CFX and NPXL Wiring Questions

Hey guys, feels like it's been forever since I was last on the forum. Work/life/toddler/family has taken a front seat recently and haven't been very active on here because of it. Anyway, I'm getting ready to tackle a new build. Its the K4v2 (aka 89 Sabers K4) and I picked up a CFX for the build as I've been wanting to try one for awhile.

I've been working on the wiring diagram and have been attempting to read through the CFX manual....It's no joke...Its got me pretty intimidated. But the thing that brings me to the forum today is when I'm reading up on the wiring of the NPXL to the CFX. Every bit of documentation I can find seems to suggest that I need to take two (or in the case of what I was trying to do, my single 22 AWG) negative wire(s) from the NPXL and split them/it into two strands and solder them to two separate pads rather than a single pad for each wire.

This strikes me as a wiring nightmare considering my soldering skills are moderate at best and the Silver-plated PTFE 22AWG wire I use for this type of thing is so tightly wound that splitting it into two strands is going to be a pain. I like nice, clean, strong solder joints with as few potential points of failure as possible.

From what I understand it's to enable the deep sleep function to work properly and kill the power to the blade if I were to leave the blade in or if I'm lacking another means of killing the power. That being said, I don't store the saber with the blade in, I'm going to be installing a kill switch, AND I take the battery out for long term storage. I'm fairly certain I have no need for the feature.

My actual question has a couple layers. First of all, am I understanding all of this correctly?

Second of all, if I'm not intending to use the deep sleep function (which is apparently according to all the documentation I can find a pretty weird thing to do) do I just wire my 22AWG negative to any one of the LED Negative pads on the CFX? Or does it go somewhere else? (The CFX manual says something about just using the board negative if you don't need the functionality?)

Third, are there any specific changes I need to make to the board configuration if I will not be using the functionality?

Finally, is there anything else I'm overlooking? I realize that a single 22AWG negative and positive from the NPXL isn't super common and it's usually a couple of 24AWGs each, but I think I can afford the space in the build and I like the cleanliness of a single wire rather than twice as many I need to keep organized and everything I can find in the NPXL manual seems to suggest a single 22AWG should be sufficient.

Thanks in advance everyone!

Are you planning on using only one strip of Neopixel or putting two strips back-to-back?

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Originally Posted by ViperR

Are you planning on using only one strip of Neopixel or putting two strips back-to-back?

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Apologies for the late reply! I’m using my Neopixel blade made with one of the KR Sabers Pixel Strips. It’s a double-sided rigid PCB with Neopixels on it.

Think I managed to get the answer to my original question on a different forum, but I was hoping to perhaps get a wiring diagram check to make sure everything looks good if anyone is willing?

https://i.imgur.com/dtblJK0.png

The diagram looks ok, though I don’t know what the PCBs on the far right are for.

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Originally Posted by Forgetful Jedi Knight

The diagram looks ok, though I don’t know what the PCBs on the far right are for.

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Thanks a ton for the reply! The build is an 89 Sabers K4 (aka K4v2) and the hilt is designed to be removable. To implement that, an additional “hilt side” NPXL and “blade side” NPXL are used to connect the chassis through the the thin neck to the NPXL in the emitter that actually contacts the blade. Demo of the chassis at the link NPXL below

https://youtu.be/5wDWRp-1TMo

I believe I can answer your original question on splitting wires.
Neg wire that has to go to two solder places via CFX v10 manual/diagram. You want to split a single 22 wire into two very thin counted strands for each of the two solder points if I'm understanding correctly. You want to split a 22 into a split-off and count the thin strands for each split-off. That would be way too thin and fragile and wont handle the current/amps.
What you want to do is solder two pieces of 22 to the 22 you were thinking of splicing in half. You'd be making a "Y" and every wire will be 22. Wire shrink the connection. Or, solder the 22 to the 1st pad and then solder a jumper to the 2nd.

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Originally Posted by djmehs

Thanks a ton for the reply! The build is an 89 Sabers K4 (aka K4v2) and the hilt is designed to be removable. To implement that, an additional “hilt side” NPXL and “blade side” NPXL are used to connect the chassis through the the thin neck to the NPXL in the emitter that actually contacts the blade. Demo of the chassis at the link NPXL below

https://youtu.be/5wDWRp-1TMo

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Oh, ok.

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Originally Posted by ViperR

I believe I can answer your original question on splitting wires.
Neg wire that has to go to two solder places via CFX v10 manual/diagram. You want to split a single 22 wire into two very thin counted strands for each of the two solder points if I'm understanding correctly. You want to split a 22 into a split-off and count the thin strands for each split-off. That would be way too thin and fragile and wont handle the current/amps.
What you want to do is solder two pieces of 22 to the 22 you were thinking of splicing in half. You'd be making a "Y" and every wire will be 22. Wire shrink the connection. Or, solder the 22 to the 1st pad and then solder a jumper to the 2nd.

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The final thing you mentioned was exactly what I was thinking about doing, however rather than soldering a jumper to just the second of the two, I planned to solder jumpers to all 4 pads from the first one. So only one pad actually gets a wire from the NPXL. The other 3 are all just jumpers from the first. That's what I sort of did in the diagram as well. That's what I'm trying to figure out if it will work. It should work, right?

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Originally Posted by Forgetful Jedi Knight

Oh, ok.

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Did my response make sense? Or did I write that confusingly?

Edit: Just saw my typo. Should say "Demo of the chassis at the link below."

I was typing the response from my phone and it did some weird stuff when I had to do a copy/paste. Somehow NPXL ended up in the middle of my final sentence!

It might or might not work. I can't help you there. Read pages 123 & 124 of the manual. That's how I did mine and it goes into deep sleep no problem.
Let us know how it works. If it doesn't, you'd just have to unsolder and re-solder adding another ground wire & jumper.