Thanks.
thefreeman
joined 2 years ago
Thanks
although I think these drivers could become very expensive and once the manufacturers start substituting components it’s efficiency could decrease.
The buck ICs I used are actually not very costly, the inductors are a bit pricey but since there is quite a bit of free space on the board, (and unused stuff for low side sensing because I made it both high/low side sensing) larger cheaper Chinese ones with similar specs could be used and the performance would be unaffected.
Generally that’s what I would do if contracted for a driver, for example I made my BST21 one sided and 0603 min size for easier self assembly, due to that I used a 70x0 inductor size (~7.5×7.5mm, variable height), which if it was Chinese branded would not have satisfactory specs.
If asked to design a similar driver I would use a larger 1040 inductor (10×11mm×4mm, common size used in Convoy drivers) that are even a bit better than the Bourns/Coilcraft 70x0 but cheaper, the driver would need to be double sided but produced in large quantities this doens’t have a high cost. The converter IC can’t he be substituted, the only other power component would be the RPP PFET but there are a few pretty good chinese ones like the one used in Noctigon boost drivers.
Unfortunately Neopixels consume too much power, about 1mA quiescent current each, also min Vin is 3.75V according to the datasheet.
The other day I found this small RGB controller, 200uA quiescent current (LEDs off), 300uA LEDs ON, which is much better especially with only one controller for all the aux LEDs.
Very cool!
Test results for BST15 (the smol one) :
I use Kicad.
Thanks 😊
The small one dubbed BST15 is a 15mm component clearance/17mm total diameter boost driver, rated for ~40W (6A~6.5V, 3A~13V), with HDR (low moonlight), it’s compatible with e-switch (Anduril) and Mike_C’s OTSM implementation for clicky switch, I made it (with his blessings) so that it is easier to build than his version and added reverse polarity protection , my first version had some issues at high current, at the time I didn't do too much troubleshooting and left it aside, recently I made an updated version, which is the one I just assembled and it works well. The next step is assembling a couple more to send to Mike so that he can finish his firmware, then I’ll share the PCB/BOM for people to assemble it themsleves.
The big one is also a boost driver, 1S input, I’ll post more detail once I have finished testing it, I did some partial efficiency test already but I don’t have a power source powerfull enough to test it at max current 😅.
It’s for a rather popular light so it shouldn't be too hard guess which.
There’s Jerboa for Android, Mlem and Memmy for IOS. Jerboa is quite basic for now. The Sync for Reddit dev announced that he will make a Sync for Lemmy, I also saw someone working on a Slide for Lemmy (Slide has always been my preferred app for reddit)
Thanks.
None except cost. When I started this project a DTP MCPCB would have cost in the 300-400$, but since the start of 2023 JLCPCB is offering a DTP MCPCB service for 50$ base price which is much more reasonable, for a large MCPCB like this I would use this service now. For a small (single/few LEDs) one off MCPCB I might still go with the plating route since the alu MCPCB is so cheap.