issues with these switches.
The only problem I have with the Apem and Chinese switches is in caves with really thick mud. After touching the switch with muddy gloves, the switch sometimes gets stack in "on" position.
To overcome this problem Apem offers a silicone boot for the IP series switches but it cost 10 USD.
So, for a long time I want to try and make a boot by myself.



I have coated the switch in thin nylon to prevent the RTV from bonding the switch and covered it with thin layer of RTV.
I really have no idea if it worked but as anything related to adhesives I will only find out tomorrow.....

Well, I hope that does work. Adhesives can be funny things at times; sticking where you donā€™t want them to is just as bad as having them not want to stick to something you want to glue. I have tried gluing things that donā€™t want to be stuck to anything else.

Today was not a good dayׄ Everything that could have gone wrong - went wrong :(
I was so close to finish the front part, only hat to solder the switch but then I have noticed the switch wire is a bit short.
Instead of just extent it, I decided to replace it with a linger one (big mistake)
Since the switch wire is soldered to the bottom side of the driver, while trying to reach the bottom side I pulled the driver and disconnected the positive wire from the LED.
Since the LED soldering pads are covered by the lens I had to remove the lens BUT I decided to try soldering the wire back to its place WITHOUT removing the lens since I do not have enough glue left to re-glue it (huge mistake).
While trying to reach with the soldering iron to the hidden point I have melted the other lens and the light body :(
Of course I don't have replacement lens.....

So now I had to un-glue two lenses instead of just one and one lens and the body are damaged.

eventually I cut the tube and manged to get so extra glue for the lenses and I hope the damage to lens is not to bad and will not affect the light beam. And hopefully the body damage will not will not damage the .waterproofing......


The light after removing the lenses with the new (longer) switch wire


The damaged lens (top left) :( after gluing everithing back


And finally everything is put together.
I still have to clean the parts from mud before the end of the project

Sorry for not updating for a while. I was busy developing the FW and there are no pictures to share from this process.
For this light I wrote entirely new FW - "ClickPress" (since clicks and presses are used to control it)

ClickPress is based on features from my previous FWs. And some improvements I learned after using "SiameseTwins" for 2 years.
All my FW can be found on my GitHub CavingHeadlampsFW repository.


The main features of the FW are:

  1. Separate control of each spot/flood channel.
  2. Very low power consumption while in standby.
  3. Low-Medium-High regular modes for the flood beam.
  4. 2 turbo modes for flood/spot.
  5. Hidden continuous stepped down mode for both channels.
  6. battery check mode.
  7. Low battery warning.
  8. Very low battery cut off.
  9. Automatic step down from high power modes.
  10. Automatic lock off

I designed it for my needs but I think also other users can find it useful, not only for caving light but for any other dual emitter light.

I Used the weekend to finally mount the new light to the helmet.
But before I did it, I had to clean it a bit.



Most of you probably not familiar with caving helmets models but this one is Elios by Petzl. I really like this model but unfortunately it is discontinued.
Hopefully the improved light enable my using it couple more years.

Here are some Before and After pictures:

You can spot the different switch and heatsink but other than this, the new lights looks like the original iconic caving light as I planned :)



From the front it is a bit easier to spot the differences.
I will soon take it to a cave and try it :)

Very nice. Subtle difference from the side view.

Love seeing your work every year, and love even more itā€™s something you will use in real life, not just something for the competition.
Ingenious you are, and this years entry looks fantastic so far!

So cool! I miss spending time underground!

So many skills and knowings applied here. I feel like I need to take long look at your photos.

Thanks G0OSE and wcddesign, spending time underground is the best, especially with a good light.

This weekend I did some caving and use my new light.
I am really satisfied with this build. Overall it is great light but I had to do some code changes:
1. Lower level was too low so I increased the PWM fro 10 to 20.
2. I had to calibrate battery levels since reading were a bit too low
3. Decreased the the blinking speed for the battery check mode and kept the LED off after blinking to make it easier to understand voltage level.

All the changes are already in the Git code.
Hope to test it again soon.
As promised, I only have to add one last improvement before the end of the challenge

So last part of this build is a small surprise as I promised :)
Since I have some free space in the battery box I was thinking to build a really small and simple light to fit in this free space.
This light can be use in emergency or while changing batteries.
It is relay simple: 3 button batteries, a momentary switch and a 3mm led but can be useful when needed.





:slight_smile: The last resort light; when all else has failedā€¦.

Love the bonus light, YuvalS! Fantastic.

Just before the deadline, a short video to show the complete build

www.youtube.com/embed/K_kxz3C5cmY

Great!

You beat the deadline by a little over 1 day :slight_smile:

Good build YuvalS :+1:
I like the video, it shows real life operation. :smiley:
Nice to see the struggles were overcome and your light is complete. :beer:
Good Luck in the contest.

It verks!! Good job and good recovery. I like the little added emergency light - thatā€™s a nice touch, and a smart one.

Thanks everybody.
As usual, it was very challenging but yet fun project.
I am really happy with the results and already used it undergrounds.
Apart from having a new light this project encourage me to write a new FW (currently the best dual emitter single switch caving FW INHO :) ) and I am planning an a massive FW update for all my previous caving lights.

Can not wait for the 10th BLF O/L challenge;)