Multi-level driver for SSC P7 under $8 ?

[kwarwick]

I looked for this,do you have a link?

They *HAD* it, and I managed to order one earlier in the month. It no longer shows up on their website. :mecry:

 

[Winx]

I bet Bryan has ordered more. Both of those famous 3-mode drivers, fully regulated 1A and this 2.8A, are sold out from time to time.

Just visit the website regularly.

 

[CBR-runner]

I just ordered 2 of those drivers last week. Made a damn fine P60 dropin with a Cree MC-e

now they are sold out. I was going to make 7 P-60 MC-e dropins but I guess I'll wait.

 

[TorchBoy]

BTW, there's already a 8x7135 multi-mode board, I posted in this thread at #59.

Nothing ever came of that request to DX did it?

 

[NetKidz]

Nothing ever came of that request to DX did it?

No. The product request status showed "Reviewed" and no product till now..... :oops:

 

[dirtech]

Can anyone try to conceptually explain how these two boards are connected. I recieved mine and they are a bit different from these pictured here. The two level multimode has one of the 7135 chips in a different placement and its screwing me up. I thought I had them in parallel and was only getting 1.4 amps with no multimode. I functioned checked both boards and was getting 1a on high with the multimode and 1.4a on the single mode separately. Also, when I bridged the 4x 7135 after removing the diode, I got nothing at all. It was only when trying again with a unmodified 4x7135 did I get any light at all.

Conceptually, I think I need to connect the neg outer rings to each other and the pos led pads (that you would normally just attach to led) to each other. then connect the bat pos to the center pad and the bat neg to the outer neg ring on the multi driver. Then connect the multimode driver pos to led pos and multimode driver neg to led led. I tried this and wasn't getting multimodes. I'm missing a link here, maybe someone can help. I can post pictures of my driver boards when I can find my camera. I am working with a parallel wired MCE and 3 C Ni-mh's in a D mag.

BTW, total newb and first attempt at making a sandwich.

Thanks for any help.

 

[TorchBoy]

The AMC7135 has a chip enable pin, called Vdd I think from memory. That needs to be driven by the multimode chip.

 

[dirtech]

The AMC7135 has a chip enable pin, called Vdd I think from memory. That needs to be driven by the multimode chip.

Thanks. I read that earlier as well. Not really sure what that means though. Off to google.

 

[dirtech]

Here are the boards I'm working with. The multimode is very similar looking, but sufficiently different to confuse someone who doesn't know anything about this stuff and is just following a recipe.

The bottom left driver isn't working at all on its own, but one with the diode still present gives 1.4amps.

Here is what I did

In netkidz 1st post, the thing I don't understand is why are the LED neg and the positive connection between multimode and the slave connected to the 7135 chip to the right of the MCU.

Shown here

 

[TorchBoy]

Um, let's see...

Battery + and LED + are the same thing, and remains unchanged for both boards.

Board neg (-) remains the same also, and connects the the GND pin on the AMC7135, which is the centre (center) pin.

LED neg (-) should remain unchanged, the OUT pin on the AMC7135, which is on the left when you have the three pins pointing toward you.

That just leaves the Vdd pin, on the right when they're pointing toward you. On the single mode board normally battery + feeds the Vdd pin through a diode, which netkidz removed (shorted) and is now feeding with the output of the multimode chip. Basically it should be just a matter of connecting the Vdd pins on the two boards together.

 

[dirtech]

Here is what I ended up with.

I removed the diode and jumper'd it with a small piece of wire. Ignore the way I jumped it in the picture. The small red line is how I jumped it. The rest is how it has been previously posted.
I get 2.4a on high and around .25a on low. Exactly what I wanted.

Thank you Torchboy for filling in the missing pieces for me.

This one is for my father in law after I test it for awhile. My next one is a 2s2p MCE with the same driver setup sans 2 7135 chips for 1.7a on high with two 18650's in a 2d mag.

 

[TorchBoy]

Awesome. I'm glad that bridging is sorted out. That new design is so similar in appearance to the ones I've seen but really quite different electrically in layout. Where are they from? And what multi-mode board are you using?

