What do you actually need? 1 microsecond with “decent bit” is not exactly a lot of information. An oscilloscope would fit that perfectly. How do they not work how you want them to? Who told you that you need something else?
The Original Saleae logic analyzer (or one of its clones -> search for “Compatible Saleae”) or a LA104 (maybe with custom firmware) or maybe a DSlogic pro or ChronoVu. You can also browse the HackADay Archive to find an analyzer that suits your needs (e.g. build your own, or based on a pico). It all depends on the resolution/speed you need and usecase.
USB isolator, $10 saleae clone and sigrok/pulseview setup is very simple and cheap (except for the isolator).
It’s great to see you exploring different platforms for your electronics inquiries! Regarding your setup with the variable boost converter, 18650 batteries, and the 12V LED strip, your analysis is on the right track.
The boost converter indeed stabilizes the output at 12V irrespective of the input voltage. In your scenarios, both setups - series and parallel configurations of the 18650 batteries - should effectively power the LEDs at 12V through the boost converter.
Your assumption about the parallel circuit draining faster than the series circuit due to the boost converter’s behavior is accurate. Since the parallel circuit offers half the voltage but doubles the current capacity, it will indeed discharge quicker compared to the series circuit.
Concerning the choice between parallel and series setups, there are trade-offs. The series circuit might experience fewer losses through the boost circuit due to its higher efficiency with higher input voltages, potentially reducing heating issues. However, as you mentioned, charging cells in series isn’t feasible with your TP4056 board, limiting your option to the parallel configuration.
Given your charging constraints, sticking to the parallel configuration seems more practical for recharging purposes. While it may drain faster, using the parallel setup is compatible with your charging board and allows for easier recharging.
I noticed your edit about the TP4056 board being compatible only with parallel charging, which aligns with your previous discovery. It’s a crucial factor to consider in maintaining the functionality and longevity of your battery setup.
If you want more insights on the efficiency differences or additional alternatives for charging in series, I have an informative post on converter types that delves into various setups and charging considerations, which might offer further clarification for your project.
Feel free to explore and let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to dive deeper into!
Your 2nd best bet would be to get the pin spacing, and filter your search using that.
Your first best bet would be to just replace both ends.
I settled on a ‘standard’ and just bought a massive kit of each of those connector types- wire-wire, wire-board, wire-panel in M and F, in various pole counts. Buy once, cry once.
If that’s not sensitive enough, another option is using a piezo element coupled to the case to detect vibration, with an op-amp or hex inverter to buffer + trigger the 555. However if you couple it too closely with e.g. the floor or furniture it will pick up nearby footsteps or cars. Might be good depending on the situation.
Soooo turns out mouser had a classical unit conversion error so they wrote 28 times as much airflow than there actually is in the fan specs so im not going to use fans in my flashlight as 2 watts of cooling matters so little that if i just use convection it would cool more.
These seem good and mouser has ip58 ones which are perfect for me. Maybe ill use two of them for example. But im ordering a few because if they dont work im gonna abandon the fan idea. Still cool fans. As for heatsinks the whole flashlight is one. Its a really high power, small flashlight(hotrod). It uses two 14500 lithium cells(basically aa size) to power a boost converter with more than 70 watts. Even tho the boost converter is really efficient the leds produce so much heat that the light overheats in seconds. So thats why i want to test if fans help.
Yeah but its still months from completion. I want to machine it from aluminium but im explorimg all possibilites before i start ordering parts/writing software. When i learn to use github im gonna upload all the files with a permissive license because i want to contribute to the flashlight community.
In seconds? Wow. I think you’re right, you might need more than a small fan!
It might be worth exploring heat pipes or peltier effect coolers. The latter makes the problem worse (they are inefficient and generate a lot of heat) but your LED can be locally cooler if you can e.g. move all that extra heat into a big heatsink (also condensation can be problematic).
One cheap source of heat pipes for testing could be old graphics cards – they often outperform simple copper heat sinks. Use thermal epoxy to stick your LED to it and see if the performance is acceptable. On the exotic end of things, you could also water/oil cool it, or (carefully) make your own thermal grease from industrial diamond powder for a small boost in thermal conductivity.
Also even at 95% efficiency, it sounds like your boost converter has some heat to dump too!
Yeah the problem is the light makes so much heat(the boost as well) that i cant dump it into the air with high enough efficiency. The bodys going to be aluminium and the pcb copper.
Hm, that reminds me! If you’re designing your own PCB, some manufacturers will make the PCB out of aluminum for you instead of FR4. This is commonly used for high-intensity LED lights to help keep them cool.
Here’s some random info about them so you can see what I mean:
I was already planning to use a copper core pcb. This is pretty common among insanely powerfull lights. The flashlight community has some great examples. But most of these lights use resistor based voltage regulators which waste a lot of energy in the form of heat so im trying to improve on the traditional design.
The flash chip is a common 16 MiB SPI NOR flash. An easy way to read or write it would be to use flashrom on a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi.
Unfortunately, that router is not supported by OpenWrt or DD-WRT, so you probably won’t be able to do much with it.
No, moving a ferrite core through a coil won’t generate a voltage. You would need to move a magnet to generate a voltage.
Look for a vibration switch like one of these. If you want more control, you could use an accelerometer and a microcontroller to trigger it from a specific amount of movement.
I haven’t done a course in electromagnetism yet, but as far as I understand, the ferrite core is just a piece of metal with no magnetic field, so moving it doesn’t induce a voltage
I think it would, however, change the inductance, just like the iron core in a transformer does
If your coil was oscillating, then perhaps an iron core moving through it would cause perturbations which are detectable. But that would require extra logic to compare the expected oscillation frequency with what the coil is actually oscillating at.
Since you say that tilt switches are not an option – for reasons I’m not entirely sure I understand – another option is to have a linear Hall effect sensor mounted nearby a small magnet. If the magnet moves relative to the sensor, then that is a change which can be acted upon. A linear sensor makes it possible to use a trim pot to tune the sensitivity.
i failed to mention the most important aspect of the project: (near) zero power consumption when idle.
it is a vacuum (that kinda looks like r2d2) that i want to play some r2d2 noises when used.
it is hauled around on a construction site on the scaffolding and wont be in an upright position while idle or in usage, so tilt switches didnt make sense to me.
i plan to run it from a coincell or maybe 2 aa, but it should only draw power when the sensor is triggered so the power should last years if i understood the 555 timer correctly. that means accelerometers and linear hall effect sensors are out too due to microcontrollers and thus power draw.
somebody else mentioned vibration sensors (SW-18010) that look promising.
These LEDs are not shift registers. In fact, if you look closely, there’s no input and output pin, only one data line. That’s because each LED in this strand is pre-addressed from 0 to 100. Whenever it receives the NeoPixel data, it picks out the n’th color data (matching to its pre-address) and displays that. You cannot change the pre-address, its fixed permanently - or at least, we have no idea how to re-address it.
Yes, I read that bit. I’m trying to find out more.
They are obviously made in bulk, somewhere in china, since they are quite common, and cheap. Unfortunately, I’ve only found them in pre-built products, and none actually identify the chip model.
They obviously can be programmed (at least once) since you can buy arrays of at least 400. There is no way a factory is making 400 different chips, given the end price.
Are we talking a handheld flashlight? Or is it something a bit more hefty?
Reason I’m asking is the bearings in the fan and motors. A handheld flashlight is going to take a beating, and the bearings can easily be knocked out of alignment.
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