Regulated Petzl Tikka

I added a regulator I made from a Maxim 1795 to my Tikka. I t seems to work rather well. It drives the led's a bright as 3 new batteries for a long time. while only using 2 batteries. I have not done any rune down tests but it will continue to work down to .7 V on the input, Though it starts to fall out of regulation soones and gradualy starts to dim near the end. At the verry end of the batterys life it is rather dim and it starts to pulse (Flashing off momentarely). Originaly the light drew 170MA and used a 3.3Ohm droping resistor. I removed the resistor and set the output of the regulator to drive the LED's at roughly 150MA.
The only wierd thing about the mod is the original switch switched the negative battery terminal, so I hade to go with it. switching the ground to a regulator is not the Ideal way of doing things. As a result the regulator does not turn all the way off when ground is un hooked. As you can see the lights stay on slightly but it only draws 50uA from the batteries. It is not a significant enough drane to cause a problem. But is dous add a nice feature making it posable to find your light in the dark.




I have always wanted a regulated AAA based headlight. I solved my problem /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Looks great!
I think that this is just what I have wanted. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
It can get rid of my hesitation to buy non-regulated Zipka.

Do you have a plan to make a AAA cell shape drop-in?
It would be perfect for me.

Unfortunatly a drop in will not work. The reason is the regulator would always be runing and you would be switching the led's on and off. The regulator does require sone power to run idle. you would come back to use it in a few weeks and the batteries would be dead. That mod took some fancy wiring inside and I am still not 100% satisfied. It realy needs to have the positive power switched on the reg instead of the Ground.

Nice work! I'm very interested in this, because I absolutely hate devices which use odd numbers of batteries.

That a nice mod. The circuit board looks great! How did you etch the board so cleanly?

I actually did not etch the board my self. I desined it using a CAD type program and had it printed by a pc board shop in Oregon, (ExpressPCB). They have a special where you get 3 of the same boards for $62.00 compleat with second day shipping. If all goes well you can have your boards 3 days from the time of ordering. The boards will be 2.5 x 3.75 inches (non negotiable). But of high quality, double sided, and plated through holes. No silk screening or solder masks. I regularly order boards for work which need to be about an inch shorter than the 3.75. They have been Ok with me proto typing my own little circuits on the scrap that I have to cut off. I LOVE MY JOB /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Very nice. I like two batteries too.