Build Log: The 1.5V Project

[calipsoii]

Hi all!

I feel the need to update this thread in case anyone is thinking the project has been abandoned. It has not! Life has just been crazy busy lately and the hobby's had to take a bit of a back seat.

Plus I disassembled my workbench and Taig lathe.

Gotta make room. :devil:

 

[Megatrowned]

Ooo, fancy! When can we order our lights?! :naughty:

 

[calipsoii]

Hi guys! Just wanted to give a quick update on this project:

I've been carrying the light every day for over a month and it's performed well. Been through about a dozen batteries. I don't bother with alkalines anymore (since their performance is so poor on High) so it's been mainly Eneloops, lithium primaries and 14500's. Aside from the enamel paint wearing off the clip, it's been dropped and thrown about with little issue.

I was very lucky to be sent for some training through work, so it went on an airplane ride and survived a week in a foreign climate.

That's also partly the reason that the new lathe still isn't up and running. You wouldn't believe how much time it takes getting this... gunk... cleaned off every single square inch of the machine.

I've basically had to disassemble every piece of it (right down to the nuts and gears), clean them all with a rag & acetone, and reassemble it. Tedium can easily be defined as: "cleaning a 3.5ft leadscrew with a toothbrush". :sick2:

We're more than halfway there now though. Fingers crossed the chips start flying soon!

Cheers!

 

[DrafterDan]

Great determination on your part. I recently built five 18650 bodies and that was hard enough. looks good!

 

[calipsoii]

Let it never be said that cleaning a new lathe is quick or easy! All done now - with any luck the chips will be flying tomorrow! :devil:

 

[Steve K]

yummm... shiny!!

sounds like a new project is required in order to break it in.

 

[calipsoii]

In keeping with my goal of updating this project thread on a regular interval... a tiny project update!

I've been unable to do any machining for the last couple weeks due to a rather unfortunate accident that cost me a boring bar and stripped several bolts in the impact. All 10 fingers intact though!

While I wait for the new parts to arrive in the mail, I focused my attention on the couple things with the firmware that have been bugging me.

I've been very nervous carrying this light with li-ions because there was no way to tell how discharged they were getting. As I mentioned earlier, the voltage reference only goes to 2.56V which is no good for reading out lithium-ion cells. So far I've been using protected 14500's but that's not a real solution.

This last weekend I sat down and overhauled part of the firmware. Some of the changes:

• Can now read voltages between 0.1V and 4.2V and flash them out to the user (used to be only up to 2.56V)
• Added a menu option to enable/disable "Lithium Ion Mode". When this mode is enabled:
  • the light checks the voltage of the battery every 8 seconds
  • if it drops below 3.5V, drops primary LED to 40ma max and intermittently blinks secondary LED 3 times
  • if it drops below 2.9V, disables primary LED and intermittently blinks secondary LED 5 times

I added it as a menu option because if you use 3V primary CR123's, you'll trigger the warning! So it can be turned off if you know you'll be using a battery that falls in that voltage range (1xCR123, 2xAA).

This coming weekend I'm going to tinker with making mode switching based on "time off" instead of "time on". If I can get it working I'll add that as a menu option so that it can be toggled as the user sees fit.

More updates soon!

 

[Zandar]

Let me just say that I stumbled onto your thread by accident and I too am very impressed with your creativity and level of skill. I am looking forward to seeing how your final design turns out.

 

[tobrien]

Let me just say that I stumbled onto your thread by accident and I too am very impressed with your creativity and level of skill. I am looking forward to seeing how your final design turns out.

yeah it's an amazing project!

 

[gunga]

Are you going to be selling these? The firmware changes sounds cool too...

 

[calipsoii]

Let me just say that I stumbled onto your thread by accident and I too am very impressed with your creativity and level of skill. I am looking forward to seeing how your final design turns out.

