So, after all the other snags I have had, I have hit another.

I wired up the saber entirely and fired it up. Everything works amazingly well. Changed colors, switched fonts, blaster blocks, swooshes clashes. Perfect.

Then after about an hour of playing with the saber, I started to hear this crackling noise. It starts soft and gradually gets louder and louder almost like feedback but instead of a high pitched squeal, it's a crackling sound. I tried desoldering and resoldering various connections to no avail. I was thinking that it might be a short somewhere so I desoldered the switches and fired the board up with just a wire. Same problem so not the switches. I desoldered the speaker and resoldered it. Still there. I desoldered the positive and negative to the board, still there and seemingly got worse. l think the problem is somewhere in that area, but I have no idea what would even be causing such an issue.

Any suggestions?