Parallel wiring of shining beam 2.5A driver

[ti-force]

Cool stack but since 1xIMR26650 is not going to be able drive SST-90 to 9Amp even in Direct Drive,
there's really no need for a buck driver in such application.

All you need is a PWM to control modes like d2flex.

I'm actually trying to figure out a good way to run both of my IMR26650's in parallel. I'm hoping that both of those batteries in parallel will supply 9+ Amps. I have some 1", shedule 40 PVC pipe that I cut to length and use to make up the additional inside diameter of the D sized mag body, (for when I use these smaller diameter batteries) and I'm thinking that I can make a parallel battery holder out of it. Any ideas?

 

[ti-force]

nice work on your amc stack! Its a monster.

The only thing I think is that it would be nice to be able to hit 5A with only two boards and no more. So that is why the OP was asking about paralleling two SB boards. This would benefit those of us trying to fit this in a really small package.

Depending on how much room you've got to work with, I have seen someone on here stack the actual 7135 chips on top of each other. I can't remember who did it, but it was pretty darn neat:thumbsup:.

This is what I'm talking about. I had a board sitting around so I decided to try it out.

 

[Mettee]

totally do-able I think.

With that piece of pipe.....

Batteries loaded one on top of the other, a non conductive spacer between. The negative on the bottom battery has to run up to the negative of the top battery. And the same with the positive end of the bottom battery to the positive end of the top. If you follow me....

It would be possible to run wire inside in a cut channel, but I think it would also be able to be run on the outside in a cut channel and it would be easier to cut. Run the wire up the side and into the pipe and connect it to a point on the non conductive spacer where the negative of the top battery sits...

I will just try and draw it really fast, I will be back later

 

[Justin Case]

Depending on how much room you've got to work with, I have seen someone on here stack the actual 7135 chips on top of each other. I can't remember who did it, but it was pretty darn neat:thumbsup:.

Could be darkzero's work. Technically not 7135 chips, but close enough.

 

[Mettee]

Ti

I was thinking that today thanks for confirming

drew

 

[ti-force]

Could be darkzero's work. Technically not 7135 chips, but close enough.

:thumbsup:

You're the man! That's exactly what I was talking about. For some reason I was thinking it was 7135's, but I was definitely wrong about that. Thanks for the help, and again, thanks for your help in the other thread.

 

[ti-force]

Ti

I was thinking that today thanks for confirming

drew

No problem. Most of the time I'm just receiving help on here, so it's good to be able to give back to this great community every now and then.

Casey

 

[ti-force]

totally do-able I think.

With that piece of pipe.....

Batteries loaded one on top of the other, a non conductive spacer between. The negative on the bottom battery has to run up to the negative of the top battery. And the same with the positive end of the bottom battery to the positive end of the top. If you follow me....

It would be possible to run wire inside in a cut channel, but I think it would also be able to be run on the outside in a cut channel and it would be easier to cut. Run the wire up the side and into the pipe and connect it to a point on the non conductive spacer where the negative of the top battery sits...

I will just try and draw it really fast, I will be back later

That's pretty darn good for a fast drawing:thumbsup:.

Do you know of any place that sells some type of contact tab or maybe just some nickel shims that I could trim as needed. My batteries are flat top so I have to have something that's protruding so my batteries will make contact in this parallel holder.

 

[TorchBoy]

Here are a couple of pics:

Legendary! Thanks for sharing those.

So, ti-force, is it correct that the four 7135 boards are in parallel with one another and the SB board is in series with and "downstream" of the 7135 set? If this is the case, all of the current must go through the SB board, making me wonder how much current it can pass?

No, just the Vdd pins are downstream of the PWM controller. Each Vdd pin draws just 200 µA so it's a total 3.2 mA extra current through the PWM controller for the 16 extra AMC7135s. The PWM controller shouldn't use any more current itself to operate with that increased load.

It's the Vdd pin on the AMC7135 that allows the chip to turn on and off, and works excellently with PWM operation. If the duty cycle is 10% (it's on for 10% of the time, off for 90%) then the driver gets turned on for 10% of the time, resulting in 10% brightness.

Getting it to work is basically a matter of connecting the three pins of the extra AMC7135s to the three pins of the controlled AMC7135s on the SB board.

Could be darkzero's work. Technically not 7135 chips, but close enough.

That's very impressive.

