Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 13

Thread: NBv4 Help

  1. #1

    Default NBv4 Help

    I am not quite sure this post belongs here but it seems to be the most relevant category so here goes:

    Earlier this week I began to build my first saber, it's a NeoPixel NBv4 build (ambitious, but I felt ready) and all was going well and dandy until yesterday when for some reason my board stopped cooperating with me. That brings me here. So, I had my battery (18650 3.7 V 15A high drain from the store) connected to the recharge port and then the port to the board itself. The positive and negatives are connected to the board and I just slide in the switch and speaker wires to the pad so there's contact so I can test everything out. The switch LED (12mm AV illuminated green LED momentary) lights up, indicating that the connections are fine and the switch is receiving power. However, the switch doesn't do anything. No boot-up, power off, power on, deep sleep mode--nothing. At first, I thought there may be a problem with the pads being bridged so I looked and the L1 and Battery - pad were bridged. Desoldered and fixed, no more bridging. Next, I tested the speaker to ensure that it works, the speaker produced sound, passed a multimeter test the whole deal. So I reinserted all the wires and absolutely nothing is happening. the switch will light up, but it doesn't switch anything on or off. there's no indicator that the board is making sound either. I connected the speaker wires to the port before disconnecting the power and then reconnecting it, but when power was supplied to the board, no sound or anything indicating the board was on. I used the multimeter and tested the pads, everything was receiving voltage, and it was. I know that the board is receiving power because the multimeter says so and the board also gets warm to the touch. I am at a complete loss as to what it is that is causing the problems and so I took my question over to Reddit to see if anyone could help but there seems to be no clear answer over there.

    Under these links, you'll see what the board looks like. There is no riding or connection whatsoever between the speaker pads or any other pads or wires. I've now tried connecting the battery wires to either side of the board (both on the side w/o microSD slot and now one on each side), the board receives power but gives no indication whatsoever that it is on. before even entering the chassis pieces I also made sure to test things to make sure they worked. the switch LED turned on, the speaker gave out 3 beeps which I believe indicated that the board or a component wasn't receiving the proper voltage. I am using the correct resistors as per Rob Petkau's tutorial videos and my wiring diagram, which I will also attach, follows the NBv4 manual and a few other diagrams I saw while searching.

    Here is how the board looks:

    https://imgur.com/gallery/IGXTaAM


    Here is the wiring diagram I am following. I didn't care to add the resistor for this, just to show the basic connections.

    https://imgur.com/gallery/81gpxHz#

  2. #2

    Default

    Hey majs16

    Can you post a pic of the switch and how you have it wired. I remember having trouble with the first lighted switch I wired up...

    Can you also post your config files? The beeps usually mean the board is missing a file somewhere.

    Thanks
    - Steve

  3. #3

    Default

    From your pictures, the soldering job looks like it might need some work. You speaker wires in particular, as well as positive and negative look precariously like they have a potential for short, if not already shorted. First thing I think you should do is remove wires from sound board, clean with solder wick, and start over. Try only stripping enough wire to go through the hole, and then apply a tiny bit of solder connecting wire to pad. You should not have stripped wire (uninsulated) coming out from the pads as far as yours are.

    Secondly, it's pretty common to confuse the cutoff leg on the recharge port and to hook it up wrong. Please watch Madcow's videos here for some greater detail: [



    Clean those things back up, and report back any improvement. PS, did you apply power to your board when your power wires were bridged? That may have been fatal, but we'd have to ask Forgetful Jedi Knight. I'm not the best medic for NBIV to know whether or not it can survive a direct short. Most boards will not.

    Tom

    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  4. #4

    Default

    How to use a charger and multimeter to diagnose legs on a recharge port:


    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  5. #5

    Default

    Lightsaber switches, including an explanation on the illuminated AV Switch. Your wiring diagram is a bit concerning in that you show positive and negative on the switch and LED circuits. The positive and negative marks on the switch indicate the connections for the LED on the switch. The other two un-labeled poles are switch leads. One of those to GND, the other to ACT on NBIV.

    See this video, particularly at the 6:00 mark:

    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  6. #6

    Default

    For the switch, I followed Madcow's video in the wiring the switch and as far as I am aware I wired it up exactly as he did. The wiring diagram includes the "+" and "-" signs on the switch portion because I honestly just forgot what the proper electrical label was for them. I am new to pretty much all of this so I don't quite have all the abbreviations down and memorized. I did, however, color code the wires so that they are going to the proper pads and made sure to test which ones were for the LED and for the switch before putting anything together. One runs to the ACT and one to the negative terminal which I am pretty certain acts as the GND since the manual appears to state they are the same thing. I also know I did the recharge port correctly as I watched the TCSS YouTube video on it about 6/7 times before touching it, while I was wiring it, and then did multimeter tests to ensure that it was working properly. THe most likely thing is that the pads were bridged and when power was supplied it got shorted. I didn't see any sparks or smoke but it looked like a tiny bit of solder was between the 2 pads and could have potentially bridged them. I cannot for the life of me find any material on whether or not this would have killed the board.

  7. #7

    Default

    I have installed a lot of NBIVs, but have never bridged pos and negative. I have burnt some other boards, not sold at TCSS though. its part of the learning process. Don't give up on it yet, clean up all the solder, hook a speaker to it, reformat and fill the SD card, and just run 3.7 volts to it with a speaker and see if you get a boot sound. If you do, hook up a switch, and see if features work. Basically mock it up outside your chassis.

    Then hook all your other stuff up. Try to shorten the amount you strip from your wires, you are stripping too much insulation off the wires, and that is a recipe for shorts. You need less than 1/4" to cover the pad, don't strip that much, particularly if your jacket melts back, which it looks like it did. Use flux, pretin the wire, and bloop it quickly. Looks like you're trying through-hole soldering, but if you watch madcow's videos, he goes on the pads, not through them.

    Tom

    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  8. #8

    Default

    Bridges which two pads specifically?
    TCSS MODERATOR
    All n00bs READ these first (PLEASE)!!!:
    1. Forum Guidelines
    2. FJK’s “Down and Dirty” guide to Ohm’s Law

    "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before... you want blindingly bright, super loud, running 1138 blinkies off of the cheapest sound card you can find AND you want all of it to run on a battery the size of a dime, and run for a very, VERY long time. That one cracks me up every time..."
    My email: fjk_tcss@yahoo.com

  9. #9

    Default

    He said he bridged pos and neg pads on NBIV. Look at the photos in the OP. He didn't photo that bridge, but see what you think about the other wires and soldering.

    "Mistakes are our greatest teacher."

  10. #10

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Tilmon View Post
    He said he bridged pos and neg pads on NBIV. Look at the photos in the OP. He didn't photo that bridge, but see what you think about the other wires and soldering.
    The wiring isn’t the greatest. The leads are waaayyy too long (should only be about 1/16”). Sounds like the bridged pads probably blew something. I’ll ask Zook to pop in (he handles PL Board repairs in the US) and he can see what he thinks and if the board would have to be sent to him.
    TCSS MODERATOR
    All n00bs READ these first (PLEASE)!!!:
    1. Forum Guidelines
    2. FJK’s “Down and Dirty” guide to Ohm’s Law

    "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before... you want blindingly bright, super loud, running 1138 blinkies off of the cheapest sound card you can find AND you want all of it to run on a battery the size of a dime, and run for a very, VERY long time. That one cracks me up every time..."
    My email: fjk_tcss@yahoo.com

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •