The E-drive (V3) + PDF

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

How about... iDriver :na:
Who said we need to put the word "Drive" in the name anyway?
Mind as well call it Zoron or something that sounds cool and from outer space like that
However, calling it without the drive, nobody will know what it is by the name.
Ultimate-Drive, Ulti-Drive, uDrive, Super-Drive, sDrive, Ultra-Drive.... Many names here :beer:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

gillza said:

I detect sarcasm? Maybe not. Well that is not some Walt Disney stuff that is from one of the greatest ANIME ever made: and her name is Haruko Haruhara

So how is the work going on the driver?

Le Quack, thank you for your PM!

Click to expand...

No sarcasm intended. I'm an old fart and I have no idea about anime. The films I am referring to are stuff like this...

Hayao Miyazaki

I've always been under the impression that it is supposed to be top quality anime... No?

The driver is being held up by the obscure holiday that is/was Columbus Day! Jared should have a very helpful care package today and hopefully he is not bogged down with classes too much to do some soldering and testing.

I did some testing here over the weekend, but yesterday I was quite sick (I'll refrain from sharing you the disgusting details, unless you beg me for them) and today isn't looking great either.

So lets hope Jared is well today!

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

LOL! Now I know what Baron's apology was about on my welcome page! You can call me an "old people" or old fart or any of that... I don't care. I have thick old-people skin! :crackup:

For what it is worth, I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I have watched most of the Hayao Miyazaki stuff with my kids and some of it is a bit strange to me, but I like it ok.

Seriously, I'm not that guy that you have to tiptoe around on the forum. Nothing that I saw upset me...

:beer:

Oh wait... :crackup:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

The Baron said:

I didnt mean to be harsh! I swear! Sorry if I did, I really didnt mean to

I edited my post. Sorry if I offended some people here, I love you guys

Click to expand...

BAN Him....:banned:


Just joking:wave:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Alright... I have some bad news for those waiting for the adjustable versions.

It seems that by my adding a potentiometer I changed the stability and thus quality of the output of the driver... I'm not going to sell a bad product, so we're going to have to do another revision or two before any adjustable boards come out.

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Do what was done with benboost. provide the list of set resistors necessary for specific current and links to them on digikey or whatever for those who are wishing to resolder them. Its not that difficult to do btw, resolder them that is.

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Yeah, heck the formula is no secret and we can actually build them to a bunch of set values, or send them with set resistors that will get you what you want.

Just out of curiousity, how about everyone who is interested posting your preferences for fixed values and perhaps what you would be using them for.

Also, I do think we are going to scale down a very small fixed version with output pads placed for pen hosts. So aside from the adjustable having to go back to the drawing board, everything else is excellent.

I was reminding Jared that despite our frustration with the adjustable driver issues, we have a driver that will run off almost any battery you can imagine, has reverse polarity protection, has thermal protection, under and over voltage protection, will fit inside a module, low cost, buck/boost, drives ir, reds, blues and violets, continuous negative and efficiency potentially in the low 90's!

It is a really versatile driver - we still need to test it up around 2A and see how that works. We've gotta heat sink really well for that as thermal protection kicks in fast!

I'm pretty excited about the new PCBs that have just come in!

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Is it 0.5V / R = I where R=1/((1/R1)+(1/R2)

The resistors should be 0805 with the tolerance of +/-1% 1/3 or 1/2W depending on the current?

I'd like to see 750ma, 800mA, 1A, 1.5A, 1.7A, 1.8A and 2.1A or as close as you can get, reasonable?

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

gillza said:

Is it 0.5V / R = I where R=1/((1/R1)+(1/R2)

The resistors should be 0805 with the tolerance of +/-1% 1/3 or 1/2W depending on the current?

I'd like to see 750ma, 800mA, 1A, 1.5A, 1.7A, 1.8A and 2.1A or as close as you can get, reasonable?

Click to expand...

That's wrong.

The reference voltage for this is 41 mV. So,

0.041 / R = I. Where R = 1((1/R1)+(1/R2)) ... Of course only one resistor can be used too.

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Le Quack said:

That's wrong.

The reference voltage for this is 41 mV. So,

0.041 / R = I. Where R = 1((1/R1)+(1/R2)) ... Of course only one resistor can be used too.

Click to expand...

Thanks And I don't mean to sound like an insistent child, but when can we expect fixed or solder_your_resisters_yourself versions of this driver?

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

You could actually do that with any version technically... Just depends on what output current you want.


1000 POSTS WOOP

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

Nice post count. Tell me what the restricted areas are like :evil:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

This new driver sounds amazing!
I want one :drool:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

gillza said:

Thanks And I don't mean to sound like an insistent child, but when can we expect fixed or solder_your_resisters_yourself versions of this driver?

Click to expand...

PM LeQuack if you want a driver now. He isn't really set up for mass production right now, but we do want some of these in use for testing. If he can't do it, I'll see what I can do... But I don't plan on doing any real selling or manufacturing.