Do you know if anyone sells some type of contact tab or maybe just some nickel shims that I could trim as needed. My batteries are flat top so I have to have something that's protruding so it will make contact.

Use a washer under the end of a copper strip and hit the strip above the middle of the washer with the back end of a nail, thereby making a bump in the copper. Well, it's an idea, at least.

 

[ti-force]

Use a washer under the end of a copper strip and hit the strip above the middle of the washer with the back end of a nail, thereby making a bump in the copper. Well, it's an idea, at least.

That's an excellent idea:thumbsup:. Now I just need to see if I can find some copper strips locally. Thanks for the idea.

Casey

 

[vestureofblood]

ti-force,

What is the red POS wire coming from the 4 stack soldered to on the SB driver?

Nice job btw.

 

[TorchBoy]

It looks like it connects to the Vdd pin of one of the AMC7135s on the SB board. That way all the AMCs will be working in parallel.

 

[ti-force]

ti-force,

What is the red POS wire coming from the 4 stack soldered to on the SB driver?

Nice job btw.

It looks like it connects to the Vdd pin of one of the AMC7135s on the SB board. That way all the AMCs will be working in parallel.

That's correct. It's hard to see with the wires soldered in place, so I took a picture of an AMC7135 driver and a Shiningbeam driver beside each other and made sort-of a diagram:

 

[ti-force]

Also, I should note that when soldering to the outside ring (GND), make sure the GND doesn't come in contact with any of the little stars on the Shiningbeam board. If you do this, you could inadvertently create a strobe mode. Don't ask me how I know.............

Casey

 

[vestureofblood]

Thanks ti-force,

Those are very clear pictures and diagrams too. What is the reason for removing the pins in the center of the board an replacing it with solder?

Also it seems like I read somewhere that the chips on the slave board need to have the same numbers printed on them or it will not work:thinking:. Do you know if this is correct? If so where did you order the slaves from?

 

[ti-force]

Thanks ti-force,

Those are very clear pictures and diagrams too. What is the reason for removing the pins in the center of the board an replacing it with solder?

Also it seems like I read somewhere that the chips on the slave board need to have the same numbers printed on them or it will not work:thinking:. Do you know if this is correct? If so where did you order the slaves from?

All of the AMC7135 boards that I have, either have diodes or surface mount resistors which drop voltage. I don't know how much they actually drop the voltage, but I don't see any need to drop the voltage at all, so I do away with them. You can see in the picture (i couldn't quite get them all in the same picture, so I had to drag the other 2 over) that I have 3 different variants. One type has 2 diodes, another type has only 1 diode and the last type has surface mount resistors. The boards with the surface mount resistors are the newest boards that I've purchased, so that's probably what they all come with now.

Here's a picture of an AMC7135 that I did about a year or so ago; you can see the wire in the center better on this one.

Anyway, when I remove either the diodes or the resistors, that breaks the Vdd circuit on the boards, so I solder a wire across to re-connect the circuit. Now, you may already know this information, but I'm going to try and explain this so that anyone who doesn't understand this, will know what I'm doing. Basically all your doing is connecting each leg of the 7135 chip, with the same leg on all the other 7135 chips. Scroll up and look at the picture above this writing or you can look at the picture below this writing. Now, looking at that picture, focus on the 7135 chip on the bottom right side of the board. You should see 3 legs coming out of the 7135 chip and facing towards the center of the board. The bottom leg is the Vdd or battery positive/led positive, the center leg is the ground and the top leg is the LED negative. What you want to do is make sure that all of the Vdd legs are connected together, all of the ground legs are connected together and all of the LED negatives are connected together.


The AMC7135 board in the picture below didn't require a wire across the center because the circuit is a little bit different than the other boards. You can see the light green colored path on the board (trace) that runs from each LED negative on every 7135 chip. That's how the connection is made inside the board. Maybe this makes sense. Also, I always check each circuit with my DMM before I supply power to the board; just to make sure I don't have any shorts and to make sure everything is connected together.

 

[ti-force]

Almost forgot about the 7135 chips with different numbers on them. I have heard of someone having trouble with certain numbers. I have a Darktort that's been modded with an MC-E emitter and Shiningbeam driver that I added an additional 7135 chip to and it works fine. All of the chips on that board, including the chip I added have these numbers at the top of the chip: L7135, but all of the chips that came on the Shiningbeam board have different bottom number than the chip that I added.

