Dimming on Lummi products

koopa

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Messages
46
Hello to all, especially those of you of the electronics 'hacking and modding' persuasion.

I've now had my Lummi RAW NS for a month, and what a joy! It has been my nightlight for various romantic evenings, a massive showoff item to all my friends, and my dog loves it most of all (now she gets walked at night, and she can see where she's going, as can her owner... this torch made that fun, thanks Rob!)

Now to improve on perfection.

There is one thing that would greatly enhance the utility of this torch: variable brightness.

I mean, I'm glad to have the 2 modes, but the torch is so much less efficient at 200lumens than 100, and 20 lumens (seems like 35) is too bright for some uses.

I mean, I own a Photonlight Rex, whose circuitry is almost small enough to fit inside a RAW, and that includes 5% to 100% non-flickering PWM brightness control, strobe, SOS, and charging!

For those of you who have had a look inside your RAWs, how hard would it be to do a little rewiring, and replace that little movable contact (the one that initiates the 20 lumens mode I think), remove the 10ohm resistor and solder in a potentiometer (variable resistor)? I mean, am I missing anything? Don't we just need a tiny little 5V/0.5A log taper straight sprung potentiometer?

I'm going to start googling, but I'm not a straight out electronics guy, anyone who could help me locate such a tiny potentiometer, would be much appreciated!

PS: I am a tiny TINY bit irked that the lovely golden tint of the RAW becomes greenish as it gets dimmed. If anyone knows how the circuitry inside the RAW could be made to PWM dim at high frequency (no flickering), bonus points to you sir/mam. My only starting point is desoldering the Photonlight Rex (the chip that does all the intelligent stuff is TINY, and runs off a small LiIon cell, should be plug and play/pray).

Ideas people!
 

deusexaethera

Banned
Joined
Jan 21, 2009
Messages
504
If I were going to do this, I would try to set up something where the potentiometer is also the positive contact, and it's rotated by the positive terminal on the battery as you screw the head into place on the body. No external controls FTW.
 

Norm

Retired Administrator
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
Messages
9,512
Location
Australia
My ideal Raw would have three levels switched by turning the light on and off, continuiously variable would be unnecessarily complicated. Two levels are good three levels would be ideal.
Norm
 

koopa

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Messages
46
Actually I think that continuously variable dimming would be no more complicated than the current rig, just replace the little press-switch with a variable resistor? What I need is help finding such a small part?
 
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