We are looking into a reseller solution, but we want to keep costs down. That has been a major factor in this project. Very early on we decided that our GOAL was to create a driver that was smaller, better and cheaper than the flex.

This was not out of any ill will toward Dr. Lava, but out of frustration with his frequent absences and the higher price of the flex.

To be fair to the good doctor, we have certainly learned that there is a reason that there aren't a dozen alternatives to the flex. The flex is a good driver. But that just made the target we were aiming for all that much more enticing.

Are we there yet? Arguably yes and arguably no.

We don't have the adjustment capabilities yet, that has presented us with new and unexpected challenges. But our fixed output versions are shaping up to be available in two flavors.

1. Small and affordable.
2. Very small and still a good bit less than the flex.

And both of those drivers have some features that I don't believe the flex offers.

Here are the features we currently are starting to implement on all new PCBs going forward. (These are not available yet, we only have the slightly larger early revisions available at this point, but the newer versions are on order.)

1. By request, centered output pads;
2. Optional 8.85 mm by 11.33 mm - fits in a module; or 9 mm x 11.7 mm;
3. Continuous negative/ground;
4. Thermal protection that WORKS, I've encountered it several times;
5. Heatsink pad on PCB - we may be able sell it sinked;
6. Over voltage protection;
7. Under voltage protection for batteries;
8. Takes a wide variety if inputs from 2.5v-12v in;
9. Output up to 8v - no worry about 405's or 9mm blues not getting enough V;
10. Can be paralleled;
11. Reverse polarity protection. (We could go smaller without this, but I personally feel very strongly about reverse protection. If you could control what these drivers were going in, you could take it out and have a smaller driver with lower part count and lower cost, because you could design your laser pointer to physically protect you from reverse polarity. But it just sucks to fry a laser because of a common and simple oversight. I grew up in an age where you put batteries in something and if it didn't work, you turned them around and it did work.

And we are at $15.99 for the larger of the two (which isn't MUCH larger) and should be under $20 (I think) for the super micro model. (When you start trying to buy good caps at the edge of the limits for uF/size they start to go from nickels and dimes to quarters and dollars real fast.)

Another feature that we haven't mentioned, and this may vary over time - but I am anal retentive about parts specs. I drove Jared crazy always trying to find a better capacitor or a better resistor for the driver. There is always a point where you say, "Whoah, we can't put $0.50 X8R caps on this board when we can get $0.05 X7R caps!" or I would have to settle for 10% caps when I wanted 5% because of cost, but that was rare. In many, many instances - we ended up with very good materials.

I concentrated very hard on trying to go X7R or better, and if I chose an X5R product, it was by absolute necessity. And X5R isn't bad, but I aimed higher. Same for resistors, I shot for 25ppm/°C where possible and I don't think there is anything worse than 100ppm/°C on the board, other than the pot which doesn't matter so much.

But I tried my hardest to find parts that would take HEAT and not just stay alive, but KEEP WORKING under the conditions.

Now I'll be very upfront and say that part of my motivation was to give us parts for protoyping that would not be giving us problems so we could focus on the driver design rather than wondering if a budget capacitor was the problem. But we have a lot of those parts still in the bins and it will be hundreds of drivers from now before we have to re-analyze and see I'd we could save money with less expensive parts or if it would be worth it. For the foreseeable future, these drives are going to be built from premium components!

So there you have it right now.

We have a board that works. We have smaller versions of that board on the way. The new ones will feature centered output pads and hopefully usable heatsink pads. Our adjustable version is still under construction.

So what is next? Well, Jared and I need to decide on distribution. He's in college and I have a full time gig. Does he bake a bunch of popular currents and send them to Clif or someone to sell?

Does he try to run a shop out of his dorm room?

Those are the questions we face right now.

For the short term, we would like to get some boards in people's hands, and I would be willing to make a FEW if he wants to go that route. We will talk it over and get back to everyone.

In the meantime, post your desired values and applications please...

500mA, 525mA, 550mA? What do you have in mind?

:thanks:

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

450ma & 750ma for 405nm
1.25A & 1.8A for M140
1.8A & 2.2A for 9mm 445nm
300ma for pen builds
500ma & 1A for reds?

Re: The Elasti-drive Intro (V1 and V2)

TheDukeAnumber1 said:

450ma & 750ma for 405nm
1.25A & 1.8A for M140
1.8A & 2.2A for 9mm 445nm
300ma for pen builds
500ma & 1A for reds?

Click to expand...

Good stuff. I want to test a 2.x amp driver and see how that works! I know Jared has done more tests than I have (he figured out how to flow that frigging IC way quicker than I did, but I'm getting pretty consistent now) and I would like to back up his tests on high current drivers.

I have a busy weekend, but that is my goal - to try and test a 2.x A version this weekend or next week to see how it does and what kind of sinking it will need.

According to Jared, in boost it needs more heat sinking, but in buck it is very efficient and doesn't need as much.