I remember reading/participating on a discussion about that a few months ago, and if memory serves the answer was no, aux brightness was fixed by a resistor in low mode (and either direct connection or a lower resistor in high mode), what the firmware did was to swap between the two, but no way to eg set a brightness somewhere in the middle.
That might have been me asking about it in the Anduril dev thread. That was probably during one of my late night baby feeding sessions months ago so my memory is a bit hazy.
So if that’s the case, maybe that resistor can be swapped or removed. Wondering what the max possible current would be on the aux channel. Right now it’s a little low for using it as a second main channel. I don’t think the mode limitation is an issue if it were a niche purpose, like a UV emitter.
Yes, about 200 c, it may creep up to about 210c by the time everything reflows well.
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I reckon it would be pretty low as its traveling straight through the IC.
I suppose creating a secondary pcb that could house a FET or 7135 chip might work to contribute to turning it into a 2nd channel. but there would be no brightness control. I think the IC sends a signal for on and a signal for off and that is it.
It could have been – my memory is even hazier than yours.
So if that’s the case
I just checked and the relevant Anduril code AFAICS is basically flipping ports around, not doing anything PWM- or DAC- like, so I do think that’s indeed the case.
maybe that resistor can be swapped or removed.
I’m pretty sure that would work.
Wondering what the max possible current would be on the aux channel.
I think it depends mainly on the LED… OFC there’s also the maximum current draw allowed for the MCU port, which some googling seems to indicate as 40mA.
Right now it’s a little low for using it as a second main channel. I don’t think the mode limitation is an issue if it were a niche purpose, like a UV emitter.
I think that, in the specific case of the TS10, the limitation is on purpose – its AUX leds were IMO designed for in-the-dark flashlight location purposes, not illumination.
If you go ahead and replace resistors etc in order to use the TS10 AUX LED ‘channel’ for illumination purposes, please tag me as I would be very interested in hearing the results.
Exactly. Some googling seems to indicate the maximum current on the ATTiny-series MCU GPIO pins is 40mA.
A FET or regulator should work AFAICS.
but there would be no brightness control. I think the IC sends a signal for on and a signal for off and that is it.
It would be possible to control brightness via PWM. I remember @Toykeeper explaining that this would mean (to keep reasonable resolution on the PWM done for the main LEDs) the MCU would have to control the PWM directly and therefore would not be able to sleep, and that would consume a lot of battery.
Well this is sounding beyond my capabilities. Maybe after Wurkkos releases the RGB aux and titanium we can convince them to design a true dual channel driver (then triple channel).
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Amen to that 
As I was reading along and came to Toykeepers comment it lead me to immediately go and do another round of Amber filter / minus green combinations on my TS10’s.
I think alot of us we happy to have finally received a 6000k hi cri light . Most probably for the first time …. But like all good tint snobs I had to throw 12 different combinations on top to figure out if the little light receiving so much love could be improved.
Let’s be honest if you’ve played around with filters for more than twenty seconds you realize one small 14 cent piece of filter can make a nice beam into an …AAHHH ! Much better tint/ hue / color /temp etc .
I knew this day two of having a ts10 4000k brass and a red 6000k ts10 . That each could be improved easily with a simple filter … and dialed in even more with a combination of two . One to kill any green and another to finish pushing the tint to an even more pleasing temperature.
Reading this thread and a new ts10 in the mail made me go back and play with both the minus green filters and the newer Amber zircon filters I just started carrying.
For me it’s a T-1,T2 or a T-3 and either a Z2 or Z3
A zircon 814,808,or 813 and an 804 or 803
I didn’t try an Amber T4 or T5 but there really aren’t any wrong answers here.
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I second all of that. I’ll admit, my dislike of green tints is borderline neurotic. But I’d also argue that whether you’re using your light as a practical tool or fidget toy, the quality of the light is an important consideration. If you’re bothered or distracted by green, well, that’s a legitimate issue (and if green doesn’t bother you, count yourself lucky).
I swapped LEDs on one of my TS10 with something of the same footprint made by Samsung. I’m now convinced they can’t make a non-green tint for the life of them. Although at 2700k like these it’s more of a gross yellow tint. I slapped two layers of minus green on it and it’s perfect (but nothings ever perfect and I’ll probably be swapping them for some shaved or de-domed 519A).
A filter is the easiest, cheapest mod you can do that will have a big impact of the quality of the light. I highly recommend to always have some sheets on hand to try out with your lights.
I’m really bad at beamshots. This is with white balance locked to 5000k. The lights are about four feet from a white shiplap closet door. On the left is the TS10 with two 519A 4000k and one 2700k, all dedomed. On the right is a D4V2 (with a fairly floody custom optic) and four 519A 4000k dedomed. In reality they don’t look that… brown… Key takeaways, in reality the tint mix does look a tad warmer and rosier, and you don’t notice the different emitter in the beam after a couple feet (the 2700k LED is at the 12-oclock position in the pic). I’d say this TS10 optic behaves no differently than other standard triples and quads when tint mixed.
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It’s set by hardware. There’s the aux LEDs, the battery, a resistor, and the MCU. Change the resistor to change brightness.
