Illuminated AV Momentary switch, Hasbro board and accents

[Robodoc]

Greetings all! I've been away from the saber sceen for about 3 years since I built my first basic (no sound) saber. The TCSS community was an enormous help to me in building that first saber. I'm getting abit more ambitious with my latest project that consists of the following electronic parts:
Luxeon III LED (cyan)
Econo Hasbro sound (2010)
2 accent LEDs
Buck Puck 1000mA
Anti Vandal Momentary Switch-illuminated blue ring http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/16mm-Anti-Vandal-Short-Momentary-Blue-Ring-Switch-P616.aspx


I think I have a basic understanding of the difference between momentary and latching switches (thanks to these forums), although I have no idea how to determine which one to use in different situations. My problem is that when I connect everything to the battery, everything turns on without depressing the switch. I tried reversing my neg and pos leads (uh oh) and got no response. I have tried holding down the button to see if it will turn off/on, but that does nothing. Since I'm using an econo Hasbro board, I believe I have to use a momentary switch, right? That brings up another strange issue. When i replace the AV mom switch with a simple "push on/push off" switch http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Push-onpush-off-switch-with-red-button-P41.aspx it all seems to work fine. :confused: Here is a link to my wiring diagram:
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy239/Robodoc93/Hasbro-MomAV-accent2.png

Help me TCSS community! You're my only hope!

[Silver Serpent]

Switches don't have a polarity, so switching the pos and neg won't do anything for the switch.

Can you post a picture of the wiring for your switch itself? It sounds like something is hooked up incorrectly.

[WookieeGunner]

Ok, first let me explain the differences between the switches. There are two terms I will be using here, open and closed. Picture the big Frankenstein type of switch. When it is open the circuit is off. When Igor throws the switch, he closes it, turning the circuit on.

What a latching switch does is everytime you press it the switch cycles between being open (circuit is off) and being closed (circuit is on). This is the type of switch used when you don't have a sound board and is the type of switch you have linked to for the simple push on/off.

The other type of switch is a Momentary switch. What this does is that normally it is either open (circuit is off) or closed (circuit is on). You will see this a lot of times listed as NO (normally open) or NC (normally closed). When you press the switch it changes from what it is normally to the other and when you release the switch it changes back to what it is normally (unlike the latching that stays in the new state until you press again).

So based on this it sounds like the sound card actually needs a latching switch, not the momentary contact version.

[Silver Serpent]

Even if the board required a latching switch, that wouldn't explain why everything turned on when he applied power with the momentary switch. Three possibilities come to mind:

1. The switch is connected incorrectly, possibly with a short somewhere.
2. The momentary switch is of the NC variety (unlikely if purchased from TCSS).
3. The switch is defective and has an internal short leaving it permanently closed.

The boards we normally refer to as the "econo" boards use momentary switches. It's possible that this particular board uses a latching switch, but I'd like to see a picture of the wiring so I can rule out possibility #1.

[WookieeGunner]

I totally agree that it sounds like a short issue. I'm new enough I didn't know if TCSS sold NC or NO switches so my initial gut was "Ooops, hooked up an NC to a latching setup."

[Robodoc]

Wow! Thanks for the quick response! I couldn't get a pick of the wiring so I made a diagram.
9225
The good news is that I think I've figured it out. I assumed that the terminals labelled "+" and "-" were to go to the sound card. But as Silver Serpent said, switches do not have polarity. When I tried switching the leads to the unlabelled terminals it seemed to work properly.

I'm still not sure that I'm getting the most out of my Lux III LED or my accents. Any suggestions on whether I can wire my setup differently?

[Silver Serpent]

Yes, the "+" and "-" leads are for the LED in the switch. The other two terminals are for the switch itself.

If your main LED is lighting up, then it's getting the full 1000mA from the buckpuck. If you want more brightness, you'll need to use some different hardware. Either swap to a multi-die LED like the Tri-Rebels, or get a LED driver to overdrive the LED at higher than 1000mA.

[Robodoc]

Thanks for all your help! :grin: Can't wait to get started on building the actual saber! Gonna try to build a chassis/sled for the electronics using the multitude of ideas on the forums.

[Don Se Wion]

From my point of view the diagram is missing the PNP transistor between the LED output of the board and the BuckPuck.
I suppose the lack of brightness might be caused by the fact that the econoboard shouldn't be able to give 1000 mA to the LED.

[Robodoc]

Thanks for noticing that Don Se Wion. I thought I was running the main LED directly off of the battery (through the Buck Puck, of course). I've seen the diagrams using a PNP transistor, but, I must admit, I don't see the purpose of it in my particular setup. I don't know what the output of this Hasbro board is - gotta dig out my multimeter, but others have posted that econo Hasbro boards in general only put out about 350mA. That would be woefully inadequate to run a Lux III ...I think. :confused: If you wouldn't mind taking another look at my diagram to see whether I'm running the LED off the board or directly from the battery pack, I would greatly appreciate it.

http://s795.photobucket.com/user/Robodoc93/media/Hasbro-MomAV-accent2.png.html

[Don Se Wion]

The way you wired the LED is correct for the econoboard.
The LED positive goes to the battery positive and the LED negative goes to the LED output on the board.

The problem is that the econoboard was engineered to drive 3 or 4 standard LEDs, so it is not giving much current at all.
To increase the current to the LED we normally use the PNP transistor wired as shown in this thread:

http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?10288-2010-Electronic-Lightsaber-w-DVD-Tutorial&highlight=econoboard

The thread is veeery long, but you can stick with the diagrams in the first post, they are correct.

The transistor you need is a TIP42C or equivalent.
It can give you all the current you need or, in other words, it can give you all the current your batteries are able to provide ;)

[Robodoc]

Sweet! Thanks! I'll hook it up tonight.