The bottom number on the Shiningbeam chips is:0704, but the bottom number on the chip I added is:0651, so I know those will work together. Also, it seems like I have, or had a board that actually came from the manufacturer with varying bottom numbers on the 7135's. I don't really know what the bottom numbers mean, maybe someone in the know can chime in and clear this up.

 

[vestureofblood]

All of the AMC7135 boards that I have, either have diodes or surface mount resistors which drop voltage. I don't know how much they actually drop the voltage, but I don't see any need to drop the voltage at all, so I do away with them. You can see in the picture (i couldn't quite get them all in the same picture, so I had to drag the other 2 over) that I have 3 different variants. One type has 2 diodes, another type has only 1 diode and the last type has surface mount resistors. The boards with the surface mount resistors are the newest boards that I've purchased, so that's probably what they all come with now.
Anyway, when I remove either the diodes or the resistors, that breaks the Vdd circuit on the boards, so I solder a wire across to re-connect the circuit.

Ok, so by removing this diode, and replacing it with wire, you get higher voltage to the led.

Now, you may already know this information, but I'm going to try and explain this so that anyone who doesn't understand this, will know what I'm doing. Basically all your doing is connecting each leg of the 7135 chip, with the same leg on all the other 7135 chips. Scroll back up a couple of posts and look at the Shiningbeam picture again. The picture where you can see the spring in the center of the board. Now, looking at that picture focus on the 7135 chip on the bottom right side of the board. You should see 3 legs coming out of the 7135 chip and facing towards the spring. The bottom leg is the Vdd or battery positive, the center leg is the ground and the top leg is the LED negative. What you want to do is make sure that all of the Vdd legs are connected together, all of the ground legs are connected together and all of the LED negatives are connected together.

WOW. You could not possible even know how much this helps me. I have been beating myself to death trying to truly understand the current path for this type of driver. I was assuming one very fatal thing. I thought that the center leg was the ground or bat neg in, and that BOTH of the pins on the left and right were NEG OUT. So you can imagine what a :toilet: time I have been having trying to figure this out. That has got to be the most valuable nugget I have found on this driver in a year. I have been able to use these drivers a lot, but I prefer to truly understand what I am doing rather than just copying.

One more question if you dont mind... Where does the control board fit into the equasion? Does the current flow through the chips then to the control board, or does the control board come into play after the current flows through the led?


Super thanks again.

 

[ti-force]

These are the only places I know of for ordering the AMC7135 boards. They are both priced about the same and they're both in China, so it could take 2 weeks or 2 months to get to you if you live in the U.S. I waited on some for a few months one time. They were on backorder, but I'm not sure if they forgot about me or what. They finally showed up in the mail one day and I had to scratch my head to even remember where they came from.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1886

or

http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=6653

You can get 1.4A boards (1400ma) or 1A boards (1050ma). I always get the 1.4A boards because all you have to do is remove 1 of the 7135 chips if you want to drop the current to 1A. That's how I end up with spare 7135 chips. It's also easy to solder the 7135 back on the board if you need to.

Casey

 

[ti-force]

Ok, so by removing this diode, and replacing it with wire, you get higher voltage to the led.



WOW. You could not possible even know how much this helps me. I have been beating myself to death trying to truly understand the current path for this type of driver. I was assuming one very fatal thing. I thought that the center leg was the ground or bat neg in, and that BOTH of the pins on the left and right were NEG OUT. So you can imagine what a :toilet: time I have been having trying to figure this out. That has got to be the most valuable nugget I have found on this driver in a year. I have been able to use these drivers a lot, but I prefer to truly understand what I am doing rather than just copying.

One more question if you dont mind... Where does the control board fit into the equasion? Does the current flow through the chips then to the control board, or does the control board come into play after the current flows through the led?


Super thanks again.

Yeah, you want to eliminate as much voltage loss and resistance as possible with these drivers. Fellow CPF members Justin Case and Linger taught me that one:thumbsup:.


The ATMEL chip on the shining beam or any other multimode board is what controls the 7135's. As long as you run the battery positive and battery negative into the multimode board first and then wire the slave sandwich or additional boards to the multimode board, it will control all of the 7135's.

These guys can explain it better than I can:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3284836&postcount=29

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3112794&postcount=26