Troubleshooting Ultrasound v 1.0

[Jonitus]

I am hoping someone here may have had this same issue and knows what the problems is:

I hooked an Ultrasound up last evening and was in the process of testing. When I removed the kill switch from the recharge port, I got a quick flash of the LED. When tapping the momentary switch three times, I received no sound, like you would expect to receive when entering the menu.

Checking all my connections, and even redoing my setup to eliminate the recharge port, the board still did not function. I get a quick flash of the LED and nothing else. No sound whatsoever.

Has anyone here experienced this issue? Am I dealing with a dead board? Hopefully not, because tracking down a replacement would prove very difficult now.

[Novastar]

Hi Jon... I just wired up my Ultra board like... days ago--I too have a kill switch wired in, so... I'll let you know what I come up with...

I have heard from... vortextwist I think, and some other guy in a different thread that they believe their boards are corpses now too...

It is possible that introducing a tiny "short" (by killing only ONE lead) during the process of inserting/removing a kill switch could mess things up. On my kill switches, I "cut" both the + and the -... I'm assuming you do the same?

[Jonitus]

Yep, I cut both legs. I wire it up like on the tutorial on Erv's site.

It's puzzling. Never had anything more than a Hasbro die on me, and now a $79 board fizzles out. This was for my saber for this weekend's halloween party. Got the costume, now no saber. Bugger!

[Novastar]

If you're using a Li-Ion battery setup... try giving the cell some juice again.

Reason is: sometimes... when the PCB gets tripped--you must "reset" the PCB from reporting the battery voltage as 0 or something bonkers. This happens to me every now and then when I somehow introduce a short to the batteries in some fashion or another.

Granted, if you are not using Li-Ions... none of this would be relevant...

[Jonitus]

This is a low-buck saber, so I'm using one of the NiMH packs I have in stock.

The more I read about everyone else's problems, it sure sounds like a dead board to me.

Looks like I may have to pull a 2.61 CFSC for use in this saber for the weekend. Kind of seems overkill for a saber that won't be on more than about 20 minutes the entire night.

[Lord Maul]

Jonitus, this may seem really basic, but make sure you have the speaker wired right. The premium speakers sold here actually have polarity. When I tested my Ultraboard, it didn't have sound because the speaker leads were the wrong way.

[vortextwist]

does it turn on at all? I know on my graflex, it takes a couple times to get into the menu. I would email ultra and see about a replacement. these things shouldn't happen. on mine I turned it on and off twice and then nothing.

[LAN-ED-TUL]

the one i put in my heialnd synchronar vader saber worked like a champ all weekend of the con. and everyone was super impressed with it and the sounds and flicker effect.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I had one of my Ultrasounds DOA when I first got them. Hooked it up, put batteries in the pack, and nothing...pushed the button, nothing...tapped it three times, nothing....checked the batteries for a loose connection, nothing...replaced the board with other one, and bingo! it worked. So, I sent the dead one back to Alex, and he sent me a new one, so he may be able to get one to you as well, depending on how many he still has.

[LAN-ED-TUL]

dontr think alex has any of the first runs left at all. if you send him, the bad one, he might be able to fix it, and if not, then youll have to wait for the 2nd run of improved boards to arrive.