Thanks Zandar! It means a lot to have people following along so thanks for taking the time to reply. After 2 months of use the prototype has worked very well, so it's all refinements from this point forward and I don't think it'll need to be scrapped or anything. :sweat:

yeah it's an amazing project!

Thanks to you as well tobrien! :thumbsup:

Are you going to be selling these? The firmware changes sounds cool too...

Eventually I'd like to be able to sell one to anyone who is interested in buying one. I'm not thinking about sales until I get it just the way I like it though. I already know a lot of people won't like it and I'm ok with that. But I also know that at least 2 people have posted on this forum and others looking for this exact light (and not finding it) and I hope to be able to put one in their hands and see if that does the trick for them.

 

[archimedes]

....
Eventually I'd like to be able to sell one to anyone who is interested in buying one. I'm not thinking about sales until I get it just the way I like it though .... I also know that at least 2 people have posted on this forum and others looking for this exact light (and not finding it) and I hope to be able to put one in their hands and see if that does the trick for them.

:wave: ... please add me to the list for one of these ... :thumbsup:

 

[gunga]

I'm interested.


Sent from my iPhone using Candlepowerforums

 

[tobrien]

with your caliber work I'd be happy to buy

 

[KuanR]

I'm interested in a circuit too.

I think gunga and I are wanting this for the same light.....Hey Mike, do you think this will fit in our AA lights?

 

[calipsoii]

Oh man, the mode switching change came out perfect. Turned out so much better than I could have hoped. Three cheers to Der Wichtel for his informative suggestion!

Here's the little capacitor recording the time the light was off. Right now it's just setup on the test bed but it'll be easy enough to shoe-horn it onto the actual circuit.

 

[pimaxc]

I'm interested in it as well maybe even two!

 

[calipsoii]

After spending a few hours on the UI this evening I think I'm happy with where it's at! Just need a final test of the voltage monitoring code (but that requires I solder up some new boards).

The mode change UI is just the way I like it now. It can be toggled in the menu between two different styles of mode changes:

• "Time-On" mode changing is like any light that saves the level after being on for {x} seconds. My Nailbender and Kerberos dropins operate this way.
• "Time-Off" mode changing is like any light that requires short presses to change output. My 47's Quark Mini's and McGizmo Haiku operate this way.

Mode memory can be toggled on/off independently of mode change style, so you can probably imagine that changes the dynamic a bit too. The whole thing is probably sounding very complicated at this point, but it's really not. Just decide which features you want on/off beforehand, take a trip through the programming menu (3 minutes), and you're done.

I'm interested in it as well maybe even two!

Hiya pimaxc, thanks for the interest and welcome aboard! :thumbsup:

A bit of an aside, but the financials of a project are often personal and something that rarely gets discussed on this forum. So far I've avoided it, but people are beginning to express interest and I feel like it needs mentioned.

Something to keep in mind for anyone who stumbles into this thread at this point and sees people posting interest: I'm just some dude with a soldering iron and a lathe! I've been financing this project out of pocket but I certainly don't have the buying power that the larger companies have. I pay full price for all my components and I've yet to find a machine shop that would quote me something I could reasonably afford. That's a long way of saying that Fenix can sell the E11 for $45 because they had hundreds of thousands of units assembled overseas where manufacturing is as cheap as it gets and they had the purchasing power up front to make that happen.

I'm really excited about this light and I want to put one into anyone's hands who wants one (and I love that people are already interested!) but before any of that happens I need to take a good long look at what is involved in making one and be reasonable with the price I might ask. At some point the joy I get making and shipping something intersects with the unhappiness of neglecting my family for a weekend as I machine hosts in the garage for $1.25 /hr.

When I feel like the design is good and ready and I'd be comfortable asking money from others in exchange for one, I'll take a thorough look at manufacturing options and post a bit more about what I find. :twothumbs

 

[KuanR]

I'd be super happy if I could ship a host to you to install one of your drivers!

 

[gunga]

I'm good with driver or whole light. Just so cool...