A17DD help needed

Hey guys. Need a bit of help with the above driver. This is the item description I saw.

Specification:
Product name: Astrolux S1 A17DD-L FET+1 Flashlight Driver
Model: A17DD-L FET+1 Driver (by wight)
Voltage:2.8-4.35v
Diameter:17mm
Current: 4A-6A (depends on the battery you used.With full charged and high quality battery the current will be higher.)
Suit for: BLF A6,Astrolux S1 flashlight

Modes:
Group 1:Moon-Low-Med1-Med2-High1-High2-Turbo(Short press<0.5s)
Group 2: Low,Med,High,Turbo (Short press<0.5s)
+
Moon-Turbo-Tactical Strobe-Battcheck-Bike Flasher (Medium press 0.5s-1.5s)

Features:
With mode memory off, the user can access 4 different modes
User selectable "4 or 7 evenly-spaced modes".(Moon to High)
User selectable mode memory (always starts on Moon without mode memory but easily reverses to Turbo with a click)

Upon opening it was just the driver in a ziplock bag within a bubble wrap bag. There was no literature with it at all. I'm trying to find out how I change between its group modes. I spent about 2 hours on google trying to find something and kept getting the same hits regardless of how I worded my search that didn't really help.

Can anyone give me a quick rundown please.

I'll do you one better -- here's the full source code for the firmware, if you're into that sort of thing. Its open source.

The instructions you're looking for are in the .txt file and there's a flowchart representation in the .png.

Maybe here... :shrug: :

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~toykeeper/flashlight-firmware/trunk/view/head%3A/ToyKeeper/blf-a6/blf-a6.txt





ok, too slow

Awesome. Thanks guys. Although maybe I'm being dense but this bit isn't making sense to me.

Configuration options:

- Short tap rapidly a bunch of times (15+ taps, or until the light
stops turning on) to enter soft config mode.

The way it works is the light will blink twice for each option,
then pause for a bit before moving to the next option. Turn the light off between the two blinks to toggle that option.

The available options are:

- Mode group: 7 modes or 4 modes: Group 1: moon, low, med1, med2, high1, high2, turbo
Group 2: low, med, high, turbo

- Mode memory toggle

- If CONFIG_STARS is defined, you can ground pin 3 of the MCU to
enable mode memory instead of using config mode. This can often be done by soldering a star on the spring side of the driver, if your driver supports that. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to make a solder bridge from pin 3 (mode mem toggle) to pin 4 (ground). Or even just wedge a piece of metal between the two pins.

So I get the 7 mode and 4 mode options, but the memory mode confuses me, is it something that can be turned on or off via the soft config or does it require soldering work and then it's permanent. It's not hugely clear. Lastly it says there are 4 mode groups. But I only see 2 distinct groups so are the 4 options:
group1 (no memory)
group 2 (no memory)
group 1 (memory)
group 2 (memory)
Or am I really missing something. I'm still very new to all this.

Thom2022 said:

So I get the 7 mode and 4 mode options, but the memory mode confuses me, is it something that can be turned on or off via the soft config or does it require soldering work and then it's permanent. It's not hugely clear. Lastly it says there are 4 mode groups. But I only see 2 distinct groups so are the 4 options:
group1 (no memory)
group 2 (no memory)
group 1 (memory)
group 2 (memory)
Or am I really missing something. I'm still very new to all this.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you got it nailed. I don't think your missing anything. If you haven't downloaded the .png file, go ahead and do it. By looking at the flow chart you can see that there are lined and dashed paths. They appear to be selected by the duration of time you press to make that choice. At least that how it appears to me when you look at the logic flow between the solid and dash lines. And they also appear to be either reversed in that press selection.

I could be wrong but that's what I get out of studying the logic path pic.

I've tried reading the PNG file but it's just one line saying 'this is a binary file' and nothing else.

Thom2022 said:

I've tried reading the PNG file but it's just one line saying 'this is a binary file' and nothing else.

Click to expand...

Yeah the web interface won't show it. Select it, then when it says "this is a binary file", click the download link at the top. Then open it on your own computer.

So I've made a discovery I think with regards to this driver so I will post it up so anyone searching has the info easily accessible.

So from my experience the mode selection works as follows.
Turn the light on and then rapidly half press around 15-20 times until the light seems to go off.
It then will do 2 flashes, pause, 2 flashes.
The first 2 flashes are mode selection. This is either 4 brightness modes or 7 brightness modes. In both modes you can long press so cycle backwards or from lowest this will cycles turbo, strobe, batt check, bike light in that order.
The second pair of flashes toggle memory mode on or off.
If off the light always comes on in lowest mode.
I find the selection works best if you click between the 2 flashes of each pair.

If anyone else using this driver can test and confirm that would be brilliant.
Hopefully this will be useful for some.