Storm electronics question

[gcbryan]

This isn't something that I know how to do and probably wouldn't do it if I did but how hard would it be to modify the electronics of the Storm so that the flood beam was always on when the headlamp was turned on in spot mode.

As it is it toggles between spot and flood every time you turn it off and on. What would have to be done so that when it's in flood mode there are no changes but when it's in spot mode the flood is always on. The ramping could still control both but it would be proportional. Currently high for the spot mode is 100 lumens and high for the flood is 25 lumens. Low for both is 4 lumens. So when current was cut by half for the spot mode (50 lumens) it would be cut by half for the flood mode (13 lumens) as well.

I just wondered if there was some way to hard wire the flood mode so that it was always on.

I'm guessing it's not that easy but for someone with an electronics background (hobby or otherwise) I just wondered if it's possible and just what would be involved. I know it would reduce the run time but I could live with that since high in the flood mode is only 25 lumens.

In any event it would be a unique and very interesting headlamp with such a modification...pure flood near the body with a diffused directed beam further away.

 

[ringzero]

This isn't something that I know how to do and probably wouldn't do it if I did but how hard would it be to modify the electronics of the Storm so that the flood beam was always on when the headlamp was turned on in spot mode.

Since nobody else has replied, I'll take a stab at it. Not having a Storm to look at this is rather speculative.

Depends on whether it has separate drivers for the spot and flood emitters.

If there are two separate driver circuits, then what you are proposing should be a fairly straight forward mod.

If, as I suspect, there is only one current driver that sources a different level of current depending on the switch setting, then the situation is more complex and less amenable to an easy mod.

The reason I suspect they have one driver circuit doing double duty is economy of manufacture - eliminating a second driver saves money.

Szemhazai, the guy from Poland, reviewed the Storm. He may know the answer to this since he had his Storm apart and made a lot of measurements on it.

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[Szemhazai]

It will be a bit difficult mod - the only thing that spring up to my mind is to put the small diode on the leg that controls transistors for ML- (xp-e led) connect it to the leg that controls SL- and wish that it will be enough to drive the transistor for SL- (flood leds). :devil:

Other connection will work both ways, in that case the spot will work in flood mode too.

The best way will be to hack & reprogram pic IC - but thats out of my league. :shakehead