Many thanks!

[ermione]

What to say... thank you very much! I was "unfortunate" to get a V2 radio as second buy but now it's not inferior to the first. Afrter Armel's answer he won't do a port himself, I was sad.

If you need to do some comparative tests, I am open to help. I have one V1 with bandscope FW and one V2 with bandscope FW (and a complete RF electronic lab...).

Andrea

[muzkr]

I'm glad this firmware could be of help. And thank you for your willingness to help - if I need to use it, I'll collect it from you :)

[muzkr]

Hmm, now that you mention comparative testing, I actually think of something that needs it.
In my view, the only significant difference between F4HWN for V1 and for V2 is the control for backlight dimming. V1 firmware uses a hardware timer to implement PWM, whereas V2 lacks this convenience, so I implemented it using software simulation.
I'm very interested to know how much difference there is in their impact on power consumption.
Could you figure out a way to do this for me, Andrea @ermione ?

[ermione]

Hello. Sure!

Today I did a simple test, light emission on the two radios in the different settings. Numbers are in Lux, though I didn't measure full emission as to capture 100% of the light would be really tricky and the usefulness of the result, as it's a comparison, wouldn't change.

set, V1, V2
10, 189, 210
9, 120, 129
8, 76, 82
7, 49, 50
6, 31, 31
5, 20, 19
4, 13, 12
3, 8, 7
2, 5, 4
1, 2, 2

Both radio are same model, same amber backlight, maximum battery charge.
As you see, they seem pretty similar, though V2 is higher on the 10, 9, 8 settings.
If you want, I can measure also drawn current, but as LEDs are the same, current (and thus power) could only be proportional to emitted light.

Andrea.

[ermione]

If we don't consider LED power, I don't think that hardware timer vs software timer could change power usage in a significant way unless the software timer forced you to pull the MCU out of sleeping mode much more.

A way to measure it would be to compile a FW where the software timer is disabled and one where it's enabled but instead of changing the output pin, it does nothing, so LEDs keep to be off. I suppose that, worst case, we are about few microamps.

[muzkr]

Ah, you're a quick buyer. Good for you. The K1 and V3 are essentially identical in circuitry, aside from battery capacity and keypad layout.

[ermione]

Oh well, with the price of those things, there's not usually the need to think too much :)
Interesting that K1 and V3 are the same: with all the marketing hype. I thought they would have made more improvements in circuitry... so it was mostly an excuse to raise the price of 30% :|
Well at least I am sure what I'll get. If I would have ordered another K5, who knows if I would have received a V1, V2 or V3...

[muzkr]

I guess QS prices products by weight: K1 is heavier than K5. Just kidding.

[ermione]

Ah, you're a quick buyer. Good for you. The K1 and V3 are essentially identical in circuitry, aside from battery capacity and keypad layout.

Hello Vincent.
As it seems they canceled my order for K1 (they didn't deliver it in time...), as you studied the circuitry of the radios, which one would you suggest to buy (I didn't order the K1 with bigger battery in any case)? A V3 or a K1? (mostly for the possibility to mod firmware and eventually also install boards such the HW SSB demod chip)

[muzkr]

I recommend v3. Reasons: 1. It's cheaper. 2. v3 feels a lot lighter in hand. 3. From a functional/firmware development perspective, v3 and k1 are nearly identical. However, since they have different PCB layouts, hardware modders for v3 are easier to find (at this moment). I suspect modders designed for v1 can be used on v3 without modification or with only minor tweaks.

[ojfd]

@ermione, how did you measure light emission. I'm just curious..
@muzkr, in case you need to double check ermione's measurements, I can measure light emission using GretagMacbeth i1Pro spectrophotometer that I normally use for display calibration

[muzkr]

Thanks! I'll reach out to you when I need it.

[ermione]

@muzkr I'll weight both of them and see :)
@ojfd I measured it with a digital luxmeter with large sensor, in contact with the display, in a dark room, display visualizing the BLMax page. Nothing too fancy as I was about to do a comparison, not a real quantitative measurement (that would have required at least some reflecting screens to capture all possible light emission and so on...).