BTW, that latest pic looks like you're not using the two LED (-) pads on the boards now, although the lines on your previous pic had the LED (-) lines pointing to those pads.

 

[dirtech]

Awesome. I'm glad that bridging is sorted out. That new design is so similar in appearance to the ones I've seen but really quite different electrically in layout. Where are they from? And what multi-mode board are you using?

BTW, that latest pic looks like you're not using the two LED (-) pads on the boards now, although the lines on your previous pic had the LED (-) lines pointing to those pads.

I am using these two boards from KD.

http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1802
and
http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=9605

If I remember correctly, I tried many configurations, I'm not using the two neg LED pads because I wasn't getting multimode, just 1.4 amps from the 4 x 7135 board.

 

[TorchBoy]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." :laughing: (So there's no need to move the wires back to the pads now it's working.)

Thanks for those links. That two mode board sounds quite nice.

 

[Lumencraft (Matt)]

Using this type of driver with a 7135 chipset that just "burns off" the extra voltage, do you still get longer run time on low modes?

 

[joedirt]

In case anyone reads this and is confused by hacking..

The 7135 regulators are basically like resistors, but with three inputs:

Vin -- (Vdd) to battery (or from 12F629 GPIO output)
Gnd -- gnd
Vout -- (Vreg/Out) to diode (cathode of LED)

There is example diagrams for the 12F629 PIC examples, and this one for the Atmel example which is the one in this thread, See also here;

You have to connect three connections to stack the extra 7135s to the controller board.

Vin must be at least 0.12 V above Vf of LED. When the Vin (battery) voltage is much higher the 7135 burns it off as heat. So Vf is higher when you are at 1A, so the 7135 is more efficient because for high currents, the Vf of the LED is closer to 3.6V or whatever your battery is, ie. only 10% of the power is going to heat. When lower power setting modes, Vf is lower so the 7135 is now like at 60% efficient so now 40% is going into heat.

However in 1A it is 10% to heat.. that is 100mA, total usage is 1100mAh
But, at lower output 0.1A it might be 40% as heat but that is 40mA, total usage is 140mAh. So you don't notice it wearing down battery life.

You want to match Vf of driver to the batteries you are using.

 

[TorchBoy]

In case anyone reads this and is confused by hacking..

The 7135 regulators are basically like resistors, but with three inputs:

Vin -- (Vdd) to battery (or from 12F629 GPIO output)
Gnd -- gnd
Vout -- (Vreg) to diode (+ side of LED)

:welcome: joedirt.

The three pins on an AMC7135 are Vdd, GND, and OUT. The OUT pin is connected to the LED negative. The LED positive and Vdd are both connected to battery positive. :oops:

 

[joedirt]

:welcome: joedirt.

The three pins on an AMC7135 are Vdd, GND, and OUT. The OUT pin is connected to the LED negative. The LED positive and Vdd are both connected to battery positive. :oops:

I had editted the post right after I hit Submit to say cathode. The "Vdd" of the 7135 could be connected to the battery, but in the case of the modes, it is connected to the GPIO of the microcontrollers.

Also, one more note.... EACH 7135 is a current regulator.
Each 7135 will provide 330mA... So while you can chain hundreds of these in parallel, you really have to look at your LED current you want. Other wise you will damage the driver (if your batteries are big enough and can support a high enough Vf to the LED). If you put a hundred of these in parallel, it means that that the LED will basically be directly connected to the battery and the LED brightness will decrease as the battery voltage drops. So there is no point in putting 8 of these in parallel unless you are trying to regulate to 8*330mA.

 

[Megavvolt]

Somebody please help:
Got several SKU's 7612 (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7612), and all of them make a high pitched noise on low and middle. No noise on high.

Of course it's not heard when you ride but when I switch the light on when at home I hear it loud and clear.

My boards are exactly as pictured at DX:

Is this noise normal or should I get rid of it, and how?

 

[Lumencraft (Matt)]

I think unfortunately that noise is a common side effect with the multilevel 7135 boards. I have even heard it faintly from the higher quality boards like shiningbeams.