[Robodoc]

:oops:
#1: I think my brain is turning to mush. My LED momentary switch is lighting nicely, but my other accent is not. Any ideas (see wiring diagram).

http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy239/Robodoc93/2bcea7bc-c334-46ca-8b11-6c7d7a702d1c.jpg (http://s795.photobucket.com/user/Robodoc93/media/2bcea7bc-c334-46ca-8b11-6c7d7a702d1c.jpg.html)


#2: Except for the accent LED, everything works with 4 AA batteries. In order to save some space, I want to use 2 Li-ion batteries (14500). However, when I hook up the Li-ions, I get sound, but the main LED (Lux III) flickers. In fact, it seems to pulse in time with the hum from the sound card! What the heck?

Any help is appreciated.

[Arsies]

maybe you are giving so much power to the card. Not an expert but, can it support 7,4 v instead the 6 V you gave with the 4xAA?

[Robodoc]

That's a good point Arsies. I'm not sure that would affect the main LED, but I seem to recall from other forum post that these Hasbro boards can only handle (or is it put out?) so many volts.

[Vazan Maceu]

That's a good point Arsies. I'm not sure that would affect the main LED, but I seem to recall from other forum post that these Hasbro boards can only handle (or is it put out?) so many volts.

3.7 to 6 volts are the safe limits for MR and Hasbro boards, and a 5v voltage regulator must be used beyond that point. Boj-Vaati Mau designed a setup very similar to yours in this post (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?12583-Boj-Vaati-s-One-Handed-Short-Saber&p=205664&viewfull=1#post205664). I hope it works for you.

[Robodoc]

Thanks Vazan! I thought I had seen every diagram on these forums, but I seem to have missed that one. (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?12583-Boj-Vaati-s-One-Handed-Short-Saber/page8) I'm not using a recharge port, so I'm trying to ... interpolate (right word?) ... how to wire it from his diagram. I made a new diagram incorporating both the PNP transistor and the 5V regulator. Incidentally, I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm using a 1000mA Buck Puck. My new schematic leaves me with 3 questions:


(Lime green circle in diagram) it appears as though the 3 LED - wires are going to/coming from the sound card. If so, to what contact are they attached on the board? I thought they might be going to 3 additional accent LED's.
(Hot pink circle in diagram) the original diagram shows a ground going from the Buck Puck to the recharge port. Would I simply wire this directly to the battery (neg)?
(Aqua circle in diagram) I guess this is related to question #1; a dashed red line appears to come from the sound board, labeled "LED+" (Note that I changed its location slightly in my diagram for clarity) What contact is this attached to on the sound board and to where does it connect at the other end?


http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy239/Robodoc93/Hasbro-IllumSwitch-Li-ion.png (http://s795.photobucket.com/user/Robodoc93/media/Hasbro-IllumSwitch-Li-ion.png.html)


Sorry for all the questions. I just want to get this right on my 8th or 9th attempt without frying anything!

[Arsies]

Maybe the first pics of this tread could help you a little with those wires in the board:
http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?16101-A-couple-of-PVC-amp-sink-tube-sabers-Log

#1 those boards have 3 negatives and 1 positive wired to a small board with 3 accents, maybe your soundboard has the small board of the accents directly soldered to the board. in that case 3 on the left are the negs and you have to wire them and the other one is the unused positive (#3) that we must just ignore.
I can't say anything about #2

[Robodoc]

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately I didn't quite grasp your description.

#1 those boards have 3 negatives and 1 positive wired to a small board with 3 accents, maybe your soundboard has the small board of the accents directly soldered to the board. in that case 3 on the left are the negs and you have to wire them and the other one is the unused positive (#3) that we must just ignore.

It looks like my sound board is different, so that maybe part of my confusion. Here is a picture of my Hasbro board for reference:

http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy239/Robodoc93/Hobbies/637e14ea-f097-43ce-a1cc-9e1094202d9d.jpg (http://s795.photobucket.com/user/Robodoc93/media/Hobbies/637e14ea-f097-43ce-a1cc-9e1094202d9d.jpg.html)

Any ideas? Has anyone used one of these Hasbro sound boards?

[Don Se Wion]

This board doesn't look like one of the Hasbro 2010 econoboards, I guess the wiring suggested so far is not correct for it.

I guess it's the board coming from the old Hasbro lightsabers equipped with one bulb instead of the LEDs, veeery old; I think I saw one in the past.
If it is the case you need an NPN transistor, but I'm not 100% sure.

Anyone can confirm the version of the board ?

[Robodoc]

That would certainly explain it. I didn't think I had anything that old! Would you happen to know the answer to my #2 question?
2.(Hot pink circle in diagram) the original diagram shows a ground going from the Buck Puck to the recharge port. Would I simply wire this directly to the battery (neg)?


Also, if I leave out those 3 LEDs seen on Boj-Vaati Mau's diagram (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...rt-Saber/page8), what would I connect (if anything) to that first contact on the PnP transistor?

[Don Se Wion]

Regarding question #2 I think the BuckPuck is wired correctly.

However, I would suggest to understand how this board is actually working.
With a voltage meter try to measure the voltage between the 3 LEDs output and ground, first with the board turned off and then with the board ignited.

This will help to understand if you need a PNP or NPN transistor.

[Robodoc]

Thanks! I honestly don't know why I have such a mental block when it comes to circuits. While I don't mind being spoon-fed on some of these wiring configurations, your response gives me more of an opportunity to learn and try to understand how things work ...which is my goal. I'll follow your suggestion and let you know ...once I re-learn how to use my voltage meter ;)