CF 4.2 saber dropped and now won't function

I came into possession of an awesome saber a few months ago and have loved every minute swinging it around, dueling with it, and showing it off to friends. While recently trying some new spin tricks, I dropped the saber and it shut off. The pommel hit the floor hard, the sound immediately went silent, and the led stayed on for about a second and then went dark.

I have built several sabers with MR, Ultrasound, NB, and Obsidian boards so I have a lot of mid-level experience with saber electronics, but nothing with the complexity of of my newest saber... CF 4.2 with LED Engin RGGB (GB for sky blue blade and GR for FoC), power extender, blue AV switch, aux switch, recharge port. I took pictures of the wiring and then took the saber apart and rewired it all back together, but it still doesn't work. When I pull the kill key I can here the speaker click as it gets power, but that's the only sign of life. After taking it apart a second time I noticed that the sd card does not click into place and longer and that the sd card holder on the board is slightly bent. This may be my problem.

Has anyone ever had this happen and fixed the card holder? Can anyone think of a different issue that may be the cause of my saber's death?

Thank you for any help you can provide.

We would need to see good, high quality, detailed pictures of the board, SD card area, etc.

You may likely have to send the card out to get repaired (which may mean removing all the wires), or have an experienced smith repair the saber for you.

Thank you for the response. Here are some pics.Attachment 9625Attachment 9626Attachment 9627Attachment 9628Attachment 9629

Well, I do see the bend you are talking about. I would PM Zook (who handles board repairs) and ask him what would need to be done (send whole saber, or disconnect card and send just that, etc.) for him to look at the board. Good luck.

Have you tried a different SD card and speaker as well? If the card doesn't click in anymore it sure sounds like thats the problem but its good to cover all the bases before mailing parts off.

I can see that the FoC die is not resistored...tsk tsk to whoever built that. The SD card holders on v4.x were notorious for not maintaining their springyness, but that really shouldn't be the problem. Try holding your SD card in the inserted position and see if the board fires up. If not, try a new SD card. You'd be surprised how often they go bad. Also, try adjusting the audio potentiometer just in case. Finally, try new battery and a new speaker. It sounds like a bad audio amp to me, but Zook would know better. I would try the things I suggested first, then if it still doesn't work you may need to send it. Oh, and when you re-wire it make sure to resistor that darned FoC circuit ;)

Thank you all for your input - I'll try it all! I don't have any experience wiring CF's and I just looked on the Plecter Labs site to see if Irv still had the old manual posted. Does anyone know where I can find it? I've looked here on the forums as well with no luck. Thank you so much for you help.

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Originally Posted by Djem-So Dynamo

Thank you all for your input - I'll try it all! I don't have any experience wiring CF's and I just looked on the Plecter Labs site to see if Irv still had the old manual posted. Does anyone know where I can find it? I've looked here on the forums as well with no luck. Thank you so much for you help.

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Send Erv' a note on his site. I am sure he would be happy to email it to you. If he doesn't have time, contact me on my site and I will send it for him.

Hi,

I have a CF4.2 board that i just acquired. However there is no micro sd inside. i tried to look for the manual and the contents of the sd card on plecterlab's website and all i could find was a CF4.3 manual which states that all the soundfonts are in .raw format. All the soundfonts I could find on erv's website are in .wav format. I tried contacting the seller but there is no response from him. I also contacted Erv about it thru his website but so far there is no reply from Erv as well. By any chance, do you have the manual for CF4.2 and also the original contents of the micro sd?

Hello. Welcome.

I don't think you're likely to re a response from dynamo; he's been inactive for over a year. You also might be waiting a while for LDM as it's been a few months for him.

How long has it been since you contacted Plecter? I think he's pretty busy lately trying to keep up with demand. Might take a little time to get a response.

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Originally Posted by obi-six

Hi,

I have a CF4.2 board that i just acquired. However there is no micro sd inside. i tried to look for the manual and the contents of the sd card on plecterlab's website and all i could find was a CF4.3 manual which states that all the soundfonts are in .raw format. All the soundfonts I could find on erv's website are in .wav format. I tried contacting the seller but there is no response from him. I also contacted Erv about it thru his website but so far there is no reply from Erv as well. By any chance, do you have the manual for CF4.2 and also the original contents of the micro sd?

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Welcome to the Forums.

I'm pretty sure I have the CF 4.3 Manual floating around in my archives, I'll take a look for it. I may also have the base package for CF's from that era as well. Again, I need to look. I personally retired the older CF's I had a few years ago. The font format changed once the CF 5's came out. There *may* be some *.raw sound fonts left on saberfont.com, but if not, I might be able to point you int he direction of where to get those sound fonts.

Thanks, Forgetful Jedi Knight. Any help i can get would be great because I'm stuck at the moment. I can't do anything with the soundcard without the contents of the sd card.