The MCU can allow current to pass or not, and it can add its internal pullup resistor or not. This gives 3 firmware-controllable brightness levels: off, low, and high.
The max current is about 40 mA, but that’s mostly a burst mode. The reference manual notes that it shouldn’t sustain that much current and it may damage the MCU. So a more practical limit is about 20 mA.
The aux LEDs could be PWM’d to produce intermediate brightness levels, but there are two issues with that:
- They’re generally not attached to pins with PWM generators, so the MCU would need to manually turn the pins on and off, and it’ll have some timing jitter and visible instability.
- The MCU can only generate PWM while it’s awake, which means it would use more power. Add about 1 to 6 mA to keep the MCU awake, depending on clock speed.
The aux LEDs aren’t intended to be used for illumination though. They have pretty impractical beam shapes, they’re not white, they’re significantly less efficient than the main LEDs, and they’re not very bright. The intended brightness levels are about 1 mA and 0.1 mA, though, frustratingly, on most lights the manufacturer sets the resistors to make it more like 5 or 10 mA on high.
For reference, moon mode on most Anduril lights is about 1.5 mA, on the main LEDs.
Mostly, aux is intended to be used as a more practical replacement for tritium vials – to locate the light in the dark and also to indicate things to the user. Low mode is recommended, since it can always stay on like tritium does, with runtime measured in years, and enough brightness to find the light in dark places.
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Thank you, this is all great info! I’m reading this at 3am with a baby in my arms but I’ve bookmarked it for future reference. I’m still very much a newbie when it comes to drivers and this helps a lot.
That may be the case with the stock TS10, but those don’t need to be constraints here in the modding thread 
For example, we could design a dual- channel triple MCPCB (in this case with no 0603 aux spots). Say 2x 3535 "main’ LEDs and a single 3535 for the second channel.
Then you could have something like a set of 519A LEDs on ch1 and say a deep red on ch2. Now as you said, ch2 would be limited to low and high, and the UI would be clunky with 7C to operate it, but that could be changed in firmware, right?
I don’t know what kind of current the stock resistors on the TS10 provide, but if it were up to 20mA, it even 10mA, for high that absolutely would be usable for niche purposes.
Would this hacked-together “dual” channel TS10 be a good implementation of a dual-channel light? - Probably not. But it sounds to me like an interesting modding project. These are the kinds of things that keep me up at 4am after the baby has already fallen asleep.
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Aux on Low, even 24/7, are great locator lights on the TS10. They are even more convenient with the dmenezes 8C on/off toggle.
Somehow the general public has gotten the wrong expectation that Aux on High can be used 24/7. Maybe because so many people have posted photos of High Aux.
High Aux are like Turbo, people misassume that they are sustainable…
Congratulations on your growing family!
If you have the ability to reflash firmware, I highly recommend the dmenezes 8C on/off toggle for TS10.
The 8C toggle is very convenient when using the TS10 aux on High, for arms length illumination.
Different TS10 Aux colors produce different brightness. I have a TS10 w Red Aux that are very nice, on low, for nightstand locator lights, but too dim on High to use for illumination.
Maybe you could mod the resistor to make the Red Aux on High brighter.
otoh, I have a TS10 w Green Aux that work well enough on High to illuminate a bathroom in the middle of the night.
However, Red is superior for preserving your “get back to sleep” hormones after attending to the baby in the middle of the night.
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Anduril already supports an (almost) arbitrary number of channels. They are still different from aux LEDs.
I’m aware, but the driver needs to be designed with multiple channels in mind, right? I don’t actually know what the differences are but I assumed it’s more than just an extra wire or two.
A fully featured second channel requires more. But it’s not a problem to use the “aux” LED as a regular channel. It’s done for some lights with RGB aux LEDs. You can use them in all modes and you can even get some kind of ramping (with two levels) after a tiny firmware modification.
You are not, they are just perfect for what I need, that is to judge how nice the tint and color are. Thank you for posting them!
I’d say this TS10 optic behaves no differently than other standard triples and quads when tint mixed.
Yeah, and the result does look lovely. Something to consider when the time comes for me to get a mixed-LED light.
Thanks again!
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Took a few measurements, checked some things, and it looks like the SP10 (OP) or Convoy T2 (SMO) reflector, and an SP10 pcb and bezel would work to make a single emitter TS10-based alternative of the FW1AA.
The only thing missing is an emitter that can take the current of being directly-driven.
Maybe W2 or XP-L HI? I could put this together myself pretty easily and very cheaply, as I already have a broken SP10 to harvest the pcb from, and the TS10 and reflector are cheap enough. Only tricky bit is drilling the holes, but aluminum is soft enough.
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Yeah those bezels are all interchangeable. They’re m19x1.0 threads. I’m working on a custom, deeper bezel. I got some brass plumbing parts and a tap, but not enough free time it seems.
Remove that screw in the shelf and the driver pushes right out. As you guessed, drilling new holes is easy. I just used a standard 16mm MCPCB with a notch cut out for that screw. I’ve tried a W2, XPL Hi, and Yinding round die. When an order of parts arrives I’m hopefully going to settle on an SFT40 5000K (at least until I can get a 3000k).
Check out the link in the first post for the single conversion and aux ring.
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