I think my sound card died.

[TwinMill]

Ordered my MWS NBv2 on Halloween, surprisingly it was delivered on Mon. Nov. 03.
It worked almost flawlessly up until last night. I changed the battery as I normally do when it would get too weak.
(rapid swing sounds, saber turning itself off, etc.) Anyways, after installing the freshly charged battery & tucking
the electronics into the hilt, the speaker started to make this rapid bap-bap-bap kind of noise, just as fast as a
machine gun.

The switch was unresponsive, the led wouldn't ignite, so I completely dismantled the saber, laid the parts on my
table, and tried just connecting the sound card to the battery / speaker. Same result. I've not yet had a chance
to buy a T8 tube guard, as my only option is amazon or evil-bay. (No hardware store in my small town of 2K people and
I cannot justify buying a $2 piece of plastic when the shipping is almost 4x the cost of the item.) I've been getting
by with a makeshift tube I made by cutting open a 1L water bottle, trimming to size, and taping the seam to prevent
shorts/grounding.

----

When I said earlier that the sound card worked "almost" flawlessly, there was always one odd glitch where if the saber
had a particularly hard clash, it would shut itself off. But then I could just tap the power switch and it would come
back on as if nothing had happened.

The only change I've made in the config is dropping the volume to 2, as the default level of 4 was just loud enough to
almost hurt my ears.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Your original problem sounds like a short or ground within the hilt. Did you change the battery with the kill key in or out? I would also try backing up your SD card, reformatting it, and reloading the fonts (and everything else) onto it. It still sounds like you might have a wiring issue. Does everything work when everything is outside the hilt?

[goldsaberwarrior]

Like Forgetful was saying it sounds like a possible short or perhaps something grounding in the hilt. If you have a magnifying glass make sure that there are no little tiny pieces of solder or wire that could be causing a bridge and as such a short. Also I typically put a tiny piece of electrical tape on the back of my board to protect the solder points from grounding out against the hilt.

It could also be a short in the speaker itself. I had both speakers crap out in a double bladed of mine. like you i connected a fresh battery and heard a couple quick baps and the speakers fried. The rest of the electronics were uneffected. To eliminate the possibility of it being a dead/dying speaker, take it loose and see if it will power on without any trouble. If it does there could be a speaker issue. Try the sound card reformat first and if that doesn't work try testing the speaker itself like I said. If that still doesn't work then if you could, upload us a few pics of all the wiring and perhaps we might be able to spot something. Hopefully it's something simple though.

[TwinMill]

well, to answer Knight's first question, I don't have a kill key. I figured if I was charging my battery externally with the TR-001 Li-Ion charger,
maybe a kill key wouldn't be needed. If you're looking at my sig image, the thing on the pommel is my MS Paint attempt at showing the
D-ring part of MPS insert 12

The card is a pre-wired MWS, http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/MW...e-V2-P835.aspx
so no soldering on my part. I did clip a few wires shorter to make the electronics fit a bit better in my small-ish hilt design, but that only
required crimping on a couple new JST connectors.
Other info - MHS speaker and 2x AA battery holder http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/MH...lder-P766.aspx
Battery: http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Tr...Pack-P342.aspx (one + dummy cell)
2W bass speaker
royal blue rebel LED w/ 1Ω 2W resistor
16MM A/V blue ring long switch, Dyna-Ω resistor.

With the saber dismantled, and the innards laying on my table, I get the exact same rapid fire bap-bap as when it's in the hilt.
(PS, it only stops when I remove the battery)

I've tried connecting just the battery & speaker to the NB's JST connectors, no change.

Having the speaker unplugged doesn't change the inability to power up the blade.

The day the NB was delivered, I put 3M double sided foam tape on the solder points near the sd card because I wanted to avoid short circuits.

I have downloaded the Light & Dark meat + config NBv2 archive file from the plecter labs site, so a format and reinstall test shouldn't be a problem.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

The original problem you described before it quit working sounds to me like the battery losing contact in the holder during a hard impact. Spring contacts in the battery holders are notorious for that, which why we try to recommend using an 18650 and hard wiring it to the recharge port.

Your new issue of the saber not working at all sounds like something shorted when you put the assembly back into the hilt. Another possibility is you put the battery in backwards without realizing it at the time.

[goldsaberwarrior]

If it's prewired then that pretty much eliminates the wiring issues. There's for sure something screwy going on if you can't power up at all now. I strictly use battery packs now for the reason Jay-gon pointed out, losing contact, plus it seems like my battery packs last alot longer and just do better overall. If the speaker is making that noise still then I'm 95% certain you have a short somewhere. That's what my speakers did in my double bladed saber before both of them crapped out on me. Sometimes the speakers can get a bit squirrely, at least that's been my experience. Make sure as well you have everything connected to the right spotl. I'm sure you normally do already but I've messed up my connections before not paying attention and put something in the wrong spot. I would also go back over everything to make sure that you aren't possibly grounding against the hilt somewhere just to be safe and cover all your bases. If the reformat doesn't work, check to make sure that the SD card itself isn't damaged to be on the safe side. If you have another battery pack then you could try it on the saber as a test. Alot at once but I've seen strange little things mess up a saber before.

[Obi1]

If you already tried the reformatting, and does not help, please take a multimeter and measure the voltage between the batter + and -. Make sure you have the intended voltage there.

BTW, when you say you have a 2xAA battery holder, you want to say you supply the NB with 2xAA ? That will give you best case 3V, and exactly around that voltage the NB goes into undervoltage. This would explain the machine gun sounds...it tries to power up, Encounters UV, goes doen, tries to power up again, repeatively!!! NB Needs definitely more like >3.5V, you can go up to 5V even. But 2xAA is not going to do the Job.

[Silver Serpent]

He's using a single 14500 and a dummy cell. Undervoltage is unlikely if the battery is charged.

[TwinMill]

After removing the microSD card, I discovered a fairly significant problem...
It has a good size crack in it.
--- (See attached stock image, edited with MS Paint.)

I don't know if this would be the only cause of my troubles, but it does
feel like I'm on the right track because I swapped in a known good
(although blank) 2 GB microSD card, and after inserting the battery, I
hear a "boop - boop - beep" from the speaker and despite the switch
not igniting the led (probably since there's no files on the card) I can
say the LED clash flicker effect does work if I tap the NB ever so
carefully with something non-conductive like the tube of a bic pen.

Next step: download the font & config archive zip file from the plecter
labs site and try again.

[Obi1]

Good finding, I hope a new SD helps. And sorry for the quick draw, I just saw 2xAA...